Forrai Ibolya szerk: Néprajzi Közlemények 22. évfolyam (Budapest, 1979)

ural environment together with the conflicts arising from this process, he could observe from inside. In this process Balint Küsmödi - due to his character - played an important role, that is why Laszlo Földes has chosen to demonstrate his life story. Let me quote the words of Laszlo Földes: "i was a student of the first year when reading the monograph, entitled "Narratives of Mihály Fedics" I have got an idea to write the monograph of a different type of the guard, the maker and the propagator of the folklore. Not the type with the folk-tale s but someone who makes traditions out of another part of the folkculture, playing important role in this process in a community. It was obvious to choose Balint Küsmödi for this role, since he had known a lot of traditions and he had an important role in the maintenance of the cultural traditions of this small Székely community. Balint Küsmödi is not a folk-tale teller, he is more than that and all of his activities cannot be expressed and summarized in one word. He is a creative and active participant in all of the actions of the community; he knows the most old songs in the village, . . he likes to play the flute. . . he likes to dance and even nowadays at the age of 67 he dances in his kind, elderly manner the role of the host in the "spinning-room" plays, organized by the young people. He never missed a dance, a wedding never took place without him, he was invited to the next and even to the third village to be the best-man on the wedding ceremony because he was cut out for this charge, being a merry-making, company-loving man, a singer, a dancer, trickish, inventive but besides,able to make a speech. I must underline his importance in organizing the Nativity play in the village. . . (19 54). " After this short introduction we should like to inform the reader about our editorial job. During editing we have not changed the written text but we corrected the orthographical mistakes and mispellings which would mislead interpretation and indicated interpunction. Indications: ... - unreadable parts, omitting of overdetailed descriptions, (*) - remarks of the editor: explanation of words of dialectal or foreign origin. Editor