The Eighth Tribe, 1975 (2. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)
1975-01-01 / 1. szám
January, 1915 THE EIGHTH TRIBE Page Three Suddenly, another dust cloud rose on the West. It was a much bigger dust cloud than the one the Bessenyos had made. It approached rapidly. One could hear the thundering hooves. The Bessenyos stopped, hut it was too late. The dust cloud burst open, huge vicious horns appeared, and thousands of enraged white oxen trampled the attackers, men and horses, into the dust. Behind the enormous herd, Magyar herdsmen galloped on their froth-covered horses, cracking their whips. Their leader stopped his rearing horse in front of Ügyek. “Thanks be to UR, our God”, tbe men panted. “We came in time!” “Who sent you?” asked Ügyek. “The TÁLTOS sent us, Sir”, answered the herdsmen. “Atilla’s blood must not be wasted!” The next day, the last clan of the Huns reached the camp of the Táltos. A huge crowd was gathered around the altar-tone, and people cheered when Ügyek helped Emese from the covered wagon. According to the customary ceremony, the young couple ate from the same plate, drank from the same cup, and the old Táltos, clad in his long white robe, gave them his blessing. “UR. our God, bless this man and this woman, that they may have children thus Atilla’s blood will never die out!” That night, around the honeymoon tent, young warriors kept their vigil, forming a solid wall of fire with their burning torches in order to keep ÁRMÁNY, the spirit of evil, away from their young chief and his bride. In the middle of the night Emese was wide awake. She listened to the shouts of the guards. Her eyes wandered around in the semi-darkness of the tent, gently illuminated with the light of the torches outside. In her faraway home, she had heard the minstrels' tales about Atilla’s splendor, but the beauty and riches she found here surpassed all these tales. Gold scales covered the tent-poles. The torch-holders were hammered out of pure gold. Seven layers of precious rugs covered the floor. The walls were lined with silk and velvet from Byzantium and Rome. Earlier that evening Ügyek had playfully thrown the treasures from a carved and painted chest at her feet. They were spread out all over the rugs: — gold plates and cups, jeweled swords and daggers, precious stones and pearls. More valuable than all of this were the porcelain cups from China, the purple glassware from Rome, and held in ivory containers, all sorts of spices from Arabia. As Emese looked around, pride and happiness filled her heart. According to the law of the Magyars, she was to be the only wife of Ügyek, the descendant of Atilla. Suddenly she heard the rushing of huge wings. Through the opening of the tent, two shining eyes stared at her, the eyes of a giant bird. She wanted to scream, but no sound came from her lips. She tried to awaken her husband, but she could not move her arms. The huge eagle, the sacred TURUL, descended upon her, covering her completely with his black wings. Half asleep, half awake, Emese saw a dream. It seemed that a crystal spring had sprung from her loins and began to flow toward the West, growing bigger and bigger, into a swelling stream, flowing over snow-covered mountains, finally reaching a beautiful plain. There, the river stopped, and a magnificent tree sprang up from its waters. Every branch and leaf of that tree was of pure gold, as was the fruit which grew abundantly on the miraculous tree. Emese, in her dream, lay down under that tree, in the middle of that beautiful land, and fell asleep. When she awoke, she was back in her husband’s tent. It was morning, bright and sparkling with sunshine. But the memory of that strange dream stayed with her forever. Nine months later a son was born to Emese, the first-born son of Ügyek. He was named ALMOS (Boy of Dream) and became the father of ARPAD, who led the Magyars across plains and mountains into that beautiful land which once belonged to the Huns, and which was, according to the minstrels’ songs, their rightful inheritance. They still live there today, after more than eleven centuries. ☆ ☆ The Turul is the second sacred animal in the Hungarian legends. The ancient Turks describe him as their bird of heraldy: a black falcon or eagle with spread wings and its head turned to the right. It is affirmed by many historians that the Hungarians brought the legendary bird with them from their Asiatic homeland. They did not copy it from the Latin insignia. As the ancient Chinese chronicles, translated at the beginning of the century prove the same. They describe receiving a TURUL hunting bird from the HIUNGNOK (Pre-Huns) as a present, but they could not use it as such because it was untameable. In the joint ancestral religions of the Ural-Altai tribes, the bird may have acted as God’s
