Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/483

Rh Amazons they meet on their way. As soon as the paladins have succeeded in vanquishing the Amazons, they force them to become their wives. Among the different ceremonies still in use at a country wedding, one particularly deserves our attention, on account of the symbolical representation of the means to which the family of the bride once had recourse to prevent an abduction. On the day fixed for the wedding the doors leading to the homestead of the bride are closely shut. Sometimes a temporary wooden wall is erected to preserve the family from intrusion. The wedding-songs still in use in the government of Toula speak of the necessity of defending the approach to the bride’s residence by oak trees, cut down to block up the road, and by shields arranged before the principal entrance of the homestead.

The bridegroom and his friends wear a warlike dress; they are mounted on horseback, and carry guns and pistols. Such, at least, is the custom in the western provinces of Russia, whilst in the southern the whip, carried by the bridegroom’s best man, appears to be the only weapon in use. The wedding-songs speak of arrows, shot in the direction of the bride’s home, and of stone walls broken down, in order to take possession of her. The bridegroom and his followers are regularly met like foes. In the government of Perm it is the custom for the father of the bride to fire a pistol over their heads—of course, a pistol charged only with powder. The same custom is also in use in certain parts of the government of Archangel. The wedding-song speaks of the bridegroom’s train in the following terms:—