© Underwood & Underwood 

 A CHARACTERISTIC COUNTRY HOUSE} IN THE) HEART OF RUSSIA 



gan divinities of the Russian Slavs were 

 Christianized they did not on that ac- 

 count lose their pacific character. 



For example, let us take St. George, 

 the type of the Warrior Saint. Of this 

 steel-clad warrior, lance in hand, mounted 

 on his great charger, the Russian peas- 

 ant has made a useful auxiliary in his 

 laborious life. He has given St. George 

 the care of the village pasture. 



In the spring of each year, on the 23d 

 of April, which is St. George's Day, the 

 peasants of all Russia lead into the fields 



their herds of cows, their horses, their 

 sheep, exhausted by the long winter's 

 stay in the byre. Early in the morning 

 of this day the peasants and their women- 

 folk make the rounds of the sown fields, 

 begging St. George "to rise early in the 

 morning, to open the soil and to sprinkle 

 dew on the clover and grass." 



Then they take out their flocks and 

 herds, which they drive with branches of 

 willow blessed in the church, and pray to 

 the "kindly George to guard their herds 

 in the fields and the woods from the 



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