The Russian philologist Vladimir Toporov has proposed that the felling of the "badnjak" was originally a reenactment of the mythical fight in which "Mladi Božić" ("young god") slew his father "Stari Badnjak" ("old Badnjak"). "Božić", the diminutive form of the noun "bog", meaning god, is also the Serbian for "Christmas". The characters of "Stari Badnjak" and "Mladi Božić" are found in old Serbian Christmas songs, where they are not explicitly referred to as father and son, and no fight between them is mentioned. By Toporov, the former personified the last day of the Old Year, the climax of the power of Chaos, and the latter personified the first day of the New Year, the beginning of reestablishment of Cosmic Order. He regards "Stari Badnjak" and "Mladi Božić" as originating from respectively the dragon and the dragon slayer of the Proto-Indo-European mythology. "Stari Badnjak" would be related to both the Vedic serpent "Ahi Budhnya" ("the Dragon of the Deep") killed by Indra, and the Greek dragon Python killed by Apollo. The words "badnjak", "budhnya", and "python" stem from the Proto-Indo-European root *"bhudh-", denoting bottom, foundation, depths, and related notions.