of wheat on the chosen oak and greet it with the words, “Happy Badnyi day to you!” Then they cut it down, taking care that it shall fall towards the east at the moment when the sun’s orb appears over the rim of the eastern horizon.  Should the tree fall towards the west, it would be the worst possible omen for the house and its inmates in the ensuing year; and it is also an evil omen if the tree should be caught and stopped in its fall by another tree.  It is important to keep and carry home the first chip from the fallen oak.  The trunk is sawn into two or three logs, one of them rather longer than the others.  A flat, unleavened cake of the purest wheaten flour is brought out of the house and broken on the larger of the logs by a woman.  The logs are left for the present to stand outside, leaning on one of the walls of the house.  Each of them is called a Yule log (badnyak).

[Prayers to Colleda.]

Meanwhile the children and young people go from house to house singing special songs called Colleda because of an old pagan divinity Colleda, who is invoked in every line.  In one of them she is spoken of as “a beautiful little maid”; in another she is implored to make the cows yield milk abundantly.  The day is spent in busy preparations.  The women bake little cakes of a special sort in the shape of lambs, pigs, and chickens; the men make ready a pig for roasting, for in every Servian house roast pig is the principal dish at Christmas.  A bundle of straw, tied with a rope, is brought into the courtyard and left to stand there near the Yule logs.

[The bringing in of the Yule log.]

At the moment when the sun is setting all the members of the family assemble in the central hall (the great family kitchen) of the principal house.  The mother of the family (or the wife of the chief of the Zadrooga)[670] gives a pair of woollen gloves to one of the young men, who goes out and presently returns carrying in his gloved hands the largest of the logs.  The mother receives him at the threshold, throwing at him a handful of wheat, in which the first chip of the oak tree cut in the early morning for the Yule log has been kept all day.  Entering the central hall with the Yule log the young man greets all present with the words:  “Good evening, and may you have a happy Christmas!” and they all answer in chorus, “May God and the happy and holy Christmas help thee!” In some parts of Servia the chief of the family, holding a glass of red wine in his hand, greets the Yule log as if it were a living person, and drinks to its health.  After that, another glass of red wine is poured on the log.  Then the oldest male member of the family, assisted by the young man who brought in the log, places it on the burning fire so that the thicker end of the log protrudes for about a foot from the hearth.  In some places this end is smeared with honey.

[The ceremony with the straw; the Yule candle.]