[Sidenote: New-born children brought to the hearth as a mode of introducing them to the ancestral spirits.] Accordingly, where beliefs and customs of this sort have prevailed, it is easy to understand why new-born children should be brought to the hearth, and why their birth should there be solemnly announced to the ancestors. This is done by the Herero,[761] and in like manner on the fifth or seventh day after a birth the ancient Greeks used to run naked round the hearth with the new-born babe in their arms.[762] This Greek ceremony may perhaps be regarded as merely a purification, in other words as a means of keeping at bay the demons who lie in wait for infants. Certainly in other parts of the world a custom has prevailed of passing a newly born child backwards and forwards through the smoke of the fire for the express purpose of warding off evil spirits or other baleful influences.[763] Yet on the analogy of the preceding customs we may conjecture that a practice of solemnly bringing infants to the domestic hearth has also been resorted to as a mode of introducing them to the spirits of their fathers.[764] In Russia the old belief that the souls of the ancestors were somehow in the fire on the hearth has left traces of itself down to the present time. Thus in the Nijegorod Government it is still forbidden to break up the smouldering faggots in a stove, because to do so might cause the ancestors to fall through into hell. And when a Russian family moves from one house to another, the fire is raked out of the old stove into a jar and solemnly conveyed to the new one, where it is received with the words, “Welcome, grandfather, to the new home!”[765]