Meanwhile, the women that have been invited[1] arrive at the bridegroom’s, bringing groats, butter, eggs, meat, etc. His mother receives them in a friendly manner, and invites them to sit at table. When all the guests have arrived, the oldest female member of the household lays on the table a pie an ell long, stuffed with various things. First, a layer of groats, above it egg-cake, sour milk thickened in the oven, and again, eggs and groats. The outside is glazed with egg, and the whole surface stamped with impressions of signet-rings, spoons, and tumblers. While the pie is being placed on the table, the girls sing:
“O God, give good luck at this moment. Defend, O Creator, from the malicious man. Grant, O God, to the bridegroom abundant increase of crops and cattle.”
The pie is then cut lengthways and across into four pieces, and the women set to eating, drinking, and making merry. No one goes to bed that night, as preparations have to be made for the feast of the morrow, after the wedding ceremony in church. In some places, in the Penza and Simbirsk governments, the bridegroom is expressly driven out of the house in the course of the evening. Some say it is done that he should not disturb the preparations; others, that it is in compliance with an old custom, going back to a time when a man had to be on the look-out how most suitably to capture his bride.
§ 7. As the customs observed by the Erza and Moksha between the eve of the wedding-day and the entry into the bridal chamber on the night of the wedding are not quite the same, it is more convenient to give them separately Among the Erza, on the eve of the wedding-day, the bridegroom’s friends assemble at his house and help to prepare the bride’s equipage. This consists of a tilt, covered with linen, which, if the bridegroom be rich, is covered with needlework, that may have taken many
- ↑ Women alone seem to be invited, as only they can assist in making preparations for the feast of the morrow.
