BLESSING AT THE HOUSE-WARMING OF A NEW HOUSE (TAQIYA) 

We thank you master and you assistants and apprentices.

Listen around you dear peasants and you country squires.

This morning a charitable giving, white as a white rose, red as a red rose, arrived from our landlord worth 500 half-Russian gold coins! 

He hath bestowed on us one, may God bestow on him from one to a thousand!

As many as the wires of this gift, so many shall be the gold coins in his chest!

As many as his horses are, so shall his bullocks be in the stall!

As the sand of the sea, the leaf of the forest, the grass of the field,

as many gifts and blessings may God give to his house!

May God help him to go to Jerusalem, 

to write down there the names of all his kindred and godparents! 

Let him go penitent, let him return praised: let his neighbours greet him with golden carriages!

He that brought, we thank thee, master!

He that brought not, we thank thee again, master!

But he that brought, to the other world a shadow of roses shall appear over his head!

And he that brought not, let fever shake him!