A Debreceni Déri Múzeum Évkönyve 1974 (Debrecen, 1975)

Néprajz - Cs. Tábori Hajnalka: Changes in the Content and Motifs of Belief Fabulates in the Community of a Village in Eastern Hungary

Hajnalka Cs. Tábori CHANGES IN THE CONTENT AND MOTIFS OF BELIEF FABULATES IN THE COMMUNITY OF A VILLAGE IN EASTERN HUNGARY The author of the present paper collected folk beliefs in the early 1960's for several years in Doboz village. Békés county, Hungary. In the course of the field work it turned out that the informants, primarily the old people in the village, still knew a number of stories about people who were supposed to have supernational power. Such stories about witches, shamans Hung, táltos, hobgoblins and dead people were still alive even as late as the early 1960's and the author was so fortunate as to note down a fair number of them. As most stories are, in some way or other, connected with witches, this motif of superstitions was singled out and investigated. The above material was in subsequent years supplemented, thus the paper is concerned not only with the survival of this particular figure of folk beliefs, but also with its function in the mind of the rural population. In addition, the author was interested to see any trends observable during the period of time investigated and in our days, the causes and directions of the development, whether such superstitions are on the increase or are dying out. On the basis of the material it was possible to conclude that witchcraft, as known by the people in Doboz village is, in its main features, identical with how this phenomenon is known in the whole Hungarian terrotory. As far as the origins are concerned, belief in witchcraft goes back to the 16th century and stems from the supernatural power attributed to witches. There are a number of varieties, mostly due to divergent local conditions, but the differences are never too large to show a significant deviation from witchcraft as it is generally known by the population. Its main features are the following

: 1. Persons who were supposed to be witches were mainly women, although records are available about men as well. 2. They come into the possession of witchraft through shaking hands with a dying witch on the death-bed. 3. A witch is capable of changing her humen shape, and of performing magical acts in the form of animals, or various inanimate things. She can regain her human shape by a touch with the back of hand (left-hand). 4. They are in pact with the Devil. 5. They have invisible horns on their heads. 6. Their actions are always harmful. In folk beliefs witches have their specific spheres of action, and the motifs of this superstition are continually changing, as do folk beliefs themselves. As regards the direction of the change it does seem to us that the elements are gradually losing force. This phenomenon is also observable when certain elements are transferred from one person into the sphere of action of some other person, as is described in the case of witches and shamans. The form in which superstition about witches appears is far from being uniform, as we find narratives, memorates, person tabulates, belief tabulates (Glaubens-fabulate). The forms, as presented here, represent the various stages of folklorization, the most advanced ones being belief tabulates. In a process of constant give-and-take it would be possible for the forms in the beginning stages of folklorization to develop and get polished by becoming generally known among the people. The communities of present-day Hungarian villages, however, are no longer in need of such forms of entertainment, and as a result, these epic forms of folk narrative are gradually dying out. It is also more and more difficult to collect them as most of the old informants of ten years ago have died in the meantime and very few people are now interested in the stories of those few who are still alive in Hungarian villages. 706