The Guardian of the house. He lives on the furnace and looks after the house, the life of the family. It’s implied that he is closer to the mistress of the house, that is why it’s not the master of the house who yearly sacrifices the porridge hert-shchurt patty, as it usually happens during other sacrifices, but the host’s wife. He is as invisible as other good spirits. And when at night one of the logs creeks everybody thinks that it’s hert-shchurt who makes a noise and is dissatisfied. In this case one should pacify him with something; otherwise he would cause illnesses to the family and cattle. That’s why right away on the next day they prepare a bowl of porridge and put it for a couple of hours on the furnace for him to eat. Then they take the porridge and eat it themselves. Thus they propitiate him. The yearly offering sacrificed to hert-shchurt is conducted in the same way: they put porridge on the furnace and call him.

As a matter of fact he is treated as the member of the family, and when a new daughter-in-law comes to the house, the family lets hert-shchurt know about it, and sacrifices porridge together with her in order to win his favour. The ritual is accompanied by the following words:

During the yearly funeral repasts, on the day of candle and autumn beer, when in honour of all the dead in the family a candle for each is lit on the right side of the house (the izba) near the door, on the place of the dead. They don’t forget about the house-spirit either, they also lit a candle to the left from the door, on the side where the furnace stays, where he lives.

And when the master of the house returns from other house, a feast or a festival, entering the house he takes off the hat and regardless of the fact whether there is somebody in the house or not, he firstly greets the house-spirit with the following words:

If a stranger enters the house, he also first of all greets the spirit – the guardian of the house, and only after this addresses to the master of the house. Such form of greeting is preserved only among heathens. (Tayapa, Ulhash).

Formerly it was so among the northern chuvash too, however, when the master of the house returned home with his wife, let us suppose after visiting somebody, entering the house it was the wife who was the first to greet the house-spirit:

(It seems that such form of greeting is more original, than the form of greeting of the South Chuvash, since its meaning is more transparent).
Usually when some of the relatives came into the house, bringing with him presents – flat cakes as it was customary during the funeral repasts, having divided the flat cake into halves, the first halve he threw on the furnace with the following words:

In the north there is a popular belief that hert-sort likes to spend time in the cattle shed, where he feeds and looks after the horses of the master. But he likes only those whose colour is to his liking. He doesn’t feed those, whose colour is not to his liking and such horse as a rule, grows thin and soils the crib. To the favourite horse as a reward he plaits the mane. The Chuvash in no circumstances could dare unplait the mane braided in such a way. He didn’t even touch it with dirty hands so as not to make the house-spirit angry. If one touched the mane with dirty hands the plaited mane immediately would come undone by itself, - they thought. The southern Chuvash don’t mention the quality of the house-spirit to look after the horses. They have another spirit of the same kind: “the master of the cattle shed” (veete-hushchi), about which we will speak lower (middle Mari surt-ort ‘house-spirit’). (Vompukassi).

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