Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/261

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NOTES UPON RUSSIA.
71

sugar; other condiments may also be used if they are at hand. This Kuthia is to be used in the church after the performance of funerals.

When may Bulgarians, Poles, and Czudi,[1] be baptized? Answer: After forty days' fasting, and prayers of purification being said over them; but if it be a Sclavonian, he need only fast eight days; but let the priest who baptizes a child well gird up his sleeves, lest while he dips the child anything from the baptismal font remain upon his vestment. A woman after child-birth shall not enter a church for forty days.

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Is it lawful to enter the dwelling of a woman in child-bed? Answer: No one must enter the place where a woman has been delivered till after three days, for as unclean vessels are carefully washed, so should that dwelling be first purified by prayers.

Should persons be buried after sun-set? Answer: No one should be buried after the setting of the sun; for it is the crown of dead men to see the sun before they are buried. But he is most deserving who buries the bones of the dead and ancient images under the ground.

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If any paper containing sacred writings happen to be torn and thrown upon the ground, is it lawful to walk over that spot? Answer: No.

  1. The north of Europe and also of Asia seem alike to be the country of the Czudi; at all events, one can recognize no essential difference between them and the Huns who came from Tartary under Attila and spread themselves over Western Europe. It is perhaps to this resemblance to the Huns that they owe the name given to them by all foreigners, that of Finns (in Latin, Fenni), but which they themselves do not recognize.—Schnitzler, Essai d'une Statistique générale de l'Empire de Russie.
  2. Eleven lines are here omitted.