of the fire worshippers is taken from
Ralston's _Songs of the Russian People_, and runs as follows. Imagine
the crooning voice of the old Slav woman singing it to her nurse child.

"In the forest, in the pine forest,
There stood a pine tree,
Green and shaggy.
Oh Ovsen! Oh Ovsen!

"The Boyars came,
Cut down the pine,
Sawed it into planks,
Built a bridge,
Fastened it with nails.
Oh Ovsen! Oh Ovsen!

"Who will go
Over the bridge?
Ovsen will go there,
And the New Year.
Oh Ovsen! Oh Ovsen!"

Another song asks--

"On what will he come?
On a dusky swine.
What will he chase?
A brisk little pig."

The present singers of songs about Ovsen receive presents in lieu of the
old contributions towards a sacrifice to the gods. The habit is to ask
in some such words as these--

"Give us a pig for Vasily's Eve."

Pigs' trotters used to be offered as a sacrifice at the beginning of the
New Year, and the custom still prevails in Russia of proffering such
dishes at this time. The compliments of the season are commemorated by
giving away the feet of the "brisk little pig." The first day of the New
Year was Ovsen's day, but now consecrated to the memory of St. Basil the
Great. The previous evening was called St. Basil's Eve, or Vasily's
Eve. In one of the little Russian songs it is said--

"Ilya comes on Vasily's Day,"

meaning on St. Basil's, or New Year's Day, comes the Sun-god, or
thunder-bearer, originally Pevan, who, under Christian influences,
becomes Elijah, or Ilya.

"Ilya comes on Vasily's Day;
He holds a whip of iron wire,
And another of tin.
Hither he comes,
Thither he waves,
Corn grows."

This supports the inference that the agriculturist was a nature
worshipper. But quite apart from sun worshippers, and their songs about
corn-growing, the children of the rural classes in many other parts of
Europe have fixed ideas, or beliefs, in the "Spirit of the Cornfield";
their sayings are represented by different figures, "a mad dog in the
corn," "a wolf in the corn," are found amongst the many shibboleths of
the youngsters playing in the fields prior to harvest-time. That they
dread the wavy movement of the grain-laden stalks is certain, and the
red poppy, the blue cornflower, the yellow dandelion, and the marguerite
daisy, although plucked by tiny hands on the fringe of the