Hungarian mythology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hungarian mythology includes the myths, legends, folk tales, fairy tales and gods of the Hungarians. Many parts of it were thought to be lost. Only some or even no texts remained which can be classified as a myth, although Hungarian mythology was successfully recovered in the last hundred years. The most important sources are:
- Folklore. Many mythological persons remained in folk tales, pagan rituals were transformed to Christian ceremonies.
- Medieval chronicles, and similar works from Hungary.
- Writings about Hungarians by non-Hungarian authors (mostly before 850)
- Archeology helped to assemble the religion.
Hungarians converted to Christianity in the XI. century.
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[edit] The mythology in brief
The world is divided into three spheres: the first is the Upper World (Felső világ), the home of the gods; the second is the Middle World (Középső világ) where humans live, and the last is the underworld (Alsó világ). In the center of the world, a tall tree is standing: the World Tree/Tree of Life/Life Tree (Világfa). Its foliage is the Upper World. The Middle World is located at its trunk and the underworld is around its roots. In some stories, the tree has fruits: these are the golden apples.
[edit] Upper World
The gods and the good souls live in the Upper World. Gods have the same rank, although the most important figure of them is Isten (meaning 'God' in Hungarian). He controls the world, shapes the fate of humans, observes the Middle World from the sky, and sometimes gives warning by lightning (mennykő). Isten created the world with the help of Ördög ("the devil" Evil). Other gods include: Istenanya (Mother God), Hadúr (War Lord) and Boldogasszony (Blessed Woman).
The major celestial bodies, the Sun and the Moon), are also located in the Upper World. The sky was thought to be a big tent held up by the Tree of Life. There are several holes on it: those are the stars.
[edit] Middle World
The Middle World is shared among humans and many fictional creatures. The latter are often supernatural. There are ghosts of the forests and waters, who are ordered to scare humans. They have different names in different places. There are females, for example, the sellő (mermaid), which lives in waters and has a human torso with the tail of a fish. An old lady controls the winds: she is the Szélanya (Wind Mother). Sárkány (dragon) is a scaring beast: he is the enemy of many heroes in tales. The lidérc is a ghostly, mysterious creature with several different appearances, its works are always dark. The manós (elves) and the törpes (dwarfs) are foxy beings living in woods or under the ground. Óriáss (giants) live in the mountains. They have both good and bad qualities. The most favourite creatures are the tündérs, who are beautiful and young virgins or female angels. They aid humans, who sometimes can ask three wishes from them. Their opposites are the bábas, who are equated with catty, old witches.
[edit] Underworld
The Underworld is the place of bad souls (this includes evil spirits and the souls of dead people who were cruel and evil in their lives) and the home of Ördög. He is the creator of everything that is bad for humans: for example, the creator of the annoying animals (such as fleas, lice, and flies).
[edit] Religion
The old Hungarian religion was based in shamanism. Shamans were called táltos in Hungarian. Their souls were thought to be able to travel between the three spheres (révülés). Táltos' were doctors too, and they served well. They were selected by fate; their slight abnormalities at birth (neonatal teeth, caulbearer, etc.) were believed to be the sign of a divine order. The steps of their introduction:
- Climbing up on the "shaman ladder/shaman tree" symbolized the World Tree;
- Drenching the ghosts: drinking the blood of the sacrificed animal.
They had the ability to contact spirits by specific rituals and praying. Thus, they interpreted dreams, mediated between humans and spirits, cured and removed curses, and had an ability to find and bring back lost souls. They directed animal sacrifices and guessed the reason of an ancestor's anger.
After death, the human soul leaves the body. The body is buried by relatives on the other bank of a river, looking towards east. If the soul had been good, it gets to the Other World (Túlvilág), for eternal peace. If it had been bad, it must suffer in the underworld (Alsó Világ, Alvilág), where Ördög ("the devil") and numerous evil ghosts live.
[edit] Persons, creatures, gods
| Álmos (person) | Son of Ügyek and Emese. He was not a fictional person: he was born in c. 819. The ancestor of the Árpád house. Álmos ruled the Hungarians in Levedia and Etelköz. His name means "dreamy" as his birth was foretold in his mother's dream (see the legend of his birth at →Emese.) |
| Bába (creature) | According to the Hungarian traditions, it is a beastly old women, and has negative qualities. Although it had magical abilities, it was not a witch (→boszorkány). It was thought to live in fountains, and if young children went close to its place, it lugged them in. |
| Boldogasszony (goddess) | Her name means "Blessed Lady". She helped women while giving birth to their children. After Hungarians were Christianized, her figure became equivalent with Mary, the mother of Jesus. She is also related to the "Protector of Hungary" |
| Boszorkány (witch) | A hostile, harm-doing, supernatural old lady, the witch. She had an ability to transform, fly and curse. A boszorkány corrupted the animals, for example, busted the milk of the cows. For humans, she brought an abrupt illness. They "operated" in the night, or in the nightfall. |
| Bubus (ghost) | A small being that lives in caves. See →Mumus. |
| Csodaszarvas (animal) | The name translates to "Miracle Deer". Hungarian mythology says that →Magor, and his brother (Hunor) were chasing this deer across forests and bogs of →Meotisz for days. Finally, the Csodaszarvas disappeared, but the two brothers found the daughters of →Dula. Magor and one of Dula's daughters were thought to be the ancestors of the Hungarians (Magyars). |
| Dula (person) | Dula's name appears in the Legend of the Csodaszarvas. He is said to be a prince of the Alans. In fact, he probably was a kind of chief of the Volga Bulgarians. |
| Emese (person) | Wife of Ügyek, mother of →Álmos (meaning, "the one from/with the dream"). She was impregnated by a →turul bird, which appeared in a dream of hers, where she was told "a river will spring from your uterus, which will flow and spread to a new land". The táltos' explained the dream as she will give life to a son, who will be the ancestor of a great ruling family in a foreign land. |
| Fene (ghost) | The demon of illness. Today, a saying still stores its name: "A fene egye meg!", which literally means "Let it be eaten by the fene!", and is said when something not occurred in the way as one hoped. |
| Garabonciás (human) | A male figure who learned magic, unlike the →táltos', who had the ability by birth. He is able to create storms. Alternative names: barboncás, gyiák. Some alumni were thought to possess these abilities as late as the 19th century. |
| Hunor and Magor (human) | Twins, founders of the Huns and Magyars (Hungarians). |
| Turul (animal) | The bird of the origin myth of the Magyars (Hungarian people). |
| Griff (animal) | Also known as griffin in Western Europe, but without special features. In Hungarian mythology, it is similar to turul. |
| Sárkány (dragon) | Appearing in almost all folk tales, a creature not similar to Chinese dragon or dragon from West Europe. He is always man-shaped, can ride a horse, and has usually 7 heads, sometimes 3, 12 or 21 (relating to numbers in astronomy). Dragons usually symbolised human behaviour or characteristic, ie. when the hero was fighting with him, he was fighting to overcome his own bad behaviour, habit or characteristic. |
[edit] Remnants in folkore
[edit] Shamanistic remnants
Comparative methods can reveal, that some motifs of folktales, some fragments of songs or rhymes of folk customs preserved fragments of the old belief system. Some records narrate us about shaman-like figures directly. Shamanistic remnants in Hungarian folklore was researched among others by Diószegi Vilmos, based on ethnographic records in Hungary and comparative works with various shamanisms of some Siberian peoples.[1] Hoppál continued his work of studying Hungarian shamanistic belief remnants,[2] comparing shamanistic beliefs of Uralic language relatives of Hungarians[3] with those of several non-Uralic Siberian peoples as well.[4][5]
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- (Hungarian) Zoltán Pintér: Mitológiai kislexikon. Szalay Könyvkiadó és Kereskedőház Kft., 1996.
- Diószegi, Vilmos [1958] (1998). A sámánhit emlékei a magyar népi műveltségben, 1. reprint kiadás (in Hungarian), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 963 05 7542 6. The title means: “Remnants of shamanistic beliefs in Hungarian folklore”.
- Hajdú, Péter (1975). "A rokonság nyelvi háttere", in Hajdú, Péter: Uráli népek. Nyelvrokonaink kultúrája és hagyományai (in Hungarian). Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, 11–43. ISBN 963 13 0900 2. The title means: “Uralic peoples. Culture and traditions of our linguistic relatives”; the chapter means “Linguistical background of the relationship”.
- Hoppál, Mihály (1994). Sámánok, lelkek és jelképek. Budapest: Helikon Kiadó. ISBN 963 208 298 2.
- Hoppál, Mihály (2005). Sámánok Eurázsiában. (in Hungarian). Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó. ISBN 963-05-8295-3 2. The title means “Shamans in Eurasia”, the book is written in Hungarian, but it is published also in German, Estonian and Finnish. Site of publisher with short description on the book (in Hungarian)
- Hoppál, Mihály (1975). "Az uráli népek hiedelemvilága és a samanizmus", in Hajdú, Péter: Uráli népek / Nyelvrokonaink kultúrája és hagyományai (in Hungarian). Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, 211–233. ISBN 963 13 0900 2. The title means: “Uralic peoples / Culture and traditions of our linguistic relatives”; the chapter means “The belief system of Uralic peoples and the shamanism”.
