bride. The bridegroom, however, does not accompany them. The party does not go empty-handed, but takes with it spirits, beer, and the sacred pies, which are an ell-and-a-half long and half-an-ell broad, but contain nothing inside. On reaching the house, the bride’s relations go outside to meet them. The pies are broken up, and the pieces are placed in a meal-trough, which is brought into the common room and laid on the table. When once the pies have been accepted, a girl can no longer choose another man, and her parents no longer consider her their own, but call her iha, i.e., belonging to the bridegroom’s family. As soon as the pies have been brought in, candles are lit before the holy pictures, and all begin to pray. After that, they eat, drink, and make merry, but do not dance. Meanwhile, the bridegroom’s relations enter the courtyard, and take the girls’ cake from the carriage. The bridegroom’s brother, or nearest relation, raises it up, the girls surround him, and, with much laughter and shouting, try to get possession of it. When the party is about to start home, the girls sing to the bridegroom’s father or the spokesman:
“Here are greedy fathers-in-law; the horses, which are waiting, saddled and bridled, have torn up the grass with their hoofs. On the backs of the steeds are sitting men in red coats and in morocco leather boots of goatskin.”
Then the girls begin teasing the bridegroom’s father by saying:
- ↑ This indicates the sound produced by tapping the fingers against an empty dish.
