Magyar Zoltán

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

ANIMALS

Saint’s magic horse

Ladislas: Ladislas’s horse has supernatural abilities, helps his master in battle: Bonfini: 2.3.130; AnjouLeg-LA: plate 11; CP: plate 72; LaszloGy: plates 28-29, 63-64 (murals).

Saint tames wild beasts

Gerald: A hind with its fawn sits by saint in the forest: GE II:18. A fawn follows saint everywhere, like a pet: GE:18. A wounded wolf enters saint’s hut and remains by him: GE II:19.

Saint heals animal

Gerald: Saint cures a wounded wolf: GE I:19.

Through saint’s merits animal is healed

Margaret: Animal is healed (the blind horse of a Cuman): MA II:II.31

Resurrection of dead animal

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

Miracle of food

Ladislas: Following saint’s prayer beasts come forth from the woods to feed his starving army: LA:7; ; Bonfini: 2.4.294; EC:403. AnjouLeg-LA: plate 4.

Elizabeth: Saint brings fish to a sick person from a brook where there has never been any fish: EL VII:6.X; Laskai: 5.

Animal directs to site of saint’s corpse

Benedict: Animal directs to site of saint’s body. Saint’s corpse is thrown into a river; its location is indicated by an eagle that sits for a whole year on the riverbank, as if watching over something: AN:7.

Animals carrying saint’s corpse go by themselves to the site of the burial-place

Gerald: The oxen pulling the cart with the saint’s body go by themselves, without eating and drinking and without being urged, towards the site of the new burial-place: GE II: 56; AnjouLeg-GE: plate 7.

Metamorphosis

Kinga: In saint’s mouth game turns into fish: KI I:12, 13. In saint’s mouth wine turns into water: KI I:12.

Margaret: Margaret’s lice and vermin are transformed into pearls: MA I:I.68.

Saint protects from wild beasts

Ladislas: Saint frees serfs from a wild bear ravaging the environs: Ruthenus.

Kinga: Saint curbs a pack of wild dogs with the sign of the cross: KI I:7. Saint curbs a herd of wild pigs with the sign of the cross: KI I:7

Miraculous animals

Ladislas: Miraculous white weasel/ermine: CP:121; CH:111; Thuroczy: 79; Bonfini: 2.3.280-285. Miraculous stag with burning candles on the tips of its antlers: CP:124; CH:124; Thuroczy: 80; Bonfini: 2.4.5-10; CP: p. 87..

Kinga: An ill woman praying to saint is healed by bearing three pups: KI II:21.

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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