It is a custom in portions of Russia, when the bride is about to leave her father’s home to meet the bridegroom, for the friends of the bridegroom to appear at the door, and request that the bride be brought to them. “After their request has been many times repeated, the ‘princess’ [as the bride is called] appears, attended by her relatives and attendants, but stops short at the door. Again the bridegroom’s friends demand the bride, but are told first to ‘cleanse the threshold; then will the young princess cross the threshold.’” Thereupon gifts are made by the bridegroom’s friend, and the bride crosses the threshold to go to the bridegroom.[84] Among the Mordvins (or, Mordevins), a Finnish people on the Volga, there are various customs in connection with marriage, tending to confirm the idea that the threshold is the household altar. In a ceremony of betrothal, with a conference over the terms of dowry, a prayer is offered to the “goddess of the homestead,” and the “goddess of the dwelling-house;” “the girl’s father then cuts off the corner of a loaf of bread with three slashes of a knife, salts it, and places it under the threshold, where the Penates are believed to frequent. This is called the ‘gods’ portion.’” Bread and salt are factors in a sacred covenant, and their proffer to the household gods, at the threshold altar, would seem to be an invitation to those gods to be a party to the new marriage covenant. Again, after the terms of betrothal are agreed on, there is the feast of “hand-striking,” or ratification of the betrothal. On that occasion also the “gods’ portion” is offered; and “a little brandy is spilt under the threshold. Bread and salt are once more placed under the threshold by the bride’s father, who carries it from the table to the household altar “on the point of the knife–under no circumstances in his hands.”[85] A custom of strewing the threshold of the home of a new-married couple prevailed in Holland until recent times.[86] This was obviously a form of offering at the household altar. On the evening before the marriage ceremony, in the rural districts and smaller towns of Northern Germany, the boys and girls, and others in the neighborhood, are accustomed to appear at the door of the bride’s house, and smash on the threshold earthen pots and jars, with loud cries of joy. “Sometimes, whole car-loads of broken pottery have to be removed from the door the next morning.” And when the young couple return to their home, after the ceremony at the church, poor boys and girls are accustomed to stretch a colored cord across the door of the house, to prevent a passage over the threshold, unless the bridegroom throws a handful of small coins among those who bar the way.[87]