Religious Legends

Hungarian folklore research is still poor in the systematic collecting of legendary tales (legendamese), but in spite of this deficiency, legendary tales make up more than twelve per cent of the known Hungarian corpus of tales. In general it is customary to divide them into two groups. The first are the moralizing legendary tales, the source of which is the humorous Christ-legend. These tales are most likely of medieval and folk origin. The cheaply sold religious paperback pamphlets were not only the disseminators of the official legends of the Catholic Church, but also various other material appeared in them from medieval apocrypha to stories and parables about many recent sects. Thus the figure of Christ is by no means as clearcut as that of King Matthias or the hero of fairy tales. The same is true for the exemplary moral truths of legends, standing very far from the teaching of Christ urging forbearance, self–denial, and scorn of material goods–and rather advertise the common sense of peasants, as does the following legendary tale (BN 779 XI* MNK 750 B II*):

One day when Jesus Christ was still on earth, as he was travelling on foot with St. Peter, he grew very tired and hungry. On the great puszta they could not see a single farmstead that they could turn into. Once St. Peter, as he was looking around, said to Jesus Christ:

“My Lord, I see a fold over there. Let us go in there, for surely we’ll find a living soul.”

They kept walking until they reached the fold. Only a poor shepherd lived there, guarding the sheep of his master. They greeted him, and he received them very cordially, sat them down, and began to talk with them. But our Lord was already very hungry, so he said to the shepherd:

“Come now, you poor man, give us something to eat, for we are very hungry!”

The poor shepherd began to think what he could offer to the guests, for he had nothing but a piece of dry bread and a little lamb. Although the master had plenty of sheep, he did not dare slaughter any of those, for he feared that the master would get angry, because he knew very well that what belongs to others, belongs to the dogs, even if it is my old grandfather’s. So he kept thinking to himself, thinking hard:

“Now my Lord God, should I slaughter my only lamb? Shouldn’t I slaughter it? If I slaughter it, I won’t have it, if I don’t slaughter it, there is not much I can get out of it, eh! I’ll slaughter it.”

With that he took out of his boot-top his jackknife with the starry handle, grabbed the lamb, slaughtered it, and made paprikash out of it.

When the meat was cooked, Jesus and St. Peter sat by the iron cauldron and ate heartily, and the poor shepherd just watched, just waited to see if they would leave him any in it, because he too was hungry, but to be sure, they didn’t leave him even a bite for a taste, even that much. They ate up the whole potful of meat. When they had finished dinner, Jesus said to St. Peter:

{569.} “Now, Peter, pick up the bones to the last piece!”

Peter did as he was told and picked them up. Jesus then put them away in the sleeve of his szűr. In the evening, after the shepherd had fallen asleep, the Lord went to the fold and threw the bones among the sheep, and each of the pieces turned into a sheep, with the brand of the shepherd on the rear of every one of them.

When this was done Jesus and St. Peter left the fold and went on without a word.

When the shepherd got up next morning, he looked at the sheep in the fold and saw that there were lots of strange sheep among them, perhaps three times as many as the master’s, and what was miraculous about it all was that his brand was stamped on the rear of each one of them. He couldn’t figure out how this could be when he had no sheep, not even half of one, since he had slaughtered the last one just the night before for his guests. Then he started looking for his guests but could find them nowhere. It was then he realized that nobody but God himself could have given those sheep to him, and he pledged that from then on he would always help the needy as much as he can, even if he has only a penny.