Magyar Zoltán

Legends of Early Hungarian Saints: type- and motif-index

Hermit Andrew-Zoerard

ASCETICISM, SELF-TORTURE, PENITENCE

Asceticism

Excessive fasting. Saint eats nothing for three days: AN:3.

Excessive fasting. Saint eats 40 nuts only in 40 days: AN:3.

Saint works hard (cuts wood) while fasting: AN:4.

Self-torture

Mortification of the flesh. When saint dozes off, reeds prick him and he hits his head against rocks: AN:5.

Mortification of the flesh. Saint wears iron belt around which skin has grown and which reaches deep inside into his intestines: AN: 8.

SIGNS OF SANCTITY

Angel (radiant, angelic-faced youth) comes to aid the saint who fainted and takes him back to his hut on his carriage: AN:4.

HUMILITY

Secrecy

An angel comes to aid saint. Saint makes his fellow-hermit promise to keep this secret: AN:4.

RESURRECTION OF DEAD

Saint raises a murdered thief from death: AN:9.

CONVERSION, SPREADING OF CHRISTIANITY

Conversion

The resurrected thief is converted and remains by saint until his death: AN:9.

RELICS

Saint’s iron belt: AN:8.

THROUGH SAINT’S MERITS (SAINT HELPS AFTER DEATH)

Saint holds the body of a man condemned to death by hanging who prays to him on the scaffold, unties him and lets him go off: AN: 10.

Legends of Early Hungarian Saints: type- and motif-index

Tartalomjegyzék

Kiadó: Akadémiai Kiadó

Online megjelenés éve: 2026

ISBN: 978 963 664 185 6

Művelődéstörténet Idegen nyelvű

The work of folklorist Zoltán Magyar throws light on a relatively little-known segment of the dynastyc cult of saints in Central European cultural history. The hagiographies and legends written on different members of the Árpadian dynasty, ruling in Hungary between the 11th and 13th centuries, and their contemporaries endowed with the aura of sanctity, occur not only in their medieval Hungarian legendry but have also become part of the liturgical tradition and the cult of saints on German, Polish and Byzantine soil. The thematic and generic variety of this legendry and its many folkloric implications show close parallels with another major work of medieval European hagiography: the legends of early Irish saints. The type- and motif-index and generatic catalogue compiled by Zoltán Magyar orders the epic tradition, based on 11rh-16th century written sources, of twelve Hungarian royal saints who have become the subject of legends shortly after their death. Beside classification according to the type of legendd heroes and themes, the book also contains an analysis of the biographical data, of the historical sources and of the primary types and motifs of hagiographies.

Hivatkozás: https://mersz.hu/magyar-early-hungarian-saints-type-and-motif-index//

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