[668] Mrs. Ella Mary Leather, The Folklore of Herefordshire (Hereford and London, 1912), p. 109.  Compare Miss C.S.  Burne, “Herefordshire Notes,” The Folk-lore Journal, iv. (1886) p. 167.

[669] Marie Trevelyan, Folk-lore and Folk-stories of Wales (London, 1909), p. 28.

[670] “In earlier ages, and even so late as towards the middle of the nineteenth century, the Servian village organisation and the Servian agriculture had yet another distinguishing feature.  The dangers from wild beasts in old time, the want of security for life and property during the Turkish rule, or rather misrule, the natural difficulties of the agriculture, more especially the lack in agricultural labourers, induced the Servian peasants not to leave the parental house but to remain together on the family’s property.  In the same yard, within the same fence, one could see around the ancestral house a number of wooden huts which contained one or two rooms, and were used as sleeping places for the sons, nephews and grandsons and their wives.  Men and women of three generations could be often seen living in that way together, and working together the land which was considered as common property of the whole family.  This expanded family, remaining with all its branches together, and, so to say, under the same roof, working together, dividing the fruits of their joint labours together, this family and an agricultural association in one, was called Zadrooga (The Association).  This combination of family and agricultural association has morally, economically, socially, and politically rendered very important services to the Servians.  The headman or chief (called Stareshina) of such family association is generally the oldest male member of the family.  He is the administrator of the common property and director of work.  He is the executive chairman of the association.  Generally he does not give any order without having consulted all the grown-up male members of the Zadroega” (Chedo Mijatovich, Servia and the Servians, London, 1908, pp. 237 sq.).  As to the house-communities of the South Slavs see further Og.  M. Utiesenovic, Die Hauskommunionen der Suedslaven (Vienna, 1859); F. Demelic, Le Droit Coutumier des Slaves Meridionaux (Paris, 1876), pp. 23 sqq.; F.S.  Krauss, Sitte und Brauch der Suedslaven (Vienna, 1885), pp. 64 sqq. Since Servia, freed from Turkish oppression, has become a well-regulated European state, with laws borrowed from the codes of France and Germany, the old house-communities have been rapidly disappearing (Chedo Mijatovich, op. cit. p. 240).

[671] Chedo Mijatovich, Servia and the Servians (London, 1908), pp. 98-105.

[672] Baron Rajacsich, Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebraeuche der im Kaiserthume Oesterreich lebenden Suedslaven (Vienna, 1873), pp. 122-128.

[673] Baron Rajacsich, Das Leben, die Sitten und Gebrauche der im Kaiserthume Oesterreich lebenden Suedslaven (Vienna, 1873), pp. 129-131.  The Yule log (badnyak) is also known in Bulgaria, where the women place it on the hearth on Christmas Eve.  See A. Strausz, Die Bulgaren (Leipsic, 1898), p. 361.