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.
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| 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.)
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I have never heard any such stories. I hope they put it back . And serves them right if the dead catch them
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