Like a humming swarm of bees, So the soldiers spake, With one voice at once they spake: “Father dear, great Tsar! Fall it must! and all our lives Thereon we gladly stake.” Set already was the moon, Nearly past the night; To the storming on they marched, With the morning light; To the fort with bulwarked towers And walls so strong and white. Not great rocks they were, which rolled From the mountains steep; From the high, high walls there rolled Foes into the deep. No white snow shines on the fields, All so white and bright; But the corpses of our foes Shine so bright and white. Not upswollen by heavy rains Left the sea its bed; No! In rills and rivers streams Turkish blood so red! --From Talvi’s _Historical View_. Folksongs. Pagan Russia was rich in ceremonies in honour of the various divinities representing the powers of nature. Christianity has not entirely obliterated the memory of these ancient rites: they are preserved in the ceremonial songs that are recited, now of course without a knowledge of their meaning, upon all church holidays, to which the old festivities have been adapted. Thus, the feast of the winter solstice now coincides with Christmas, while the old holiday of the summer solstice has been transferred to St. John’s Day, on June 24th. The _kolyádas_ are sung at Christmas, and seem to have been originally in honour of the sun. The name appears to be related to the Latin “calenda,” but it is generally supposed that this is only accidental, and that _Kolyáda_ was one of the appellations of the sun. Young boys and girls march through the village or town and exact contributions of eatables by reciting the kolyádas. In other places they sing, instead, songs to a mythical being, Ovsén, on the eve of the New Year. This Ovsén is some other representation of the sun. During the Christmas festivity fortunes are told over a bowl of water which is placed on the table, while in it are put rings, earrings, salt, bread, pieces of coal. During the fortune-telling they sing the _bowl-songs_, after each of which a ring, or the like, is removed. After the fortune-telling follow the games and the songs connected with these. Spring songs are recited in the week after Easter. Soon after, and lasting until the end of June, the round dance, the _khorovód_, is danced upon some eminence, and the khorovód songs, referring to love and marriage, are sung. There are still other reminiscences of heathen festivals, of which the most important is that to Kupála, on the night from the 23rd to the 24th of June, when the peasants jump over fires and bathe in the river.