| The Folk Tales | CONTENTS | Humorous Tales |
The wondrous miracle provides the meaning, ultimate principle, and at the same time the atmosphere of the fairy tales (tündérmese), the most important group of Hungarian folk tales. These stories are inevitable and habitual, the best known genre of the corpus of Hungarian peasant tales, and makes up approximately fifty per cent of the entire Hungarian treasury of tales. In order to provide a base for further explorations of the tale, we shall now tell a short fairy tale. It is from the county of Háromszék and is known in Hungarian ethnological literature by the title Rózsa vitéz (Rózsa the Brave) (AaTh 401). It has been recorded in several parts of the Hungarian linguistic region, but this type of tale also occurs in Sicily, Germany, and in other parts of Europe as well. This tale also provides an illustration of how an internationally known tale can become Hungarian, that not only the motif and type is of importance, but also the specific national versions.
A king had three sons. An enemy attacked the country and occupied it. The king fell. The princes were good hunters, and the three, with three hunting hounds, made off from the danger. They walked for a long time, not even knowing where; finally, on the highest snowy mountain top, where the road branched off, they decided to part from each other and try their fortunes separately.
They agreed to put up a long pole with a white kerchief on it on top of the mountain on the summit of a tall tree; each one of them was to be on the lookout for that, and if he saw blood on it, he was to get going after his brothers, because then one of them would be in danger.
The youngest, who was called Rózsa, started off to the left, the other two to the right. Rózsa, when he had passed well into the seventh snowy mountain, saw a beautiful castle and turned in as a tired traveller to sleep there. He settled in a house.
In the evening the gate of the castle opened with much clatter, and seven huge {555.} giants walked into the yard and from there to the house! They were as big, every one of them, as a big tower.
Rózsa in his fright scurried under the bed; but one of the giants, just as soon as they entered, said: Yech! What Adam stink! They looked for Rózsa, caught him, chopped him up like a stalk, and cast him out of the window.
In the morning the giants left again to make their living. A snake with the head of a beautiful girl crawled out of the bush and gathered every little piece of Rózsa’s body and put it nicely together, saying: this goes here, this goes there. She rubbed mending herb on it and brought living-dead water from a nearby spring and sprinkled it with that. All of a sudden Rózsa jumped to his feet and became seven times more handsome and stronger than before. Then the snake with the girl’s head came out of that snake skin to the armpits.
Rózsa, since he had become so strong, became confident and in the evening did not hide under the bed but waited for the giants at the gate. Those arrived and sent their servants ahead to grind up that wretched Adam left-over, but they could not handle him, and the giants themselves had to chop him up.
Next morning the snake with the girl’s head brought him to life again, and she herself climbed out of the snake skin to the waist. Rózsa became twice as strong now as each giant was separately.
That night the seven giants killed him again; he, however, killed all the servants and wounded many of the giants.
In the morning, the giants left by themselves. The snake again resurrected Rózsa. Rózsa became stronger than the seven giants together and so handsome that it was possible to gaze at the sun, but not at him. The girl came completely out of the snake skin. What a dear and beautiful creature she was!
Then they told each other their affairs and lives. The girl said that she too was of royal blood; that her father had been killed by the giants, who occupied her country; that the castle used to be her father’s; that the giants go out every day to extort from the people; that she, however, became a snake with the help of a good magician-nurse, and swore that she would stay in the snake skin until she could take revenge on the giants; but that as he can now well see, though the snake skin has split off her, she can now achieve her goal because Rózsa is strong enough to take care of all seven giants. “Now Rózsa, destroy them! I won’t be ungrateful.”
Rózsa answered the following: “Dear and beautiful girl! You gave me back my life three times, wouldn’t I owe it to you to pay you back for that? My life is yours and so am I!”
They swore everlasting love to each other, and the day passed very pleasantly until evening.
When the giants arrived in the evening, Rózsa spoke to them as follows: “Didn’t you, all you scoundrels, kill me three times? Now I say that today none of you will step across this gate, do you believe it? Let us fight!” They fell upon him with great anger, but it did not happen as it had twice before; he killed them all in order, then he took in his hand the keys from their pocket, rummaged every nook and cranny of the castle, and saw that they need not fear because the castle was theirs. They spent the night quietly. In the morning Rózsa looked over the snowy mountain top toward the white kerchief and saw that it is soaked in blood. He saddened and told his sweetheart: “I must go to seek out my brothers, because they are in trouble; wait for me, because if I find them, I am sure to return!” With that he got ready, took along his sword, arrow, mending herb, and living-dead water, and went exactly to the place where they had parted. He shot a rabbit on {556.} his way. When he arrived there, he started off on the road his brothers had taken. He found a little house, and a tree in front of it; he settled there, and there were the two hunting dogs of his brothers tied up with chains! He untied them, built a fire, and began to roast the rabbit, and just as he was about to roast it, he heard somebody shouting on the tree, shivering: “Oh, how cold I am!” He called out and said: “If you are cold, come down, warm yourself.” The voice said: “Yes, but I am afraid of the dogs!”–“Don’t be afraid, they don’t attack honest people!”–“I believe it,” says the one on the tree, “but still, throw this hair among them, let them smell it first, so that they can recognize me from it!” Rózsa took the hair and threw it in the fire. An old witch descended from the tree and went inside to warm up, she also put a warty toad on a spit and began to roast it. As she roasted it, she started to tell Rózsa: “that is mine, this is yours!” With that she threw some toward him. Rózsa could’t stand it, pulled out his sword, and struck toward the witch, but the sword became a log of wood!
The witch fell on Rózsa, to kill him. She said: “Now this is the end of you! I already killed your brothers to revenge your killing my seven giant sons!” Rózsa set the dogs on her and they held her down long enough to make her blood run; the blood dripped on the log of wood, which turned it back into a sword; Rózsa grabbed it and cut off the witch’s left arm with it; then the witch showed him where she buried his brothers; Rózsa smote once more with the sword, and with that he dispatched the witch to Pluto.
Rózsa dug up his brothers, put together their chopped-up bodies, mended them with mending herb, and resurrected them with living-dead water. When they opened their eyes and saw Rózsa, both said: “Oh, how long I have slept!” “Yes, a long time,” said Rózsa, “and if I hadn’t come here you would have slept even longer!” They told him that soon after they parted they heard that the enemy had left the country, and as they returned they decided that one of them, the older one, should go home and govern the country, the other go to find Rózsa. They turned into the little house, and there the old witch handled them in the same way as she wanted to handle Rózsa.
Rózsa also told them what he had gone through and said: “You, my older brother, go home, take our father’s place! And you, my other brother, come with me and let the two of us govern that big country where the giants ruled!”
Here they parted and all of them went to their places. Rózsa found his beautiful sweetheart, who was grieving after him so much that she had nearly pined away, but when Rózsa arrived she became very happy. They took over the country they had saved from the giants, and Rózsa and his sweetheart married, put on a great wedding, and had many guests who danced much with the bride. And if they’re not dead yet, they are still alive to this day. Round them up in an eggshell, and may they be your guests tomorrow!
Though this tale is the shortest among its group, still it contains fully every characteristic of the genre: the wondrous miracle, mysterious assistance, magical transformation, the kerchief that signals danger, giants, witches, the motifs of the resurrection of the dead. At the same time, its style has about it epic authenticity, the confident faith of the narrator. In the peasant community, fairy tales had a complete epic credibility; it is a later phenomenon which identifies the tale with the made-up story. We can often see how much, during the story telling, the listeners and narrator identify with the heroes of the story, and even {557.} people who already have heard it a great many times continue to worry and rejoice with the other listeners. In no other community can we find identification to such a degree as among the story-telling peasantry.
While the previous tale appears in a number of places in Europe, the following, which is known in Hungarian folk tale literature as The Tree That Reached Up To the Sky, contains elements of shamanism.
Once upon a time, beyond the beyond, there was a king and he had a beautiful wife. But she was so beautiful that... that in the whole wide world nobody had such a beautiful wife as he. And they had a very beautiful little daughter, and the little daughter was just as beautiful as her mother. They rejoiced much in her and loved her.
When the little girl came of school age her mother sickened and died. The king grieved so much that he didn’t eat or sleep night or day and just cried for his wife. But the little girl always consoled him:
“You know very well, we are not born at once and neither do we die at once. One must be resigned to God’s will.”
The king thought, “My God, how young this little girl is! I should not cry so much, I can’t resurrect her that way.” At once he said:
“My sweet daughter, I declare that I will never remarry, because I can never find the like of your mother, there is none like her. I would rather stay as I am.”
“My father, don’t stay this way. I will not be here forever, and then what will you do alone?”
“I don’t care, my daughter, but I will not marry again. I would rather stay like this, a widower.”
“Then, my father, I will not marry either. I will not leave you in this great sorrow.”
This king had a flowering garden, and it may be that in the whole world there wasn’t another garden as beautiful as that. All the flowers that grow in the world were present in that garden, fragrant flowers, one more beautiful than the other. And in the middle of the garden there was a tree so tall that its top reached up to the sky. Well, one day the king’s daughter went for a walk in the garden. During her walk she was thinking:
“My God, why indeed should I get married, when I could never again find a garden the equal of the one I have.”
Just as she said this, a wind began to blow so hard, she thought the tree would pull away from its core. This wind picked up the girl and took her to the top of that big tree. But nobody had seen the girl disappearing. Well, her father waited, time passed, still he was waiting for her to return. She didn’t come. Right away he sends his cook, but she doesn’t return. She searched every nook and cranny of the flower garden, but couldn’t find her anywhere. He ordered the soldiers to the city to search for her from street to street. They couldn’t find her anywhere. The king didn’t know what to do. He put out an announcement that his daughter had got lost, and if anybody knows about her, to report where she is. But all this was in vain, so now he cried for his daughter until his heart almost broke. He gathered his advisors: what is he to do? How to find out where his daughter is? Nobody had a guess where that girl could be.
{558.} When one night the king lay down and fell into slumber, he saw in his dream how on that Saturday, when that big wind blew, the whirlwind had picked up the girl and carried her to the top of the big tree. She is in the castle of a twenty-four headed dragon. Well, he saw this dream, and when he woke up he said, “My God, this is a very telling dream!”
The king announced that if there can be found a brave man who will bring his daughter down from the tree top, he will give him his daughter, half his kingdom, and after his death, his entire realm. To be sure, when this was announced there came princes, barons, and handsome, finely built, brave lads, straight as beautiful, lit candles. They passed through the door one after the other, volunteering that they will bring her down. But there wasn’t one among them who could get up on that tree. They went up a way, then fell back down, some breaking their arms, others their necks. Oh, the king was always sad, crying all the time, because nobody could go up, he will never see his daughter again.
The king had a young swineherd, a herdsman caring for the pigs. He was a little boy fifteen or sixteen years old. His name was Johnny. He went daily to the forest with the pigs. Well, as he is going out one day with the pigs–Johnny too was very sad, he too was sorry for the princess–suddenly he stops by a tree and leans on his stick. There as he was thinking he says:
“Oh, the dear and good hearted princess is lost, we shall never see her again.”
Suddenly a little pig goes up to him and says:
“Don’t grieve Johnny, because you will bring down the princess.”
Johnny looks at the little pig because he had not heard him talk before.
“What are you saying, you little pig, talking such folly?”
“I am not talking folly, Johnny. You just listen to me. Go to the king, present yourself, tell him you will bring her down and that then he must give his daughter to you for a wife. Only before starting out after the maiden you tell the king: ‘Your Majesty, I will bring her down, but first you must have a cow-buffalo slaughtered and have seven pairs of sandals and seven suits of clothes made out of her skin for me. By the time they wear out, I will be back.”’
“Johnny, I will also tell you that when you get up to the middle of the tree you will reach a slender limb, but that limb is so long that it is the length of a world and a half, but slender. You must slide along it, go out to the end of it, and if you are able to get through it, then you can surely get up to the tree top. Only be careful not to fall down, because if you fall from there even your bones will be smashed to smithereens. There you will arrive at the leaves of the tree, for until then the tree has no leaves. It has leaves so big that a country can fit onto each one separately. Once you see yourself up there, you can trust that you will get the princess. You will be able to find her.”
Now then, he thanked the little pig for the good advice and the same evening presented himself to the king. He knelt before the king and greeted him nicely.
“Well,” asks the king, “what is the matter, my son?”
“Your Majesty, I hope I am not offending you, but I would have a request to make of you.”
“What? Tell me Johnny, go ahead, tell me!”
“Your Majesty, if you will permit me, I will go up after the princess to the top of the tree and bring her down.”
{559.} The king had never laughed since his wife had died. But now he burst out laughing.
“Oh, you Johnny, Johnny, what ideas you do bring before me!”
“The idea that I will go up and bring her down, if only you tell me that you permit it.”
“My God,” he says, “such fine, well built, brave men could not go up, and such a child as you want to bring her down?”
“That is my problem. You just promise that you will permit it.”
“Well, my son, if you want to go so badly I permit it, but you’d better die on the spot should you fall back, because if you don’t, I will kill you on the spot for pressing me like this.”
“Well, Your Majesty, if you permit it, have a cow- buffalo butchered, have seven sandals and seven suits of clothes made for me from her skin, and I will return in that yet, bring down the princess, for God will help me.”
Well, the king had the cow-buffalo slaughtered, had seven suits of clothes and seven sandals made for him.
Well, the clothes were ready, Johnny dressed in one suit and packed up the rest and took them with him. The king packed food for him for the road, so he would have something to eat and drink.
“Well, Johnny, God help you, and I hope you return with my daughter, because then you will be fortunate.”
So many gathered together for the marvel of his going up that there were terribly many, to see how he could go up. Johnny always carried a hatchet with him, so he took that along, and when he arrived at the bottom of the tree, he cut the hatchet into the tree and climbed like a cat, but took farewell of the world on the ground. Then he pulled out the hatchet and cut into the tree again, further up. The trunk of the tree was very long, so it was late by the time he reached the branches. That was why it was so hard to go up. Up there he kept taking out the hatchet and cutting in with it higher and higher until he reached the branch of the tree. Then one minute here, two minutes there and Johnny was lost among the branches and they could not see him from the ground. Johnny went on up and up and up until he reached the long branch mentioned by the little pig.
“Aha,” he says, “the little pig was not speaking in vain, it is difficult to slip through here.”
The branch was very slender. He couldn’t go on foot, but laid belly down and crawled like a caterpillar. When he reached the leaves, he stood up, closed his eyes and said:
“Goodbye world,” and jumped onto a leaf like a frog.
Well, then he rested a little, because he was very tired, and when he had rested himself, he looked around carefully and said:
“By God, the world here is just like home. They are ploughing and sowing.”
There were cities where some houses were even twenty stories high. He walked on and on but didn’t meet anybody, didn’t see either man or beast, although the city was very beautiful. Well, as he was walking in front of the big, many-storied houses, he kept a lookout this way and that, to the right and the left. He heard a voice:
“Where are you going hereabouts?”
This was spoken from the upper storey, but the princess spoke to him.
{560.} “I am looking for you, princess.”
The princess motions like this:
“Psst, quietly,” she says, “so my husband won’t hear, or he will promptly kill you. Come on up to the top floor.”
She came out for him and took him inside.
“Come on in, because my husband is not at home. I would like to talk to you before he returns.”
“Oh, Johnny, do you know that my husband is the twenty-four headed dragon? If he should learn that you have come to take me back, it would be the certain end of you. What is my father doing?”
“God knows what he is doing,” he says. “He is crying all the time. His eyes are never dry from his tears.”
He told her quickly how many princes had tried to go up after her, but that nobody could get up there. The king said that he will give her as a wife to the one who can bring her down. So he says:
“I tried it too and God helped me get here, but I will not go down without you for anything, until I can carry you down.”
“Please, Johnny, be quiet so the dragon won’t hear this.”
She promptly gave him food and drink so he could eat and drink.
“I tell you now, Johnny, that I will hide you so my husband won’t find you when he comes home,” she says. So she hid him under a tub. “First I will tell him who came here, because he is mighty nervous. Then I’ll hide you.”
At once, the dragon came. But when he was still seven miles away, he came with such force that he cast his mace ahead and opens the gate asunder.
“See, Johnny, he is coming. He already has cast his mace ahead.”
At once he comes in and bellows:
“What kind of a stranger do I smell in here? Who was here?” says he. “I could feel it on the way already that a stranger was here.”
“Oh,” she says, “don’t be angry, dear husband. Our swineherd has come up from the fields in order to find me. He is very sorry about no longer seeing me and has come to continue to serve me here.”
“Well, where is he? Bring him forth.”
“I would bring him forth, only please don’t hurt the poor thing, since he came to serve me here further.”
She lifted the tub and let Johnny out. The dragon stood in front of him, looked him over, then put him in his mouth, swallowed him, and spit him out. He did this to him three times.
“Well,” he says, “if you have come to serve your queen, I shall see if what you eat is a total loss or just half. Well, sit down and eat with me!”
So Johnny ate and drank. When the dragon had also eaten, they went out to the stable. He showed him his horses, his cattle, and what work he had to do.
But among the other horses, lying in the innermost corner, there was a colt. The colt was so skinny that he could not get up and could not part his legs in his great skinniness. The other horses, on the other hand, were so fat they were rotting in their great fatness. The dragon said to Johnny:
“You know, Johnny, you water, feed, and clean these. But you needn’t clean that colt lying there, nor should you give it the same things as the others. Instead, when he asks for hay, give him oats, and when he asks for oats, give him water, but never give him what he asks for.”
So he showed him everything. Johnny stayed in the stable, and he went inside.
{561.} So this happened today, that tomorrow. The young man sat there for a month and behaved himself very well. He did what the dragon told him to do, and he was by now so well trusted that he need not tell him anything. He did everything as íf he had been born there. That pleased the dragon a lot. He did everything.
One day the dragon went hunting, and as Johnny was feeding in the stable, he stopped once by the back of the skinny colt.
“You poor colt, why are you so skinny? Can’t you get up from here, you poor thing?”
Suddenly the colt begins to speak:
“Johnny, I see you have a kind heart, but there is no time to talk now. I’ll tell you more some other time.”
There was no time because the dragon was coming home.
Well, the dragon looked over everything and found all in order. He liked Johnny, who ate at his table. Next day the dragon went away again, and Johnny also went out to the stable and took care of the cattle. Then the colt started to speak again.
“Johnny, I see that you are a kind-hearted young man, and I know why you came here, but to carry the princess back from here is very hard. But if you listen to me,” he says, “you will be lucky. Look here, Johnny, tomorrow is Sunday. Now you go in and tell the princess that by using guile, by questioning him with sweet words, she must find out where he keeps his power. Look here, she should question him. He won’t want to tell, she will have to caress him, but she is to get it out of him somehow and then you tell it to me!”
And so that is what happened. Johnny went in and told the queen.
“Princess, Your Majesty, I am telling you, find out from your husband where he keeps his power. Queen, Your Majesty, I tell you, if you ever want to see your father again, question him about where he keeps his power.”
“Oh, Johnny, that will be hard to question him about, because he won’t tell,” she says. But with some sweet, guiling talk she will get it out of him.
So suddenly the dragon is coming and throws his mace so that the gate falls in two halves. Seven-foot flames come out of his throat as he comes. She gives him supper and they eat and drink. Next day he is about to leave again. His wife says to the dragon:
“My sweetheart, don’t go hunting again today, rest instead at home. I am always by myself. I am very tired of this. I wish you would just spend a day sitting at home with me.”
She leaned against him and began to caress and fondle him. Well, the dragon was mighty happy. He thought she loved him, although she loved him like manure. But she had no other choice.
“Well,” she says, “my dear husband, if you are just to me, don’t deny me if I ask you something.”
“What, my dear wife? What do you want from me?”
“I dont’t want anything else,” she says, “only tell me where you keep your power?”
“Oh, my dear wife, why do you want to know this from me? We have never talked about this. And nobody but I know where my power is.”
“Can’t you tell me? Am I not your wife?”
“Well, I won’t tell you. I will tell you everything, but I will not tell you this.”
{562.} “Then you don’t really love me, that is why you won’t tell. Because if you loved me better, then you would not deny me.” And so the woman began to cry. And then her husband felt sorry for her:
“Oh, don’t cry my sweetheart,” he says.
“How could I help crying, my sweetheart, when you just admitted that you don’t really love me.”
“If you loved me, then you would tell me.”
“Look here, my sweet wife, this is a great secret. And nobody must know it.”
“I always heard that once a woman is married to a man, then there must be one heart and one soul, so why do you deny me?”
“Well, listen here, my dear wife, but nobody else is to learn this!”
“Of course not! What kind of talk is this?”
“Well, I’ll tell you. My power is there in the forest, where there is a silver bear, and here and thereabouts is a stream, and every noon to this stream he comes for a drink of water. If somebody should shoot that bear and split his head in two, he would find there a wild boar. The boar would then jump out of it, and if someone should shoot that wild boar and split his head in two, a rabbit would jump out of it. If somebody should shoot that rabbit and split his head in two, a box would jump out of it. If somebody should break that box with two stories, he would find nine wasps in that, and that is my power. If they destroy these wasps, I will not have as much power as a sick fly. This is why it is a great secret, and why nobody should know where I keep my power.”
“Well,” said his wife to him, and kissed him, “oh, my sweetheart, you didn’t want to tell, although there is no man born on this earth to whom I would betray you. Now, my dear husband, let us drink together.”
So she brought up a jug of wine of the strongest kind and then they sat down.
“Well, let us drink to your health!”
They filled their cups and made a toast. The man drank it, the woman acted as if she had drunk it but poured it on the ground instead.
“Well,” said the man, “now let us drink a cupful to your health as well.”
So they filled the cups again. The husband drank that too, but the woman only pretended to be drinking and poured the wine down her chest. Then the woman said:
“Now let us also drink to Johnny’s health!”
So they drank to that too, and then talked for a little while. But the woman saw that her husband was a little drunk from the terribly strong wine.
“My dear husband, let us drink one more to a long life together.”
They drank that too, and then the man toppled over and fell down like a log of wood. He slept and snored as if he had no trouble in the world.
After that the woman went out and called in Johnny.
“Well, my Johnny, I questioned him and learned where his power is.”
She told him right away what she learned, and then Johnny went out to the stable to the colt and told him:
“Look, here’s where he keeps his power, there is a silver bear in the forest, and at noontime he goes to the golden stream for a drink. If he could be shot there and his head split in two, a wild boar would jump out of it, if someone would shoot that boar and split his head in two, a rabbit would jump out of it, if he would also shoot the rabbit, a box would come out of his head, and in it there are nine wasps. {563.} That is his power. If someone could break this box so that the wasps be destroyed, then he would not have as much power as a fly.”
“Well,” says the colt, “go on Johnny, light a log of wood, and when it has burned, bring in to me three buckets full of embers.”
Johnny ran and made a good fire. When a log of wood had burned down and became pure embers, he took three buckets-full to the colt. The colt licked it up. When he had licked it up, he got on his knees.
“Now then, let me out of the stable!”
He let the colt out, and the colt licked up all the embers of the log of wood. When he had licked it all up, he became a steed with pure golden hair, and he had five legs.
“Well now, Johnny, now run down to the cellar. You know where the key is!”
“Run down to the cellar. There hangs a golden saddle and a suit of golden clothes for you. Get dressed quickly, bring up the saddle, and put it on my back. There is also a sword hanging on a nail. Take it down, too!”
Well, Johnny did just as he was told. He brought the saddle and the hung-up sword, and he dressed up in the suit of clothes.
“Now get on my back, and let’s go!”
So they left. When they arrived in the forest, the colt knew exactly where he wanted to go, for he was familiar with the place.
When they arrived, the bear was just drinking from the stream, and when he saw them, he began to howl-and came at them. The colt said: “Don’t be afraid John, be brave!”
When the bear tried to close in on him, the colt kicked him so hard with his fifth leg that he toppled over, and then Johnny jumped down and cut his head in two with the sword. And he split the head so much that the boar jumped out of it. He too fell upon Johnny to kill him, but the colt kicked him so hard with his fifth leg that he too tumbled over, and Johnny ran with the sword and cut his head in half. Then the rabbit jumped out of it and began to run, but the colt could run even faster and kicked him so hard that he too tumbled over. Then Johnny split his head also, and that box jumped out. It hopped and jumped about but John took out two big stories and broke it up so hard that nothing was left of it.
“Well,” said the colt, “we can go home now, we need no longer fear them.”
So they went home, and the dragon was lying there where he had fallen, and said:
“Did you take away my power, Johnny? Well, it doesn’t matter even though you took it, but at least leave me my life.”
He grabbed his sword and cut off the dragon’s twenty-four heads right there. So the dragon finally was finished, he perished right there and then.
“Well,” says the colt, “now you tell me, John, what you want to do! Do you want to be king in this country? You can be, it is now yours, but if you want to take the princess home you can do that, too.”
“Well, thank you for offering me this country, but I have no desire to stay here. I would like to go home. I feel very sorry for the old king, and I want to take his daughter home.”
“Well,” he says, “if you want to take her home, you certainly may go. Take {564.} as much of the treasure and gold as you can carry, for there is plenty here. And sit on my back, both of you, and I’ll take you.”
When they were seated upon his back, he said:
They closed their eyes and by the time they could have said “hip-hop, where I think, there I’ll be,” they were in the king’s courtyard.
They went in. The old king by then was on his deathbed. He was nearly gone from sorrow.
Johnny went to him and reported that he had returned: “Your Majesty, I brought your dearest daughter, for whom you have grieved so much.”
The king opens his eyes, and the maiden begins to speak:
At once she embraces her father, and first both cried together with joy, then all three of them.
“Well,” he says, “my son John, you have brought me my daughter. From now on you are the king of this country, and I give you my daughter, my country, I hand over everything to you.”
And as the king said this and gave them his blessing, he died forthwith. John married the king’s daughter and if they are not dead, they are still alive today.
The tree that reached up to the sky is one of the oldest motifs of Hungarian folk tales. A significant number of researchers connect it with the shamanistic ceremony of the Uralic-Altaic peoples (cf. pp. 671–2). Thus Vilmos Diószegi writes the following: “This tree reaching to the sky is nothing other than the világfa (world tree) of the shamanistic religion, and the great deed of the swineherd is the memory of the old shaman initiating ceremony, that is to say, of the ceremony when the candidate for shaman had to climb up on the notched tree that had been prepared for this purpose and that represented the world tree.” This element occurs in the Hungarian treasury of the various types of tales, and sometimes can also be found as an opening phrase.
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