afterwards takes a bowl of corn, an
orange, and a ploughshare, and places them on the upper end of the log in
order that the corn may grow well and the beasts be healthy during the
year. In Montenegro, instead of throwing corn, he more usually breaks a
piece of unleavened bread, places it upon the log, and pours over it a
libation of wine.{1}

The first visit on Christmas Day is considered important--we may compare
this with "first-footing" in the British Isles on January 1--and in order
that the right sort of person may come, some one is specially chosen to
be the so-called _polaznik_. No outsider but this _polaznik_ may enter a
house on Christmas Day, where the rites are strictly observed. He appears
in the early morning, carries corn in his glove and shakes it out before
the threshold with the words, "Christ is born," whereupon some member of
the household sprinkles him with corn in return, answering, "He is born
indeed." Afterwards the _polaznik_ goes to the fire and makes sparks fly
from the remains of the _badnjak_, at the same time uttering a wish for
the good luck of the house-father and his household and farm. Money and
sometimes an orange are then placed on the _badnjak_. It is not allowed
to burn quite away; the last remains of the fire are extinguished and the
embers are laid between the branches of young fruit-trees to promote
their growth.{2}

How shall we interpret these practices? Mannhardt regards the log as an
embodiment of the vegetation-spirit, and its burning |253| as an
efficacious symbol of sunshine, meant to secure the genial vitalizing
influence of the sun during the coming year.{3} It is, however, possible
to connect it with a different circle of ideas and to see in its burning
the solemn annual rekindling of the sacred hearth-fire, the centre of the
family life and the dwelling-place of the ancestors. Primitive peoples in
many parts of the world are accustomed to associate fire with human
generation,{4} and it is a general belief among Aryan and other peoples
that ancestral spirits have their seat in the hearth. In Russia, for
instance, "in the Nijegorod Government it is still forbidden to break up
the smouldering faggots in a stove, because to do so might cause the
ancestors to fall through into hell. And when a Russian family moves from
one house to another, the fire is conveyed to the new one, where it is
received with the words, 'Welcome, grandfather, to the new home!'"{5}

Sir Arthur E