Chapter II: Introduction

Before the arrival of the Magyars, Hungary was the "cock-pit of eastern Europe;" its history one incessant struggle between nation and nation, which either perished or was driven out by some more powerful neighbour. First we hear of the subjection of what was known as Pannonia, by the Romans; then, when that great power began to wane, a motley horde under the great Attila swept down and founded a kingdom. "Attila died in Pannonia in 453. Almost immediately afterwards the empire he had amassed rather than consolidated fell to pieces. His too-numerous sons began to quarrel about their inheritance; while Ardaric, the King of the Gepidae, placed himself at the head of a general revolt of the dependent nations. The inevitable struggle came to a crisis near the river Netad, in Pannonia, in a battle in which 30,000 of the Huns and their confederates, including Ellak,[1] Attila's eldest son, were slain. The nation thus broken rapidly dispersed. One horde settled under Roman protection in Little Scythia (the Dobrudsha); others in Dacia Ripensis (on the confines of Servia and Bulgaria), or on the southern borders of Pannonia."[2] A tradition asserts that the Magyars are descendants of those Huns, who, after their defeat, returned to their homes in Asia. On the other hand, one of their most learned men says, we cannot "form an accurate idea as to the part the Hungarians took in the irruption of the Huns, with which event they are associated in national tradition." But yet he adds, "we fairly claim that the ancestors of the Hungarians took part in the great devastating campaigns which Attila carried on against Rome and the Christian West, as far as France." Legend carries us still further back, saying that the giant Nimrod had two sons named Hunyor and Magyar, from whom the Huns and Magyars descended.[3] Leaving legend, in history we find that the Magyars appeared in Europe about 884, first on the Ural, later on the banks of the middle Volga; and then, marching westward, passed over the Danube and the Bug, crossing the Carpathians between 888 and 900, under Álmos, the father of Árpád,[4] the founder of modern Hungary, who is said to have claimed the country as his inheritance from Attila. The Magyars, then, are part of the numerous hordes of Turco-Tartar origin which, impelled by some mighty impulse, left their home amid the Altai mountains, and, conquering the divided forces on the rich plains of Hungary, settled down, and so founded the race whose tales form the body of this work.[5]

Another people, the Székely,[6] speak a dialect of Magyar, which, like other Magyar dialects, differs but slightly from the written language. This race claims to be descendants of those Hunnish tribes that remained in Europe after the defeats. They say, that when the Magyars arrived in modern Hungary they found a Magyar-speaking people (the Székely) inhabiting parts of Transylvania. This is confirmed to some extent by the statement of Constantinus Porphyrogenitus, who, writing about 950, asserted that, amongst others, some Magyar tribes lived on the banks of the rivers Maros and Körös (Transylvania). Kriza, too, quotes several Székely sayings referring to the Székely-Magyar relationship, _e.g._:

"A Székely has borne the Magyar."

"If there were no Székelys in the world, there would not be any Magyars."

"There is the same difference between a Székely and a Magyar as there is between a man's son and his grandson."

"Let the Magyar be thankful, that the Székely is his acquaintance."

With regard to the alleged descent of the Székelys from the Huns, the evidence in proof of such a pedigree is very meagre. First, it has not as yet--with any degree of accuracy--been determined who the Huns were. Prof. Vambéry has, with infinite pains, collected and analysed some seventy words, mostly proper names--all that has come down to us of the old Hunnish language--and come to the conclusion that the Huns and Avars for the greater part belonged to the Turco-Tartar branch of the Ural-Altaic race; yet he is bound to acknowledge that he would gladly welcome a few historical facts to support him in his conclusions, which are built upon an almost entirely philological basis.[7] Indeed, it seems as though the term "Hun" was a sort of conventional designation, like "Scythian," or "Barbarian" with the ancient Greeks and Romans; or "Frenghi" with the modern Turks. Attila and the various races he pressed into his service were, of course, the Huns _par excellence_. After his death and the fatal battle near the river Netad his hordes appear to have well-nigh vanished from Europe; but their terrible deeds left an indelible impression upon the people who were unfortunate enough to have been brought into contact with the "scourge of God" and his fierce warriors. In the lapse of time all kinds of weird traditions gathered round their names, in the usual way, when great names pass into the possession of the Folk Historian;[8] and so they drifted through legends of saints into the region of myths. Thus we find the name Hüne (Heune, Hewne, Huyne) becomes synonymous with "giant," and to this day the Westphalian and Dutch peasant speaks of the great tumuli as "Hünen gräber"--graves of the giants, or Huns.[9] To add to the confusion, it would appear that there were some German tribes who were known as Hunes. Mr. Karl Blind has pointed out in the _Gentleman's Magazine_,[10] that our own Venerable Bede speaks of Hunes as being among the tribes of Germany that came over to Britain together with the Saxons. Elsewhere[11] he explains "the tribal origin of Siegfried (of the Nibelungen lied) as a German Hüne;" a word which has nothing whatever to do with the Mongolian Huns. We know mediæval writers were not very particular about facts, and the _licentia poetica_ was claimed not only by poets, but also by historiographers, as an indisputable privilege. Thus, João Barros, in his chronicle of Clarimundus,[12] calmly tells us that Count Henry of Portugal, the Navigator, was of Hungarian descent, and that he found the statement in a Magyar book.[13] This alleged pedigree was the cause of a fierce controversy amongst Hungarian savants, and was fully threshed out in the early part of the present century.[14]

Vigfusson[15] remarks that the northern poet, whom he designates the "Tapestry poet," uses Hunar (Huns), Hynske (Hunnish) as a vague word for "foreign." Probably the East Baltic folk would have been Huns to the earlier poets. With regard to the German and Scandinavian Huns, it is noteworthy what Olaus Magnus writes with regard to the "Huns" of his time. The learned prelate says that "in provincia Middelpadensi versus Boreales partes Suetiæ superioris, ubi ferè major pars virorum Huni nomine appellantur tamquam populi clarius contra Hunos olim belligerantes ac triumphantes."[16] His statement is borne out by his colleague, Joannes Magnus,[17] who asserts that "non desunt qui dicant ipsos Hunnos à Septentrionale parte Scandiæ utra Helsingorum terras ex Medelphatia primum erupisse: in qua etiam hodie plurimi præstantissimæ fortitudinis homines inveniuntur, qui Hunni proprio nomine appellantur, quique magna et præclara opera in tyrannos, qui patriæ libertatem vexaverat, peregerunt."

In the face of all this, it is quite evident how difficult a task awaits those who attempt to identify the lineal descendants of the Huns: and those who uphold the Hunnish descent of the Székelys do not appear, as yet, to have advanced sufficient historical grounds to establish the connection of the modern Székelys with the Huns of Attila.[18]

It is well known that the Hun descent of the Magyars and Székelys has equally been questioned. Savants of such authority as Budenz and Hunfalvy disclaim the Hun relationship, and endeavour to prove the Finn-Ugrian origin of the Magyars. Whereas Professor Vambéry, in his work on the "Origin of the Magyars," which received so favourable a reception at the hands of the whole learned world, defends, as we saw above, a Turco-Tartar descent.

It lies far beyond the limits of this work to give even a brief outline of the history of the Székelys: yet a few data may not be out of place to show that, although they are at the present time, and mayhap always have been, a Magyar-speaking people, yet they are in many respects distinct from the race known as the Magyars. Ibn Dasta, an Arab writer,[19] at the end of the ninth century, informs us that in his time some Bulgarians lived on the banks of the River Itil (Volga); and that they consisted of three tribes, viz.: the Berzuls, the Esseghels, and the Uz. He further says that "the first territory of the Magyars lies between the country of the Bisseni and the Esseghel Bulgarians."

Another Arab writer, Ibn Muhalhal, about the middle of the tenth century, mentions a people named "Jikil," who lived next to the "Bajnak." If the writers who would identify in this Ashkal, Esseghel, or Jikil people, the parents of the Székely race, be right in their conclusions, then the Siculi (as they are called in Latin deeds) are of Bulgarian descent.[20] But we know full well how dangerous it is to build up theories on a mere similarity of names amongst barbarous or semi-barbarous races. The first reliable information we have about them is that about the year 1116 A.D. Bisseni and Siculi formed the body-guard of the Magyar King Stephen II. in his war against the Czechs. They supplied the vanguard of the army of King Géjza against Henry of Austria about 1146. More than half a century later, _i.e._ A.D. 1211, Andreas II. presented some uninhabited territory in Transylvania to the Teutonic knights; and, in a deed dated 1213, William, Bishop of Transylvania, granted the tithes of his territory to the same order, but reserved to himself the right of collecting them from all Magyar or Székely immigrants who might settle on the lands in question.[21] King Béla IV. ordered the Székelys[22] to supply him with one hundred mounted warriors in war; and later on, to show them his gratitude for their faithful services, he created them military nobles:[23] "Quod non sub certo numero (in a body as hitherto) sed eo modo sicut servientes regales, per se et personaliter armata nobiscum exercituare teneantur."[24] The Székelys of Hungary Proper gradually disappear, but the Siculi of Transylvania figure throughout the pages of Hungarian history as a separate people, with institutions and privileges of their own, and acting as a sort of border-fencibles in the numerous wars with the enemies of the Magyars. They furnished a separate title to the Prince of Transylvania,[25] and, although recent reforms have swept away old barriers, yet one still hears people speaking of the three nations of Transylvania, viz. the Magyars, the Székelys, and the Saxons.[26] Whether they ever spoke a language of their own we are unable to say; they speak several dialects, which have been carefully studied by Kriza,[27] himself a Székely by birth, and which possess peculiarities not to be found amongst the Magyars, or any other part of the realm of St. Stephen. A passage[28] in a work entitled "Hungaria et Attila," by Nicolaus Oláh, Archbishop of Esztergom (died 1568), might, perhaps, be quoted to prove that an independent Székely language had existed once, but there is an ambiguity about the statement of the learned prelate which makes it useless to the philologist. At any rate, we do not possess a single scrap of the old language, if it ever existed.

Having thus made ourselves acquainted with the Székelys, we may proceed to consider the other Magyar-speaking nationalities.

The Csángós[29] are Hungarian settlers in Moldavia; there are so many similarities in their tongue to the Székely dialects that Hunfalvy appears to be quite confident that they are a people of Székely origin.[30] Of late years an attempt has been made to resettle them in the less populous crown lands in Hungary; the result, as one might expect, is, that some are content, whilst others lust after the flesh-pots of Moldavia.

Next come the Kúns (Cumanians). The non-Magyar writers,[31] who have made the old language of this people their study, declare it, with almost unanimous consent, to be a Turkish dialect, whereas the Magyar writers, with very few exceptions, staunchly defend the Magyar origin of the Cumanians.[32]

Foremost in the ranks of the latter party was the late Stephen Gyárfás, who denied that a _lingua Cumenesca_ had ever existed, and that the various extant specimens are the remnants of the language of a people of Magyar descent, who had become Turks during the lapse of centuries.[33] His most powerful antagonist is Count Géjza Kuun, the learned editor of the _Codex Cumanicus_,[34] who espouses the cause of the Turkish party. Besides the valuable Glossary preserved in the Codex, several versions of the Lord's Prayer and other scraps of the Cumanian tongue are in existence, and have been examined by competent scholars, and pronounced to be of undoubted Turkish origin.[35]

Jazygo-Cumanians have been quoted in the note, and so we proceed to consider the next race--if one may use the word--viz.: the Jazyges, formerly a military tribe, who, together with the Cumanians, live in central Hungary, in the vicinity of the capital, and occupy a territory on the banks of the rivers Danube, Zagyva, Sárrét, Tisza, and Körös.

From time immemorial, until quite recent times, they enjoyed certain privileges and administered their own affairs in three districts--the Jászság, Kis-Kúnság, and Nagy-Kúnság, entirely separate from the surrounding population, thus forming a state within a state. They had however to surrender some of their old rights in 1848, and by the law of 1876 (cap. xxxiii.), which readjusted the political divisions of the kingdom, the limits of their territory disappeared altogether from the map of Hungary.[36] With regard, then, to the nationality of the Jász people, they are found at all periods of history in company with the Cumanians, and so, as their institutions are the same as their fellow armigerents, we may safely assume with Hunfalvy that they are a branch of the Cumans, if they be not offspring of the same mother-stock.

Next come the Palócz folk,[37] who live scattered among the other races in several of the northern counties of Hungary, and speak a dialect of their own. Hunfalvy asserts that they are the same people as the "Polovczi" mentioned by early Russian and Slavonic writers. And as Jerney, in his paper _The Palócz Nation and The Palócz Chronicle_, has proved beyond doubt that, whatever the Magyar Chronicles and Byzantine writers relate anent the Cumans can be traced, statement for statement, in Russian and Polish writers, with reference to the Polovczi, Hunfalvy draws the conclusion that the Palócz people are Cumans.[38]

Their name first occurs in Russian Annals A.D. 1061, and the Magyar savant to whose rich store of learning this work is so deeply indebted thinks that the migration of the Cumans into Hungary took place in two distinct streams, one, an earlier one, from the North, _viâ_ the Slave countries across the Northern Carpathians, and another, later one from the south-east, through the passes and defiles of the south-eastern extension of the same range of mountains.

Before leaving this part of the subject, the reader must be reminded that all the foregoing races or nationalities at the present time speak one or other Magyar dialect,[39] and that the old Cuman tongue is the only other language of which we know anything.[40]

Having, we hope, somewhat cleared the way as to people amongst whom the stories have been collected, we may now proceed to say a few words about the tales themselves. Of course, the stories will be found to bear a strong resemblance to other collections, as indeed they must do; the very fact of the striking way in which not only tales, but even little superstitions, reappear in all manner of strange places,[41] is of itself a fact which is of the deepest interest to those who study the history of man. We have attempted to give some few variants to the tales in this work, chiefly confining ourselves to Lapp and Finnish tales, which are but little known in England, and of which, as of the Magyar, there is a rich store. The more one considers comparative folk-lore, the more one is convinced that many of these tales were the common property of mankind before they migrated from their Asiatic home.[42] Of course local circumstances often colour the stories, but do not change the theme. Amidst the stories from Hungary we find, as we might presume, the Székely stories telling of snow-clad mountains, whilst those from the banks of the Danube dwell on the beauties of the Hungarian plains. The fierce conflicts of the past, too, have left their marks on the stories, and so we find the Turkish Sultan[43] and the Dog-headed Tartar[44] as the tyrants of the tale; and even, in one case, so modern a fact as the French invasion[45] is used to frighten an old-world witch. We see later on the influence of Mohammedanism, and also the marks of Christianity,[46] in some tales which become as it were, a folk-lore palimpsest. Nor must we omit other ways by which the tales have been modified. Many of the mediæval romances were, of course, translated into Hungarian; and even to this day the penny bookstall is always present at fairs and popular gatherings where "yards of literature" are to be obtained for a nominal sum. The vendor cannot afford a booth or stall, so a mat or tarpaulin is spread on the ground, and weighted at the four corners with brickbats or paving stones, hence the Hungarian name "ponyva-irodalom" (tarpaulin literature). Here we find mediaeval romances, bits of national history, biographies and panegyrics of famous robbers, the wicked doings of the mistress of some castle and her punishment, the exploits of Magyar heroes, the chronicles of Noodledom, in prose, or versified by some such favourite poet of the people as Peter Tatár; and by this means certain tales have been imported, others modified. Then again, the wandering students were entertained by the country folk during their peregrinations, and no doubt in return amused the old folks with the latest news from the town, and the young ones with tales from the Greek and Roman Mythologies.[47] Another mode of dissemination and modification was the soldiers. When the Hapsburgs were at the height of their glory the emperor-king's soldiers were scattered far and wide over Europe; and, after long years of service in an infantry regiment and absence from home, the old private returned to his native village, and at eventide in the village inn related how he, as "Sergeant of Hussars," caught with his own hand the Emperor Napoleon, and only let him go at the earnest entreaties of his wife, and upon receiving a rich bribe in gold.[48] The old soldier was well received in every family, and enjoyed great authority as a man who had seen the world. The children sat upon his knee, or stood round about him open-mouthed, and listened to his marvellous yarns.[49]

In Hungary, as in other countries, until the labours of the Brothers Grimm directed attention to the importance of the Folk-tales, nothing was done in the way of collecting them; and, even after Grimm's work appeared, no move was made in Hungary until Henszlman read his paper in 1847 before the Kisfaludy Society on the "Popular Tales of Hungary," in which paper he examined some 14 tales which afterwards appeared in Erdélyi's Collection, vols. 1 and 2. Ladislaus Arany in May 1867 read another paper before the same society and according to his calculation some 240 tales had been collected up to that date: the collections quoted by him were as follows:--

John Erdélyi,[50] _Folk-Songs and Popular
Tales_, 3 vols. containing 34 tales

George Gaál,[51] _Hungarian Folk-Tales_, 3 vols. " 53 "

John Erdélyi, _Hungarian Popular Tales_, 1 vol. " 13 "

Ladislaus Merényi, _Original Popular Tales_, }
2 vols. }
}
Ladislaus Merényi, _Popular Tales from the_ }
_Valley of the Sajó_, 2 vols. } " 65 "
}
Ladislaus Merényi, _Popular Tales from the_ }
_Banks of the Danube_, 2 vols. }

Ladislaus Arany, _Original Popular Tales_, 1 vol. " 35 "

John Kriza,[52] _Wild Roses_, 1 vol.[53] " 20 "

Julius Pap, _Palócz Folk-Poetry_, 1 vol. " 6 "

Count John Majláth,[54] _Hungarian Fairy Tales_,
_Sagas and Popular Tales_, translated from the
German by G. Kazinczy, 1 vol. " 6 "

Maurus Jókai, _Witty Tales of the
Hungarian Folk_, 1 vol. " 8 "
-------
Total, 240

Of these, Erdélyi's first collection and Kriza's _Wild Roses_ are the most important, and the translation of them form the bulk of this volume. Since 1867 the work of collecting the Popular Tales has been going on steadily, and the _Hungarian Language Guardian_ (Magyar Nyelvör) is a paper specially devoted to the purpose: publishing popular sayings, proverbs, children's games, nursery rhymes, &c. Very little of the Folk-lore treasure is known outside of Hungary. There is Count Majláth's collection, which appeared originally in German, and also a German edition of Gaál, and one by Stier, which contains some of Erdélyi's stories. In English the only translations we are aware of are the tale of "The talking grapes, the smiling apple, and the tinkling apricot," from Erdélyi's collection, which was translated by Mr. E. D. Butler, and appeared in a London suburban paper; and another tale, "The Round Stone," in the February number of the _St. Nicholas Magazine_, 1882; so that this collection opens up new ground. The great difficulty in considering these tales--in common with the Finn, Esthonian, and Lapp--is the language; and the aim of the present translation is but to be as literal as possible in its rendering of the stories; there being no attempt whatever made to polish or beautify the tales, but simply an endeavour to reproduce as near as may be the stories as told by the people; in many cases, especially with regard to the Székely stories, this has been a work of very great difficulty, on account of the dialect, and must plead for the many shortcomings in the translations.

A brief consideration of some points in Magyar Folk-lore may be found of interest in a study of the stories. And I am indebted for the following information on giants, fairies, and witches to a valuable paper, entitled _Mythological Elements in Székely Folk-lore and Folk-life_, read by Kozma before the Hungarian Academy in 1882.