significance in ancient European religion...A large amount of evidence indicates that religious–magical rites, from birth ceremonies to funerals, were performed in such bathhouses. There are various opinions as to whether the so-called holy corner ( heilige Hinterecke)— i.e., the dark corner of a peasant’s house in which a deity or patron lives—belongs to pre-Christian concepts or not. On the other hand,......Elbe River. In 19th-century Russia a chicken was slaughtered in the drying house as a sacrifice to the ovinnik. This vegetal spirit is also present in the sheaf of grain kept in the “sacred corner” of the dwelling under the icon and venerated along with it, and also in noncultivated plant species that are kept in the house for propitiation or protection, such as branches of......to all the houses in the village. It is possible that the bones of the disinterred were kept for a long period inside the dwellings, as is still sometimes done in the Tyrol of Austria, and that the sacred corner—now occupied by the icon—was the place where they were kept.
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