Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 2, 1891.djvu/77

Rh Triune God! May He grant that His beautiful Glory may ever dawn upon this and all Christian homes until the end of Time! May He help and guide us now and for ever! and especially help all those who do, or (if they could) would, keep Slava to-day, enabling them to keep it in all coming years, until we, altogether, celebrate the anniversary in the celestial Kingdom." Turning again to the master of the house, he adds: "Brother, drink to the honour of your Saint! May he aid thee and thine to-day and for evermore." They embrace and kiss each other. The master, replying, desires that all Slava good wishes "uttered now on Earth may be registered and granted in Heaven."

The cup goes round again, each guest giving a short toast and kissing his neighbour. The cup then circulates throughout the entire household, every member having to drink from it and embrace the next one to him; this, considered the chief act of the evening, is called "the toast of Slava". The orthodox usage includes seven toasts. The fifth being very long; commencing with mentioning "The Church of Jerusalem lying precisely at the central point of the White world like a lovely flower", a vestige of the mediaeval geography. It includes all priests, monks, cloisters, churches, and, by name, every one of the household of which they are the guests on "this ever-memorable day".

After the seventh toast, designated "honourable", the party quit the table and repair, if in winter, to the kitchen fire, or, in summer, to the gardens, where they listen to the recital of patriotic ballads and others like "The Slava of Czar Dushan", or "The Dream of St. Nicholas". A very popular recitation is "The Archangel's Slava", which I may translate hereafter, as it gives a lively version of the commingled pagan and Christian views of Paradise prevalent in Oriental lands during the Middle Ages. In what is now the kingdom of Servia, the guests wend