on Christmas Eve morning above the house door, under the eaves, or on the roof, and had an aesthetic role. The other type includes logs cut usually from oak trunks. In the evening the family used to ritually bring three such logs into the house and burn them on the hearth. These practices are no longer performed, but in some places a modified form of badnjak is used: a cross is carved into the bark of pieces of firewood which are burned in kitchen stoves on Christmas Eve. In Bulgaria, the youngest man of the family goes on the Eve into a forest to cut down an oak, elm, or pear tree, which will be used as the badnik (бъдник). After the man brings it into the house, a hole is bored in one end of the badnik and filled with wine, cooking oil, and incense. The hole is plugged, and that end of the log is wrapped with a white linen cloth before the badnik is festively burned on the hearth. In Greece, a large log was lit on the hearth on Christmas Eve and kept burning or smoldering through the Twelve Days of Christmas. This was done as a protection against the demons called Kallikantzaroi, believed to be emerging from their dens at night during that period to attack people and damage their property. The fire and smoke from the log was thought to prevent the Kallikantzaroi from entering the house down the chimney. The ritual burning of logs on the Eve was also carried out in Albania. When the buzm, as the log was called there, was about to be brought into the house, a member of the family would go out into the yard, shout the name of the household's head, and proclaim that the buzm was coming and bringing all kinds of delicious things. The head of the household would respond by saying "You are welcome!" and the buzm would be ceremonially brought in, greeted by the family and treated with great respect. The log would be placed on the hearth, and often a significant part of all food and drink in the house would be put on the log and burned together with it. See also Zapis, sacred tree in Serbia Nyja, Polish god of underworld Notes References Further reading Čajkanović (1994) lists the following ethnographic publications (in Serbian) for more details on the