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)

Ják: The Devil Goes to Rome (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!

Ják is a municipality in Vas County, Western Hungary, with about 2,500 inhabitants. It lies fairly close to Szombathely, the Savaria of Roman times, and the Amber Road that facilitated trade between the Baltics and the Mediterranean for millennia. No wonder that there are Roman ruins scattered in the area - including the large broken columns that were known to locals as Devil Stones.

The story has dozens of variants, but here is the gist:

In Ják there was a potter who had a young son. The boy kept accidentally breaking the pottery until his father said "The Devil take you!" in anger. The Devil did show up to take the boy - but the father begged him until he promised to return in 20 years. In that time, the boy grew up and became a priest. When the Devil showed up to take him again, he was about to conduct mass in the church in Ják. Devil and young priest made a bet: if the Devil could bring a stone from Rome before mass was over, he could take the priest's soul.

The Devil then flew to Rome and was returning with the stone soon enough. The priest saw him from the window, turned around, and spoke the closing words really fast. Thus, the mass ended, and the Devil was so angry he threw the stone at the church. By divine intervention, the church was undamaged, and the stone broke in two, just as it is today (the Devil Stones are indeed two parts of the same column). Legend says one can even see the marks of the Devil's claws on them.

There is one variant that also mentions that the Devil's shoes were filled with sand/pebbles along the way. He either emptied the pebbles around Ják, or he flew to Egypt and emptied the sand there, creating the Sahara. There was even one storyteller who claimed an Egyptian person visited the town once, and confirmed the latter story.

Source here. Image from here (the column is now a WWI memorial)

Ják does have a beautiful church from the 13th century. Image from here.

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)

Delne: Two Dogs Make a Church (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!

Csíkdelne or Delne is a village in Transylvania with about 700 (mostly Hungarian-speaking székely) inhabitants. It has a lovely 15th century church dedicated to St. John. The other village involved in this legend is the neighboring Csíkcsicsó, with about 2500 people.

Here is the story:

Back in the old days multiple villages would share a church. Since Delne and Csicsó belonged to the same congregation, they were going to have to build one together - but they could not agree on where the church should be. In one village, or the other? Or between the two? Finally they decided to put it all up to luck.

They exchanged dogs. Delne sent a dog to Csicsó, and Csicsó sent another one to Delne. Then, on an appointed day, they released both dogs and declared that wherever they meet on their way back home should be the location of the new church.

However, the people of Delne had a clever idea: they treated the dog well and fed it a lot of delicious food. So when the dog was released it wasn't really in a hurry to return home. The other dog was hungry and eager to get back to Delne - so in the end the two dogs met on the edge of the village. This is why the regional church was built in Delne, and stands to this day.

(Story collected from Gál Ferenc in Csíksomlyó, in 1956. Source here)

Csíkménaság: Hoopoe Jesus (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!

Image from here

Csíkménaság is a village of about 600 people in Transylvania. Before WWI, this area was a part of Hungary, and the people living in the village are Hungarian-speaking székely people. The story itself, however, was collected in the neighboring Csíkszereda, as a joking anecdote.

Here it is:

A hoopoe moved into a hollow tree in the forest by the village. The people had never seen a bird like this before, and, not knowing what it was, named it Colorful Jesus. One night, a bunch of young men decided to try and catch Colorful Jesus. They went to the tree, but forgot to bring a ladder, so instead they stood on each other's shoulders. The one at the top reached into the hollow and caught the hoopoe. Cheerfully, he yelled:

"I have it! I caught Colorful Jesus!"

To which the guy at the bottom responded:

"Let me see!" - and jumped out of his place.

Predictably, the tower collapsed. Only the top guy remained up in the tree, with his arm stuck in the hollow. To help him out of his predicament, the others began to throw their axes at him, hoping to cut off his arm.

(Collected from Kelemen István in 1955. Source here)

(Note: this tale exists in several variations about several different villages around Hungary and Transylvania. In some versions the young men simply topple, while in others they succeed at cutting off the arm - after which the guy noted "lucky I didn't ruin my pants")

(Bonus note: apparently the hoopoe is known as "Colorful Jesus" after another common folk legend, in which it betrayed Jesus to the soldiers pursuing him)

Bágy: Walnut Body Armor (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!

Bágy (Bădeni) is a village in Hargita county, Romania, with about 200 inhabitants. Up until the 19th century there used to be a castle on the hill by the village, but its ruins have long been mined out for building materials. Yet, the castle still exists in legends. Here is one of them:

During a Tatar invasion in the 1640s, people fled from the neighboring villages up to the Bágy castle. However, the castle was besieged, and with that many refugees provisions were beginning to run low. Bágy and its area were known for walnut trees and fruit orchards. People used to spread out their harvest to dry in the attic of their houses.

It is said that there was a teacher from Bágy up at the castle who had a lot of children. When everyone began to starve he convinced the captain to let him out at night for food. He managed to sneak down into the village and up to the attic of his own house. He tied his shirt and pants at the ankles and wrists, and filled all his clothes with walnuts; he wanted to move fast so he didn't plan on carrying a bag. Once he was all stuffed up with walnuts, he started back up to the castle... but he was caught by a Tatar patrol. They attacked him, but when they hit him, all the walnuts made an eerie rattling sound - and the man did not go down. This made the Tatars think he was some sort of a supernatural creature. They started yelling "Djinn! Djinn!" And they ran away. The teacher got back to the castle safely with all the walnuts.

Legend says the Tatars were so scared of djinn guarding the village that they gave up the siege and left.

(Story from this book)

Ács: Zombie Goose Shenanigans (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!

Let's kick this series off with a fun one!

This story was collected from Ács, which is a town of about 7,000 people in Komárom-Esztergom county, northwestern Hungary, by the River Danube. In the olden days water mills lined the river.

The story goes that one day the millers in Lovad (a field by the river) caught a goose on the Danube and decided to cook it. They cut it up and put it in a pot to make some nice savory gulyás (take note, gulyás is originally a soup, not stew). However, the more they cooked it, the tougher the meat got. After waiting several hours for the meal, one of the millers checked the pot again - and was shocked to discover it had pieces of a fur coat in it instead of meat.

Frustrated by the whole thing, the millers dumped the soup from the pot into the Danube. But as soon as they did, the meat turned back into a goose, and it swam cheerfully down the waves of the river. The millers did not try to capture it again. They merely waved and yelled:

"Go on, damn you! Trick the millers in Aranyos down the river too!"

(Collected from Péntek József, a miller from Ács, in the 1920s. Source here)

"Aranyos" in this story refers to Csallóközaranyos (Zlatná na Ostrove) on the Slovakian side of the river.

Image from here

A to Z Theme Reveal: Small Town Legends!

Hello everyone! It's that time of the year again: people doing the A to Z Blogging Challenge are revealing their themes. This is my 15th year participating! Except for my first year, I have always had a theme, and it is always folklore and mythology related.

Here are the themes from past years:

No theme (2012)
Weird Princesses (2013)
Tales with Colors (2014)
Epics A to Z (2015)
Diversity A to Z (2016)
WTF - Weird Things in Folktales (2017)
WTF Hungary - Weird Things in Hungarian Folktales (2018)
Fruit Folktales (2019)
Folktales of Endangered Species (2020)
Tarot Tales (2021)
Gemstone Folklore (2022)
Body Folktales (2023)
Romance Tropes in Folklore (2024)
Women's Epics (2025)

This year, I am bringing another folklore-themed series for A to Z. My chosen theme (after much deliberation) is:

SMALL TOWN LEGENDS FROM HUNGARY

I have combed through a whole lot of historical legends and small town traditions, and picked the most entertaining, strange, memorable ones I could find to share with you. You will learn some hard-to-pronounce Hungarian village names, explore local folklore, and have something to remember about these places should you ever visit. Here is your inspiration to venture outside of Budapest!

There will be ferocious squirrels, village lads mistaking a hoopoe for Jesus Christ, an exploding dragon, a flying monk, and other wild adventures.

See you in April!

(This is a map of small villages [under 1000 inhabitants], tiny villages [under 500], and dwarf villages [under 200] in Hungary, from here.)

Who else is participating?

Leave your links in the comments so I can visit!

Reading list for Hero Team-Up Legends

I had the honor to participate in the Taking the Tradition On series online. I chose "Bands of Heroes" as my topic, since I have been very passionate about these legend cycles for a long time. You can watch the talk on YouTube. I promised Amy and the audience that I would compile a reading list of all the epics and sources I mentioned. So, here it is!

Nart Sagas

John Colarusso - Tamirlan Salbiev (ed.): Tales ​of the Narts: Ancient Myths and Legends of the Ossetians (Princeton University Press, 2016)

John Colarusso (ed.): Nart ​Sagas from the Caucasus: Myths and Legends from the Circassians, Abazas, Abkhaz, and Ubykhs (Princeton University Press, 2016)

Dietrich Cycle

Ian Cumpstey: The Saga of Didrik of Bern (Skadi Press, 2017)

Edward R. Haymes: The Saga of Thidrek (Garland Publishing, 1988)

Wilhelm Wagner: Great Norse, Celtic and Teutonic Legends (2004) 

Katherine M. Buck: The Wayland-Dietrich Saga (1924) 

Lewis Spence: Hero Tales & Legends of the Rhine (1915) 

Donald Mackenzie: Teutonic Myth and Legend (1934) 

Wilhelm Wagner: Epics and Romances of the Middle Ages (1884) 

Henry Weber: Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (1814) 

Comtesse von Günther: Tales and Legends of the Tyrol (1874) 

F.E. Sandbach: The Heroic Saga-Cycle of Dietrich of Bern (1906)

Charlemagne Cycle

Thomas Bulfinch: Legends of Charlemagne (1866)

Luigi Pulci: Morgante: The Epic Adventures of Orlando and His Giant Friend Morgante (Indiana University Press, 1998)

Ludovico Ariosto: Orlando Furioso (Oxford, 1999)

Glyn Burgess: The Song of Roland (Penguin, 2015)

Robert Linker: The Misfortunes of Ogier the Dane (John F. Blair, 1964)

Water Margin

Shi Nai'an: The Water Margin: Outlaws of the Marsh (Tuttle, 2010)

S. L. Huang: The Water Outlaws (Tor Books, 2023)

Romance of Antar

Terrick Hamilton: Antar, a Bedouin Romance (1819)

Princess Fatima

Melanie Magidow: The Tale of Princess Fatima, Warrior Woman (Penguin, 2021)

Attila the Hun

Gárdonyi Géza: Slave of the Huns (Corvina, 2000)

Jómsviking Saga

Lee M. Hollander: The Saga of the Jómsvíkings (University of Texas Press, 1989)

Gulaim and her warrior maidens

David Andresen: Gulaim, Warrior Maiden of Sarkop (Kindle, 2012)

(Of course, there are other hero tale cycles, like King Arthur, the Argonauts, Robin Hood, or the Fianna, but those have a whole lot of sources easily available so I'm skipping them for now)