A Hungarian legend

1. A Hungarianlegend From Hajdúböszörmény

2. Ballad The legend of thewondrous hunt. „Fromboughtoboughthewarblerflies, In song thevoicetovoicereplies: Freshverduredecksthetimeworngrave, The tunefullyreawakesthebrave.”

3. Deerhave significant roles in the mythologyof various peoples: In medieval Hungarian and Polish chronicles’ recurrent motif is when a wonderful white stag shows the sites where to build a temple, church or a monastery. It is assumed that this legend was brought from the East by the conquering Hungarian groups, and later in Christianity, the white stag was partly responsible for the conversion of the martyr Saint Eustace. Eustace saw a vision of Christbetween the stag's antlersand was told that he would suffer for Christ. In Hungarian and Hun legends the white stag has magic power sent by God in order to lead people. In Hungarianmythology, Hunor and Magorthe founders of the Magyar peoples, followed a white stag.

4. The most famous literary work of the legend is by AranyJános:The legend of thewondrous hunt.

5. Sons of Ménrót – Hunor and Magor – with 50-50 soldiers “levente” in Hungarian (now a first name) – set off to hunt. They start to chase a white stag. They follow it until sunset, when they lose sight of it. They decide to have a rest where they’ve arrived to: at Kur’s water and spend the night there.

6. But at sunrise the white stag appears again and they go on hunting – they swim through the River Kur and while chasing the stag they come to a drear land. Again the deer disappears when the sun goes down. They have to spend the night there and they have regretted coming so far from their home.

7. But after waking up they catch sight of the animal again and they cannot help following it. They get to the Meeót Sea then to the River Don.

8. Suddenly they realise that they don’t even know the way back home. So they decide to settle down. The stag lead them into a brand new land that they named Scythiawheretheyfound 100 beautifulgirls – 2 of themweredaughtersof Dúl – dancingintheforest.

9. Hunor and Magormarriedthetwodaughters of Dúl – thesoldiersmarriedtheothergirls – and theypopulated Scythia with their descendants:the Hunsand the Magyars.To this day, an important emblem in Hungary is a many-antlered stag with its head turned back over its shoulder.

10. The white stag of Hungarianmythologywas the subject of a children's book of the same name. The whitestagby KateSeredywon the prestigious NewberryMedalas the Outstanding American booksforchildrenin 1938. This story describes the leadership of Attila—known by history as Attila the Hun, the "Scourge of God"—in their pursuit of a mythical white stag that led them to a new country and home.