Continuing the theme of the Peasant Bible, Hungarian folk legends about how various things came to be. On today's menu: Puli dogs.
Puli dogs are a "hungarikum," which is the word we use for typically Hungarian things. For more of those, you can visit my other blog... incidentally named MopDog.
Now, on to the story.
(Originally published in this book in Hungarian - folktales from Bács-Kiskun, Heves and Pest counties)
Jesus always loved shepherds; they were the first one to greet him when he came into the world, and they brought him a lamb and cheese and other gifts. In the days when he walked the earth he liked to stop and converse with them; of course they usually didn't know who they were talking to.
One day Jesus stopped to ask for a drink of water from a shepherd. The sheep were running all over the place, the man was chasing after them, and his water skin was empty; and yet he dropped everything and hurried to bring some fresh water for the weary traveler. When Jesus drank his fill and thanked him, the shepherd was ready to lunge after his wandering sheep again... but Jesus stopped him.
"Pick up that bone" he pointed, and the shepherd picked up a leg bone from the ground.
"There you go" he tried to hand it over to the stranger and go after the sheep who were quickly getting away, but Jesus stopped him again.
"Now throw it" he ordered, and the shepherd threw the bone away. The moment it hit the ground it bounced up and turned into a small dog, all fur and all bark, and the dog scampered after the sheep, herding them together in no time at all.
Jesus loved shepherds so much that he created the puli to do the herding for them.
In case you want visual proof, here is a video:
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