Hála József, Landgraf Ildikó: Magyarországi bányászmondák (Érc- és Ásványbányászati Múzeumi füzetek 24-25., Rudabánya, 2001)

Miners' legends from Hungary (Summary)

MINERS' LEGENDS FROM HUNGARY The present study gives an overview of the miners' legends in Hungary according to their main thematic groups. The authors make an attempt at systematizing these stories following the Hungarian and the international principles of cataloguing the folk legends. Our book is the first attempt at identifying the main thematic groups, kinds, types and motives of the miners' legends of Hungary. Several hundred stories that have been preserved either in printed form or as manuscripts served as a basis for this study and for the selection of text presented in the appendix. Efforts were made to identify and exclude those miners' tales which are not coming from the folklore but have obviously been produced by were poetic imagination. While compiling the selection of text, the following criteria were applied: we tried to present 1. all three groups of dites, memorates and fabulâtes; 2. all. main branches of mining (salt, ore and coal mining); 3. all historically important mining districts of Hungary. "Hungary" is understood in the historical sense, considering its borders prior to 1920. As miners' legends are regarded, in accordance with the usage of the relevant Hungarian and foreign literature, legends collected in miners' communities and settlements dealing almost exclusively with mines, mining and miners. These stories are rather varied as far as their genres, themes and origin are concerned. Some of them are known to have come to the miners' folklore from the peasants' tradition. The legends have been arranged according to the classification which was accepted at the folk legend conference of the International Society for Folk Narrative Research held at Budapest in 1963. The following groups have been distinguished within the category Legends: 1. Origin legends; 2. Historical legends; 3. Folk belief legends; 4. Religious legends. Most of the miners' legends belong to groups and some to group. None of our miners' stories could be attributed to group. Some texts that might be eventually considered as such can be found in Hungarian studies among the origin legends or the religious tales. In the group Historical legends six subgroups can be distinguished: 1, Legends about the origin of human establishments; 2. Legends about localities; 3. Prehistorical legends; 4. Wars, disasters; 5. Heroes; 6. Sin and punishment. The authors did their best to comply with this subdivision. The discovery of ore lodes, coal deposits, etc. was, beside accumulated empirical knowledge and traditional (mis)beliefs also a matter of chance ("good luck"). In Hungary several coal deposits were discovered thanks to natural phenomena (such as smoke and tire resulting from self-combustion). There are particular legendär}' explanations how various mineral deposits were discovered, how