DOMOVOY

In the Slavic religious tradition, Domovoy is the household spirit of a given kin. They are deified progenitors, that is to say the fountainhead ancestors of the kin. According to the Russian folklorist E. G. Kagarov, the Domovoy is a personification of the supreme Rod in the microcosm of kinship. Sometimes he has a female counterpart, Domania, the goddess of the household, though he is most often a single god. The Domovoy expresses himself as a number of other spirits of the household in its different functions.
Sacrifices in honour of the Domovoy are practised to make him participate in the life of the kin, and to appease and reconcile him in the case of anger. These include the offering of what is left of the evening meal, or, in cases of great anger, the sacrifice of a cock at midnight and the sprinkling of the nooks and corners of the common hall or the courtyard with the animal's blood. Otherwise, a slice of bread strewn with salt and wrapped in a white cloth is offered in the hall or in the courtyard while the members of the kin bow towards the four directions reciting prayers to the Domovoy.
The Domovoy is believed to be somehow connected with the house building itself, so that sacrifices are also practised when a family moved to a newly built house, in order to invite the god to inhabit it. In this case, a hen and the first slice of bread cut for of the first dinner in the new house are offered to the god and buried in the courtyard, reciting the formula:
"Our supporter, come into the new house to eat bread and to obey your new master."
Similar rituals are practised to invite a Domovoy to transfer from a house to another, and to welcome him.