le-log until the following Christmas Eve 'for luck.'
It is then put into the fireplace and burnt, but before it is consumed
the new log is put on, and thus 'the old fire and the new' burn
together. In some families this is done from force of habit, and they
cannot now tell why they do it; but in the past the observance of this
custom was to keep witches away, and doubtless was a survival of
fire-worship."[669]

[The Yule log in Servia; the cutting of the oak tree to form the Yule
log.]

But nowhere, apparently, in Europe is the old heathen ritual of the Yule
log preserved to the present day more perfectly than in Servia. At early
dawn on Christmas Eve (_Badnyi Dan_) every peasant house sends two of
its strongest young men to the nearest forest to cut down a young oak
tree and bring it home. There, after offering up a short prayer or
crossing themselves thrice, they throw a handful 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