Magyar Zoltán

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

Nun Helen

HUMILITY

Saint prays that no more miracles occur to her: HE:6.

Secrecy

Saint pleads with angels that they bring her no more gifts and keep their visits to her secret: HE:13.

Saint prays that her stigmata are not revealed before the convent: HE:19.

Saint keeps her stigmata secret: HE:3.

Saint pulls out the dried twig that she has stuck into the earth and is budding: HE:17.

Saint rips off the white lilies grown on her hand(s), stomach and chest: HE:1, 19.

PROTECTION

Due to saint’s prayers sinner goes to Purgatory after death: HE:10.

HEALING

Saint cures a girl suffering from serious illness: HE:11.

Saint takes the Host out of her mouth and gives it to an ill nun: HE:2.

RESURRECTION OF DEAD

Saint’s touch brings a dead animal (a kid from the monastery’s flock) to life: HE:16.

SIGNS OF SANCTITY

When saint enters the chapel candles begin to burn: HE:5, 6, 6, 6.

The candles that blaze up when saint enters the chapel burn for two days and are not consumed: HE:6.

All relics from the altar flock to saint: HE:12.

The wooden crucifix descends from the altar and stands before saint: HE:4.

The Host comes to saint directly from heaven when she is administered the sacrament: HE:2.

During mass the statue of the Virgin and Christ descends from the altar and is seen by the saint, then in saint’s hand: HE:9.

The metallic crucifix descends from the altar and flies into saint’s hands, returning only hours later; noone can take it out of saint’s hands: HE:3.

The chapel where saint is praying is flooded with divine light: HE:18.

Saint is frequently found in rapture and ecstasy with the Host in her hands and mouth: HE:2, 3, 19.

The dried twigs that saint sticks into the earth come into leaf: HE:17.

While saint is praying an angelic voice is heard in the air: HE:12.

The letter from heaven brought by angels to the saint cannot be taken out of her hands: HE:15.

Stigmata

Saint wears Christ’s wounds on both her hands and feet and on her chest: HE:1.

A golden hair grows out of the wound on saint’s right hand: HE:1.

A miraculous lily with golden stem grows out of the wound on saint’s right hand: HE:1.

Miraculous white lilies grow on saint’s chest and stomach: HE:19.

During saint’s prayer her hand is marked with the sign of the cross which remains visible for a long time: HE:18.

PROPHECY

Saint foretells the date of her own death: HE:7.

Saint foretells the 1241 Mongol invasion: HE:7.

Saint foretells that a dying nun whom the extreme unction was administered would not die: HE:8.

SAINT’S DEATH, ELEVATION, TRANSLATION OF REMAINS

Saint’s death

Saint is visited by Christ on the night before her death: HE:21.

All wounds on saint’s body are scarred and healed before her death: HE:20.

When saint’s tomb is opened (after 17 years) it gives off a pleasant scent that floods the whole monastery and its environs: HE:25.

In saint’s tomb the earth is found piled up by several inches around saint’s corpse, in all directions: HE:25.

Saint’s body is found intact, undeteriorated: HE:25.

Pleasant-smelling oil oozes from saint’s body: HE:25.

Bits of saint’s body are ripped off as relics; fresh blood can be seen in the wounds even after 17 years: HE:25.

RELICS

Blood taken from saint’s wounds: HE:10.

Oil oozing from saint’s wounds: HE:25.

Miraculous lily grown on saint’s chest and stomach: HE:19.

The Host as saint’s instrument of healing: HE:2.

THROUGH SAINT’S MERITS (SAINT HELPS AFTER DEATH)

Diseased are healed through saint’s merits

Paralytics are healed: HE:22, 28.

Person suffering from terminal illness is cured: HE:29.

Crooked people with atrophied muscles are healed: HE:27, 31.

An apoplectic priest is cured: HE:23.

Blood taken from saint’s wound is given in water to an ill man to drink: HE:10.

Demonic possession is healed though saint’s merits

A girl possessed by the devil is healed: HE:24, 30.

Other miracles through saint’s merits

A cleric fallen into disgrace regains the king’s favour: HE:26.

APPARITIONS, VISIONS

Jesus Christ

Visits saint on the night before her death (Vision of the Beatified Ilona): HE:7.

Angels

While saint is praying an angelic voice is heard in the air: HE:12.

Angels visit saint, talk with her, leave a pleasant smell behind: HE:13, 15.

Angels bring the Host to the saint directly from heaven: HE:12.

Angels bring the saint a letter from heaven, ’her life’s sheet’: HE:13, 15.

Angelic visitation: HE:6, 18.

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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