Arrabona - Múzeumi közlemények 31-33. (Győr, 1994)

Liszka József: Mátyás király alakja a kisalföldi néphagyományban

King Matthias* character in the popular tradition of the northwestern plain in Hungary There are many legends connected with the person of Matthias Hunyadi (Corvin) - not only among the Hungarian people but in the folklore of the neighbouring nations (especially the Slovakian and the Southern Slavic peoples). It is interesting to note that these Matthias stories are not equally spread even within the Hungarian-speaking areas: they are primarily concentrated in the border regions, mainly in the north and the south. The Matthias-legends occur most frequently in the northern part of the northwestern plain of Hungary which now belongs to Slovakia (however this form is completely missing in the regions of the northwestern plain to the south of the Danube). In my essay I am going to demonstrate and analyse the collection of legends in that region of the northwestern plain of Hungary, which now belongs to Slovakia; concentrating not on the famous Matthias stories spread mostly through school education, but laying stress on local or localised legends. These latter occurrences are remarkable common in our countryside and above all within the Csallóköz. It is primarily about place-name interpretations by folk idioms bound to the character of our Renaissance sovereign resp. legends binding to some trees as the "Tree of Matthias". Such kind of stories are analysed in the first part of the study on the basis of the recent and historic collection, while in the data collection to be found in the second part I am publishing Matthias of my own collection from the northwestern plain of Hungary. József Liszka 326