A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1987 (Debrecen, 1988)

Néprajz - Marjai Márton: The Incorporation of Classical Mythic Elements in the Folklore of Hortobágy and Environs

plunged in manure. Thus initiated or (sanctified), the reached the sky and came to be known as the Staff of Jacob (Orion). The New Year's toast at Hajdúböszörmény goes as follows: The sceptre bends, and becomes three branches. Let God's blessings descend upon this house Hurry, lest we be late to honour him, wondrous great, the Lord, Our God. с ) The practice still exists of the presenting of the groom's shirt on behalf of the bride. In Hajdúböszörmény a pair of shirts are given. This custom is analogous to the story of the shirts of Hercules, who received one from Omphale, the queen with the beautiful navel, and the other, dipped in the blood of Nessus, from Deianeira, his new wife; the latter was to prove his death. d) The Hungarian lustrum on the night and dawn of Good Friday. The practice begins by washing everything

—including the self, animals, and barns. Horses are forded through the Tisza River. In Mátraverebély the children file past the houses crying, "Snakes and frogs be gone!,,, to repel the evil spirits. This is nearly identical in character with the expulsion of the Keres. The first passage of the local incantation at Hortobágy goes as follows

: Good Friday the raven washes his son; the world calls me snake and frog in scorn. Then let the whole world tell me to my face whom I've hurt, and oh, how I've wronged. When his name is capitalized, the bird who washes the boys shows us that the Raven (Corvus) constellation will shine in the sky on Good Friday. The connection between the Hungarian lustrum and the Greek and Latin practices is undisputed, with merely the method of its transmission at issue. e ) Wisp of hay on the end of a rod, dangled before the snouts of yoked oxen or cows to make them pull better. 1 observed such a practice in Hajdúböszörmény, 1936. Alexander the Great was said to have tied a piece of meat in front of the beaks of griffins who were being raised to the five skies. See the Tripartite History, which had actually served as a chap-book. f) The belief in the curative power of the frog spotted prior to Easter is of ancient origin. The frog is allowed to dry in a piece of cloth and rubbed around the boil. Aesopus ridiculed this practic in his 69th fable. g) Today, before singing the bridal hair-knotting songs which starts, "Woman from the girl, rose from the bud", one of Aesop's fables is sung. Rhymed and set to music, it has been sung practically word-for-word since the seventeenth century

: "Woe is me, poor bird, what I've sunk too". See Aesop: The Crested Lark, 169th Fable. The song by Horace, Carm. II. 5, became a folk song in a similar way, retaining all its motifs: "Tiny steer, yoke so great

—my chosen one is still so small." Carm. II. 15 was adapted as a Protestant funeral hymn, and has been in use since the sixteenth century. h) Minstral lays east of the Tisza River. Lays used to offer

—or conjure

—a blessing for the New Year. The first news about the gift offish to f

he infant Jesus appears in a study by János Erdélyi dating from 1856 Off I go to the Danube to catch a shining fish; I'll put him on a dainty dish and take him to the Babe, the Lord. In Hajdúböszörmény the lines are as follows: Let's go down to the Danube to catch some tiny fish, and lay them on dishes. h) The Goat Procession in Hajdúdorog between the two Christmases. Walkers file past the houses playing goat games and offering blessings. The practice at one time probably encompasses the whole linguistic territory of the Hungarian language, and is frequently referred to in goat tales and folk songs in Hungarian folk poetry. The procession is actually a representation of the winter solstice, when the Sun is in the sign of Capricorn (the Goat). i) Combat of the bull-masked shamans. The custom has only survived in fables, legends, and 259