Folktales, legends, sagas, myths, and fables are part of the earliest and most delightful evidence of human creative genius. They grew out of the typical experiences of our ancestors, and their specific content varies from one culture to another, revealing a great deal about the history, traditions, heritage, and quality of life of a people. In addition, oral traditions include other literary manifestations like songs, anecdotes, proverbs, beliefs, and folk wisdom.
Hungarian or Magyar oral traditions are rich and varied. Thy reflect the Magyars' long and turbulent history, in present-day Hungary as well as in their earlier homelands. For the last three to four millennia, these homelands were situated in the territory on each side of the Ural Mountains, stretching from the frigid northern regions of European Russia to the pleasant southern lands along the Caspian and Black seas, and the Caucasus Mountains.
The events and beliefs contributing to the Magyar oral and written traditions are rooted in the epoch before the ninth-century Magyar conquest of the Carpathian Basin, or historic Hungary. With the coming of Christianity in the late tenth and early eleventh centuries, all pagan traditions and customs became targets for Christianization. This antipagan campaign was particularly strong during the first two centuries of the spread of Christianity, because champions of the new faith and civilization still felt unsure of themselves. Yet, as we have learned from recently unearthed trial documents, elements of traditional Magyar shamanism were practiced on a large scale as late as the middle of the thirteenth century. Moreover, traces of these pre-Christian beliefs survived beyond that period, and many became part of the nation's epic treasures.
Some of these religious beliefs and rituals were unwittingly incorporated into medieval royal decrees as well as into the works of Hungarian royal court chroniclers of the period. The Christian chroniclers spoke disdainfully about the "lowly oral traditions" surviving among the common folk. Yet these same chroniclers contributed to the preservation of some of these traditions by writing about them in detail. However, other traditions were preserved only in unwritten forms passed on from one generation to the next.
Storytellers expanded or subtracted material from tales and even acted out parts or sang them, to hold the attention of their audience. Experiencing their new homeland, the Magyars later augmented and enriched the ancient oral traditions. In the millennium following the ninth-century conquest, the Carpathian Basin became a battleground of empires representing the world, and the might of the Orient and the Occident.
Folktales, one of the most important branches of Hungarian prose, have preserved some old Magyar folk traditions. All share the ability to make the "impossible" and the "incredible" appear natural. In other words - to quote one of the best current works on this question - "upon the lips of the common folk, the miraculous becomes a natural component of the story," and these "miraculous segments are narrated without any special tonal emphasis upon the wondrous."
The most common Hungarian folktales are fairy tales, comprising about half of the prose in this category. The other half is divided into such categories as legendary tales (legendamesek),
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