This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns in and around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!
Once again, there is no city or town with Y in Hungarian, so I had to get a bit thrifty. In this legend, the color yellow plays a significant part. But also, the name of the city it was collected in, Szeged, carries a reference to the same color: it is here that the color of the River Tisza changes to a yellow-brown color and becomes szőke ("blonde"). Szeged is a city of about 160,000 inhabitants in southern Hungary.
According to a story collected in the 1800s, there was once a young many who wished to marry Tündér Ilona, the fairy queen. He picked the worst horse from his father's herd, and that nag turned out to be a magic steed. When they neared the queen's palace they had to cross a wide river; the magic horse turned into a boat, and ferried the young man across.
The young man spent two years making merry in the fairy palace, but then decided it was time for him to visit his home again. Crossing back over the river, he found his hometown in ruins, as if it had been deserted for hundreds of years. Only the church was still intact - and filled with coffins. Among the coffins stood a man. One of his legs was yellow, the other red, and the rest of his body green. It was Death himself.
The young man fled from Death, and Death gave pursuit. It almost caught up when the young man reached the river and jumped into his magic boat. Death only managed to get one yellow leg into the boat before it started moving - and, losing balance, Death fell into the river and drowned.
This is why, claims the legend, Death is not visible to humans anymore.
(This story is a mix of two tale types: The Prince Seeking Immortality, and one called The Yellow Death. Source here.)
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