# Songs of Seasonal Workers

The seasonal workers (summás) (cf. pp. 82–84) spent half of the year far from their place of residence. On Sundays, in their free time, there was plenty of time for singing. Thus a relatively rich and typical group of folksongs have survived. These are mostly the new type of folksongs, which, along with the soldiers’ songs of the world wars, are the most lively offshoots of Hungarian folksong.

The seasonal workers sang about every episode of their life, from recruiting to returning home, so accordingly almost their entire life and work can be put together from their songs. However, the central question of these songs is mean treatment and bad food:

In the courtyard of the bailiff stands a tree,
Under it are labourers in groups of three.
Mister Bailiff shouts at season labourers:
“Get a move on, God’s sakes and our Saviour’s!”
{507.} “May God bless you, Mister Bailiff, evermore!
Of your bacon don’t allot us any more.
Tuck it in or give it to your rabid curs,
But not to the six month contract labourers!”
Bélapátfalva (former Borsod County)

There was often trouble not only with the food but with lodgings as well, because the seasonal workers had to take shelter in the cattle barn, sheep-pen, or some kind of barracks:

Through the barn door’s chinks the breezes
Keep a-blowin’ when it freezes.
Chilly breezes blow and murmur:
Who shall free the season worker?
Mezőkövesd (former Borsod County)

In general, seasonal workers’ songs (summásdal) were not just means of amusement and entertainment, but were also weapons in the fight against the employer because the poetic form, the song, assured a certain opportunity to recount grievances. The tone of the songs becomes especially harsh when the contract is nearing its end:

Standing ’fore the bailiff man’s house is a tree,
Hanged upon it Mister Bailiff oughta be!
For to see him swingin’ it’s my only hope:
And to put around his neck the halter-rope.
Sarkad (Bihar County)

In general, songs of seasonal workers appear in those areas from which at one time seasonal workers came in large numbers, so that the songs are local in character. Most come from Heves and Borsod Counties, fewer from the southern Great Plain and Transdanubia.