Yellow Death in Yellow Town (Small Town Legends A to Z)

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.)

X - Bükkszentkereszt: The Stolen Cross from Holy Cross (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Hungary doesn't have place names that start with X. As a second best option, I looked for a place that has "cross" in its name.

Image from here

Bükkszentkereszt is a municipality in Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén county, northern Hungary, with about 1,100 inhabitants. "Szentkereszt" literally means "holy cross", while "bükk" stands for "beech" - both the trees, and the mountain range named after them. If you wanted to be poetic, the town's name is "Holy Cross in the Beech Mountains".

As I dug into local folklore, I managed to uncover a legend that even features a cross:

A group of young men were hanging out at a pub one night. They made a bet that if someone was brave enough to go out into the cemetery and bring a cross, he would get five liters of wine. One young men went out alone, and he didn't return late into the night. The others were beginning to think that he was dead. Finally, he returned with a cross under his arm - it was made of cement with iron bars inside, so it took him a long time to break it. But break it he did, and he got his five liters of wine. Later on in the evening, the young men even got to cheat the bartender out of another bucket of wine...

(This legend is a variant of a well-known type where someone goes out into the cemetery at night, and gets caught while trying to steal a cross, or trying to return it. My grandfather told it about our own village of Ménfőcsanak. In his version, the guy tried to put the cross back into the ground, and unwittingly stabbed it through his apron. When he tried to stand, he thought the dead had caught him, and died of fright.)

Other countries have this legend type too. Have you ever heard it before?

(Source here.)

Weinitz: Mother's Milk and Trickery (Small Town Legends A to Z)

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!

Okay so the Hungarian language doesn't use a W. Instead, I went for a legend about a place that has a German name, as well as a Slovakian and a Hungarian one. The German name is Weinitz; the current Slovakian name is Bojnice; the older Hungarian name is Bajmóc. It is a town of about 5000 inhabitants in a region that used to be a part of larger Hungary. It is most famous for its castle.

One of the castle legends has to do with the (in)famous bandit Jánošík. In the castle courtyard there is a mostly dry well, from the depths of which several tunnels lead to underground chambers. Legend says that the famous bandit and his 12 companions hid in those tunnels, and secreted away their loot there as well. However, they could not hide forever; eventually they were captured by the castle guards. The 12 companions were hanged, and Jánošík was sentenced to die of starvation in the castle dungeons.

The only person allowed to visit the dying bandit was his daughter and her infant son. She visited regularly, but never managed to sneak any food in; she was searched thoroughly every time she entered. And yet, as months passed, Jánošík was somehow still alive. He held on so long that people began to talk about a miracle. The lord of the castle eventually took is as a sign, freed Jánošík, and hired him as part of his retinue. Jánošík served him with loyalty till the end of his days.

No one ever figured out that his daughter had kept him alive by feeding him breastmilk every day.

(Source here and here.)

Vöröskolostor: The Flying Monk (Small Town Legends A to Z)

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!

Vöröskolostor (Červený Kláštor) is part of Alsóhelnic, a municipality of about 200 people in Northern Slovakia. The name literally means "Red Monastery", referring to the red hue of the former monastery's walls and roof. The monastery is first mentioned in the 14th century, and it belonged to the Carthusians.

The legend for this one deals with a real historical person from the 18th century, a monk named Jaisge Ferenc Ignác, more commonly known by his taken name, Frater Cyprian. He lived in the monastery and spent his time studying all kinds of sciences and arts (such as alchemy, medicine, botany, carpentry, painting, etc.). His herbary, containing almost 300 specimens, still exists today. But his greatest goal in life was to unlock the secret of flight. He wanted to create wings for himself and fly among the mountains.

Some legends say he succeeded.

The story goes that one day Frater Cyprian was alone in his rooms, working on designing wings for himself, when suddenly an angel appeared to him (other sources say the angel politely knocked on the door first). The angel showed a mirror to the astonished monk, and in the mirror Cyprian saw the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his life. She was a shepherdess from the valley, standing by the Green Lake. Cyprian's heart jumped. Love washed over him, and that love accomplished what science couldn't: wings sprouted from his ankles, elbows, and shoulders, and he immediately flew out the window. Soon, he landed by the lake, and the girl waited from him with a bright smile.

The angel waved a hand, and the wings disappeared; the monk's clothes changed into those of a shepherd. From that day on, Cyprian lived happily with his beloved by the lake.

Ungvár: Striking from Hiding (Small Town Legends A to Z)

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!

Ungvár is a city in the Ukraine with about 110,000 inhabitants, 8000 of whom are Hungarian. In historical times, this area used to be a part of Hungary. Techincally, the legend itself is tied to the village of Komoró nearby, on the Hungarian side of the border, and Ungvár is only mentioned in passing, but I needed a place for U, so here we go.

First, you need to familiarize yourselves with the Hungarian term guta. It is an old name for an illness-demon, one that can strike people suddenly and cause a stroke, apoplexy, or a heat stroke. Today, we still say "megüti a guta" (the guta will strike them) when someone is about to have a great shock or sudden anger.

Later on, legends began to develop to explain the forgotten origin of the term.

Legend claims that there used to be a famous robber in the area of Ungvár, by the name of Guta Jakab. He was a master of the slingshot, and he could strike a target from a great distance with precision. He used to hide in the bushes and hedges outside a village and attack unsuspecting travelers - striking them like a sudden act of God. The legend claims this is where the common term "lapos guta" (flat guta) or "lapul mint guta" (lying low like the guta) came from: from the bandit lying low in the bushes, throwing flat stones with a slingshot.

Sources claim he was eventually captured, and executed in 1393 in Ungvár for his crimes (they hanged him by his ribs)

(I don't know about you, but I find it fascinating when legends develop to explain the origins of other, older, forgotten legends)

(Sources here and here)

Image from here

Telegd: Password for Hidden Treasure (Small Town Legends A to Z)

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!

Telegd, or Mezőtelegd is a municipality in Bihar county, Romania, with about 3500 inhabitants. In historic times, this area used to be a part of Hungary.

Here is a short yet fun story from this town:

There was once an old woman in Mezőtelegd who was extremely wealthy, but also extremely stingy. She had one child, a son, but she never gave a penny to him either. When she grew old and frail, her son and his wife took care of her day and night. And yet, the old woman did not want them to inherit any of her wealth.

To hide the gold she had, she sneaked out of the house one night into the garden. She buried the gold deep underground, covered it up, then bumped her buttocks on the ground nine times, saying:

"May the earth hide my treasure, may no one be able to retrieve it, until I bump my buttocks on it nine times again!"

It just so happened that her daughter-in-law secretly saw and heard all of this.

Soon after the old woman died. She refused to tell her son where the gold was buried. The man was distressed. Now his mother was dead, and she had taken her wealth with her.

"Too bad we will never be able to uncover that gold!" his wife sighed. She told him what she had witnessed. Her husband's face lit up.

"Nine times, you said?" 

With that, he picked his mother out of the coffin, went to the garden, and bumped her buttocks nine times on the ground. Lo and behold, the gold came to the surface.

(I feel like there should be a moral here about secure passwords...)

(Collected in 1984 from Fazekas Sándorné Keresztes Rozália. Source: this book)

Sokorópátka: How to Eat a Pig (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

This story comes from the actual oral tradition: growing up, I heard many tales from my grandfather that all featured a semi-mythical character named Sokorópátkai Szabó István. Only later on did I find out that he was a real historical person.

Sokorópátkai Szabó István was a politician at the beginning of the 20th century. He represented Sokorópátka is the parlament, and was a minister responsible for agrarian and smallholder issues. Sokorópátka is a municipality in Győr-Moson-Sopron county, northwestern Hungary, with about 1100 inhabitants.

My grandfather's tales about Sokorópátkai Szabó István, inherited through local folklore, were a source of endless merriment for my family. He usually came across in them as a bumbling, provincial, self-important man who made all kinds of funny breaches of etiquette. In the story we loved the most about him, however, he ends up being a trickster.

Here it goes:

Sokorópátkai Szabó István considered himself a very important man. He used to take the train to Budapest to attend parlament meetings. He had himself driven by carriage to the train station in Győr, and on the way home the carriage waited for him in the same place. Now, SSzI was a large man, almost 200 kilograms, and he always came home hungry. On the way back home he used to stop in the village of Ménfő, at the tavern of Józsa Mihály (my grandmother's uncle) to have dinner. His usual dinner consisted of five liters of pejsli (pork lung).

It happened one winter, on the night before the day of St. Barbara (Borbála) that the Budapest train was late. The coach driver was half frozen by the time SSzI arrived. The lord was extremely hungry, and gave the order to drive to the tavern despite the late hour. Soon, he was banging on the door, demanding dinner.

The tavern keeper, half asleep, opened up. He told the lord that there was no food prepared this late at night, and he should move on. However, SSzI did not take no for an answer. He demanded food loudly, until Józsa Mihály admitted that there was a roast pig in the oven, kept warm for St. Borbála's feast the next day - given that Borbála was his daughter's name, so they were going to celebrate her name day.

SSzI demanded the pig to be put on the table. The tavern keeper did not dare say no. However, he was furious. So he set the table, put a plate, a fork and a knife in front of the guest - and took another fork and knife for himself. Between them, there was the pig.

The tavern keeper gave a menacing look:

"My lord. Wherever you start on the pig, I shall start on you."

Sokorópátkai Szabó István looked at the pig. He was famished. He looked at Józsa Mihály. The man was not joking. He looked at the pig again. Where should he cut it? He did not want to suffer the same fate. He considered his options, salivating, struggling. Finally, he had an idea.

He put the knife down. He put the fork down. He turned the pig around. He stuck his finger into the pig's butt, scooped out a generous dollop of filling, and licked his finger clean.

"Alright, Mr. Józsa. You can start on me now!"

(According to my grandfather, Uncle Mihály was delighted to tell this story to people. Apparently, it made up for the loss of a pig.)

(Collected from my grandfather, Zalka Ottó, in 2019. May he rest in peace.)

Rónaszék: Playing Cards with Kobolds (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Rónaszék is a village of about 700 people in northern Romania, Máramaros county. In historical times this region used to be a part of Hungary. People have been mining salt in Rónaszék since the Bronze Age. The mines were finally shut down in the 1930s. Miners have always had a particularly rich and fascinating folklore which researchers have been collecting for decades.

Here is one of my favorite stories:

A carpenter was summoned to one of the mines because some planks had to be replaced. He descended into the mines with his young son. As they took a light into one of the abandoned corridors, they saw a man in a fur coat. The carpenter warned the stranger that the walkway was unstable, but he just waved, motioning at the boy to be sent away. The carpenter sent the boy to watch the other miners cutting salt. The boy was so fascinated by the adventure that he only remembered to return to his dad at the end of the day.

When he returned, he found his father playing cards with the stranger. He told them the mine was about to close, so his father went back to the surface with him... but the stranger disappeared in the opposite direction. At home, the carpenter revealed that he had won a lot of money on cards. The stranger had been a mine spirit who invited him to play. The carpenter said he only had one coin in his pockets, but the spirit insisted on playing anyway... and, game after game, he let the carpenter win.

(Mining spirits can feature into legends as benevolent, mischievous, or downright dangerous creatures. In this case, the carpenter got lucky.)

(The story was told as a memory by the carpenter's son later in his life. Source here)

Image from here

The Queen's Buttocks (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

There is no Q in the Hungarian alphabet, therefore there was no town name I could find. But I did find a legend that features a queen. So here we go.

THIS POST CONTAINS AN ADULT JOKE

This story has actually been collected from multiple villages in and around Hungary, including Fúlókércs, Sajórecske, and Ada.

Here it is:

One day, Queen Maria Theresa (Habsburg empress and queen of Hungary 1745-1765) was walking in her palace gardens when a soldier, who did not recognise the lady, passed by behind her and decided to slap her buttocks hard. As the queen turned around, the soldier was horrified to discover he had assaulted Maria Theresa herself. Fearing for his life, he blurted out:

"Your majesty, if your heart is as hard as your buttocks, I am a dead man!"

Amused, the queen looked him over and replied:

"Well, if your **** is as firm as your hand, I might keep you."

(Story referenced in the Catalog of Hungarian Historical Legends)

Note: There are several folk legends about Maria Theresa and her appetite in men. A lot of these were told to make fun of a powerful woman. But there are also many folk legends about Maria Theresa being a just and wise queen who took care of people, and appreciated a clever joke.

(Not that slapping a woman's butt has ever been okay)

Pozsony: The Molting Angels (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Okay so Pozsony is technically the Hungarian name for Bratislava, which is not a small town. But the story itself was collected in Győr, which is my hometown in northwestern Hungary (of about 130,000 people). And the story is too funny not to include.

The story concerns the seminary in Pozsony, probably referring to the Emericanum which functioned as a training school for priests from the 17th century all the way to 1913. The story itself was recorded in the 1820s.

Here's the legend:

It is said that Joseph II (Habsburg emperor 1765-1790) once visited the seminary in Pozsony, and lingered for a while in front of a painting depicting Jacob's ladder. He watched the painted angels ascending and descending the ladder between Heaven and Earth, then turned to the esteemed theologian standing by:

"Why are the angels taking the ladder? Can't they just fly?"

The theologian managed to come up with a quick answer on the spot:

"Your majesty, the angels are molting at the moment. That's why they can't fly."

(Story referenced in the Catalog of Hungarian Historical Legends)

Oláhfalu: The Crayfish as Tailor (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Oláhfalu is actually the former/colloquial name of the town of Szentegyháza in Transylvania, with a population about 6,300 (mostly Hungarian-speaking). There is a surprising number of funny anecdotes and joking folklore about the silly things people did in this town - most of which are universal legend types tailored to the locality.

Here is one of them:

The people of Oláhfalu once caught a crayfish in a stream. They weren't sure what it was, so they convened, and decided that it must be a tailor, since it had two pairs of scissors (pincers). Now that they had their own tailor, they placed the crayfish on a length of cloth to work. Wherever the wet crayfish crawled, leaving a trail, they kept cutting after it, expecting a pattern. In the end, with the animal meandering all over the place, the length of cloth was ruined.

The people of the town convened again, and decided the tailor should be punished for deceiving them. They didn't want to commit murder, so in the end, they thought it was best to drown the criminal - and tossed the crayfish into the river.

(Collected by Duka János in the middle of the 20th century)

Fun fact: This story type exists about various villages all over Hungary and Transylvania. There are also countless similar stories where the inhabitants of a village don't recognise an everyday object. My own grandfather used to tell a story about the neighboring village were people tried to beat a muff to death, thinking it was an animal.

Nagylengyel: The Exploding Dragon (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Nagylengyel is a municipality of about 500 people in Zala county, western Hungary. The legend concerning the dragon, and the village's church, was collected and shared with me by folklorist Magyar Zoltán.

Here it is:

In Babosdöbréte there lived a lord who owned large flocks of sheep and pigs. One day, his shepherds reported that animals were going missing. For a while, no one knew who or what was stealing the livestock... until they found out there was a dragon living nearby, preying on animals and people alike. The lord announced that he would grant 100 acres of land to the person who could get rid of the dragon.

The lord had a servant who was known for her faith. She went out and spied on the dragon for a while, before returning home. She baked a series of buns, hollowed them out, and filled them with quicklime. She then went back to the willow tree where the dragon usually rested, and started throwing the buns to it from a safe distance. The dragon devoured the buns, and then started looking for water. The servant woman left a large bucket of water nearby. As the dragon drank, the quicklime in its stomach reacted with the water - and the dragon exploded.

The lord granted the 100 acres to the woman, and she used it to build the church of Nagylengyel.

(The story was collected from Török János in Vorhota)

Coat of arms of Nagylengyel

The dragon actually references the Sárkány family, benefactors of the village

The dog refers to St. Dominic, patron of the church

The flame references the oil discovered nearby

Máriagyűd: A Church Rolling on Peas (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Image from here

Máriagyűd is now a part of the town of Siklós in Baranya county, southern Hungary. Before 1977, it was its own municipality with about 1,500 inhabitants. The church, rebuilt in the 18th century, is a famous shrine and pilgrimage site for the Virgin Mary.

Here is the legend:

In the olden days the church of Gyüd was not in its current place. It used to be up on the mountain. But the priests didn't like that they had to climb all the way up every morning. So they got together and tried to figure out how to move the church to a more convenient place. One of them had an idea: they should lift the church, spread dried peas under it, and roll it.

And so they did. They got people together, lifted the church with levers, spread buckets of dried peas under it, and spread even more peas along the mountainside (don't ask). Then they gave the church a push. The church began to roll down the mountainside, to its current place. There, the ground leveled out, and so the church had been ever since, making it easier for people to visit.

(Collected in 1969 from Molnár Béni. Quoted in the Hungarian Folktale Catalog)

This is also a very common legend type; my grandfather had the same story about a neighboring village. Usually, however, it doesn't succeed. People try to push and shove the church, and then conclude they had moved it enough (while not moving it at all).

Lickóvadamos: A Village of Feral Squirrels (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Mukucsfalu today is part of the town of Lickóvadamos in Zala County, Western Hungary. The entire place has less than 200 inhabitants, out of which about 10 live in Mukucsfalu. The name comes from 'mókus' (squirrel) and 'falu' (village), so it is literally called Squirrel Village.

And there is a legend to explain the name.

The story takes place during the Ottoman wars of the 16th and 17th centuries. It says that when the inhabitants of the village found out that the Turkish army, under Hasan Bey, was fast approaching, they gathered to come up with a defense plan. They sent the judge as envoy to talk to the bey. The envoy carried an offering for peace: a bag full of two hundred squirrels. The villagers believed that the Turks had neved seen (or tasted) these animals... but they also had ulterior motives. The judge explained that the village is not worth pillaging since all the inhabitants are squirrels. The bey, not entirely sure what to do with the news and the offering, ordered his servants to tie up the squirrels to his tent posts.

The next morning, the villagers found the Turkish camp empty... except for the bey, who was lying dead in his tent. Mauled by sqirrels. Crisis averted.

Sources for the story here and here.

Kisbács: The Card Demon (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

This story comes from Méra, a village belonging to the municipality of Kisbács in Transylvania, with a population about 1,300 (mostly Hungarian-speaking) people. It is fairly unique in folklore as far as I know.

Here it goes:

The storyteller who told this legend claims that it happened to his father one night, when he was heading home from playing cards with a friend. Admittedly, both were heavily drunk on pálinka. The kuli (card demon) followed them in the shape of a large, hairy humanoid creature. It eventually caught up and blocked their way, so one man tore a stake from a fence and fought it. The demon kept getting larger and stronger the more they beat it, and blocked their way again three other times. By the time they finally got home they were exhausted and drenched in sweat.

The storyteller also added that the demon could have been defeated if they had slapped it with their left hand. Hitting it with a right hand only makes it stronger. Allegedly, it is a demon that punishes people for gambling.

(Story from this book)

Istvánkirályfalva: Love Across Religions (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Istvánkirályfalva (Štefanová in Slovakian) is a municipality of about 400 people in western Slovakia, in a region that used to belong to Hungary before WWI. The name literally means "Village of King Stephen", referring to Hungary's first Christian king, St. Stephen (István).

Here is the story:

Legend says that Prince Vajk, the son of Chief Géza, liked to spend time in the village of Vajk (named after him), going on hunting expeditions along the Danube. But even more than hunting pheasants, he liked visiting the place because of the daughter of the keeper of a farm there. She was beautiful, dark-eyed, and they were in love. However, Prince Vajk was eventually baptised, because his father was preparing him to become the first Christian king of the new kingdom of Hungary. The change in religion ended the romance between the prince and the girl. He tried to convince her to convert too, but she chose to keep her pagan ways. Instead of anger, the prince parted from her in friendship, and gave her the village still bearing his own pagan name. Since his new Christian name was István, he moved over to a new place to found a new village, and named that one Istvánfalva.

(I really like this story because it doesn't end in punishment or tragedy, despite all the tensions that surrounded Hungary's conversion to Christianity)

(Source here)

Hévíz: The Greatest Power in the House (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Maroshévíz (colloquially sometimes referred to as Hévíz) is a municipality in Transylvania with about 7,500 inhabitants (about 20% of which is Hungarian-speaking). In the historical times when the legend takes place, this area was part of the Hungarian Kingdom.

King Mátyás is a historical person, he ruled Hungary between 1458-1490. He lives on in legend as a wise and just king who often traveled the kingdom in disguise, tricking greedy nobles and helping the poor.

Here is the story:

In the case of this story, Mátyás was not traveling in disguise. Visiting the village, he asked the mayor to find him lodgings for the night - in a place with someone who has greater power than him. The mayor considered the strange request. Who in the village could be more poweful than the king? Finally, he had an idea. He took King Mátyás to a small hut at the edge of the village. There was only a small straw matress to sleep on - and the family had a newborn baby. The baby kept crying all night, and the new parents ignored the king in their hurry to soothe the baby.

Mátyás did not sleep a wink, but he had the good humor to appreciate the mayor's decision. The baby, indeed, held all the power in the house. He rewarded the mayor, and gave enough money to the young parents for a new house and a comfortable life.

(Story collected in 1964, reference from the Catalog of Hungarian Historical Legends)

Galagonyás: Sowing Salt (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Galagonyás (Glogonj in Serbian) is a village in Serbia with about 3,000 inhabitants. Before WWI, when the stories were colected, this area was a part of Hungary. The name comes from glog/galagonya (hawthorn).

The story is a silly one:

The people of Galagonyás had a plot of land that was not being used. They asked the priest for advice. What should they plant? The priest suggested they should sow salt: it was expensive and therefore valuable, and they would do well to have their own crop. So the villagers purchased bags of salt and sowed the whole plot of land with it.

After a while, the plot of land turned green. The salt was sprouting! Or rather, nettles were growing in the field. Some of the village elders waded into the field and got stung on their bare legs by the nettle. They concluded they were going to have a good strong crop of salt. Some time later a few children decided to throw the hat of the mayor's son into the field. The villagers were not sure how to get it out without trampling the precious crops. Eventually the mayor landed on a plan: he traveled into the field on the back of an ox and fished out the hat. Then he declared that a guard had to watch the plot. In order for the guard to not trample anything he was carried high on a platform... by four other people.

In the end, even this clever precaution didn't help: the nettles were all eaten up by the guard's donkeys.

(Source here)

Fun fact: the story where someone doesn't want to trample crops so he has himself carried in by four other people is something that I heard from my grandfather too. It's one of those stories that make fun of other villages...

Fényeslitke: Women vs Invaders (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Image from here

This legend tells of the time of the Tatar invasions - which is the term we use for the Mongolian invasion of 1241, and other attacks during the times of the Ottoman Empire later on. The town the events took place is Fényeslitke, a small municiplaity of about 2,200 inhabitants in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, northeastern Hungary.

Legend says that at the time when the Tatars were invading, there were no men present in the village to defend it. A brave woman named Máté Klára, who was heavily pregnant, took it upon herself to organize the defense of the town. She gathered the women, and together they lined up all the beehives at the edge of town in a field. In additionl, all of them hid pots of red paprika under their aprons, and picked up the heaviest mangles and rolling pins they had. Thus armed, they went to fight the incoming army. 

Seeing all the women, the Tatars got off their horses and approached them, hoping for an easy win (and, according to the text, they were seduced by the women's, especially Klára's, good looks). When they got close, the women threw red paprika in their eyes (a very Hungarian move). Blinded, the soldiers ran around in the field, overturning the beehives and getting stung. The women used the mangles and rolling pins to beat down any survivors.

The village was saved, and Máté Klára gave birth to twin boys the next day.

(Legend collected in Ajak, from Votyku Imre in 1954. Found in this book.)

Ecsed: A Very Strong Woman (Small Town Legends A to Z)

This year my A to Z theme is Small Town Legends. I am exploring folklore from villages and small towns around Hungary, bringing you the most entertaining bits. You can plan your next visit around them!

Image from here

Ecsed or Nagyecsed is a town of about 6,000 people in Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg county, northeastern Hungary. In the local folklore there is a very memorable figure: that of the strong woman Csáky Julcsa.

Here is the story:

Csáky Julcsa lived around 1870; she was the daughter of a teacher. On her wedding day she ran away with her groom's best man Bába Szántó János, and lived with him for the rest of her life. He had the reputation of quite the strong and clever man (he spoke several languages) but Julcsa ruled the household anyway with an iron fist. She was quite the strong and large woman; allegedly, she easily lifted about 300 lbs of grain.

It happened once that Count Károlyi who lived nearby wanted to open up a road for his cattle so they would not have to walk through the village. He prepared to take part of everyone's plots of land along the way. Everyone was afraid of the count's power, and the 200 Austrian soldiers he mustered to take the land by force. Since Bába Szántó's land was also in the way, he went out to confront the soldiers, to show resistance. He was strong enough to yank the captain off his horse and throw him to the ground - but in the next minute the rest of the soldiers had him captured and tied up. A child who saw the whole thing ran to tell Julcsa.

Julcsa ran out after the soldiers with a big knife tucked into her boots. She stood in their way and yelled at them. She was so loud and so strong that no one dared stop her when she cut her husband free and marched him home. In the end, the cattle road was marked out in a way that it avoided their plot of land.

(Collected from Szűcs Lajos in 1954. Source in this book)