# Local Legends

The legends of the Mongol invasion and Turkish occupation consist usually of one element and for this reason alone exhibit a close relationship with one of the large groups of historical legends, the local legends (helyi monda). Numerous versions of these are known. The most frequent are legends explaining the foundation of a place, legends of treasure, legends about the mountains, hills, waters, legends about someone turning into a stone, etc. Most of them coincide in many respects with the historical legends, and furthermore the types mentioned are frequently attached to a person or historical figure. According to one such a legend, a man was obliged either to pay a piece of gold to the landlord or to hoe for him for three days in his vineyard. King Matthias, as he passed through that place, also tackled the hoeing in company with a peasant mate. Unseen by him, the king threw a gold piece in front of his mate, but the latter would not leave until the king also threw a piece in front of himself. The king then sent the bailiffs for the landlord, who tried to flee but fell into the Danube with his carriage {587.} and they caught him only at the ferry, which was called by the name “Vörösmarti-ferry” even after.

The Hungarians have rich traditions regarding King Matthias, the Renaissance ruler of the 15th century. According to the legends he himself came from a peasant background, and he brings to heel great lords, oppressing nobles, in some cases the village magistrates (the representatives of the wealthier peasantry), in order to improve the lot of the poor peasants. Some of the legends about King Matthias were later transferred to Lajos Kossuth or even to other heroes whom the people felt to be their own.

The figure of King Matthias plays a role not only in traditions of Hungarian folk poetry but also in those of the Ukrainians, Croats, Slovenes, Czechs, and Slovaks. We can say that among the peoples of East Europe the figure of Matthias is a symbolic hero much like Nasreddin Hodja in the Near East, or the similar hero of Russian folk poetry, Ilya Muromets, or even Robin Hood.

Few well formulated legends in Hungarian folk poetry recall Prince Ferenc Rákóczi, leader of the anti-Habsburg War of Liberation. Only fragments mentioning Rákóczi as a liberating hero have survived, yet his figure lives even today in Ukrainian and Slovak traditions. Formerly, on the basis of existing knowledge, our opinion was that the memory of Rákóczi as a liberating hero was not as alive in the mind of the Hungarian people as the figure of King Matthias or Kossuth. However, after the meagre results of earlier collecting, Imre Ferenczi amassed a whole volume of material testifying that the Rákóczi War of Liberation, and especially the figure of Ferenc Rákóczi, is very much alive in oral tradition, as historical legends not infrequently are mixed with legends on belief.

One of the most popular heroes of Hungarian legend is the leader of the 1848–49 War of Independence Lajos Kossuth. He often appears in folksongs also (cf. p. 489). Forms of costume, hats, even beards were designated with his name, which also appeared frequently in idioms and proverbs. In the myths the people endowed Kossuth with all those characteristics and deeds possessed by his predecessors, including Matthias. Thus Matthias myths often appear with Kossuth’s name, as in the following myth, recorded in Debrecen (MNK 921 X*):

Once upon a time Kossuth gathered the lords around him and right there on the spot he asked them:

“Who deserves the juice of the grape?”

The lords, all of them, answered that it is the one who owns the land.

“Well then, lords, let us get hoeing!”

So they started on it. Lajos Kossuth hoed up in front, not just the ordinary way, but uphill. A little time passed, and he then allowed them a little rest and asked:

“Who deserves the juice of the grape?”

To this the lords again replied that it is the one who owns the land.

“Well, lords, let us go and hoe some more!”

So they started up again, and the lords were really sweating at it.

Kossuth asked again:

{588.} “Who deserves the juice of the grape?”

“Both the one to whom the land belongs, and the one who sweats on it.”

But even this was not enough for Kossuth, so he again said:

“Well, lords, let’s get hoeing!”

They hoed for a good while, then Kossuth asked again:

“Who deserves the juice of the grape?”

And to this all the lords answered, he who hoes it, and it is a good thing that a little is left for those who just dangle their legs.

The Kossuth legends are in many cases just narratives; their form is not mature, but still they show that the process of becoming a legendary figure has already started around the figure of Kossuth.

The cycle of outlaw legends (betyár monda) forms a separate world of its own. (Cf.: outlaw songs, outlaw ballads, pp. 494, 539). The story told about Sándor Rózsa by a Great Plain peasant well represents the way of thinking of these stories:

Don’t you, for any sake, think that Sándor Rózsa was a robber or a brigand! He was a great man who loved justice! But in those days he handed out justice the only way possible. He took money from the rich and gave it to the paupers. Once a poor cotter’s house burned down, and so Sándor Rózsa gave him money to build it up. And he didn’t kill the rich either; yes indeed, he never got mixed up in murder. Other outlaws killed and robbed, and the Austrian lords blamed it all on Sándor Rózsa, because they hated Sándor very much. It is true that he joined Kossuth’s army together with other outcast highwaymen, and where the band of Sándor Rózsa fought, they were sure to win. Bullets didn’t harm Sándor, he was always in front of the troops. Gun in his hand, carbine on his shoulder, in linen shirt and white trousers, oh, what a handsome young man he was.

So goes the remembrance. People looked upon outlaws as fighters for liberty who seized the excess money from the hands of the rich and handed it over to the penniless.

A significant part of the Hungarian historical legends not only records events but also selects among them. It primarily rewards those who really defended the poor, who fought for the freedom of the entire nation. Thus these legends not only testify to a historical sense of value but also that this type of folk poetry came from the poor peasants.