Agria 42. (Az Egri Múzeum Évkönyve - Annales Musei Agriensis, 2006)

Paládi-Kovács Attila: A Felföld ásványvize: a csevice

Attila Paládi-Kovács Csevice: The Highland Water Csevice is the name used in the local dialect for the sparkling mineral water found in a very particular part of the Hungarian Highlands. (See map). Sparkling mineral waters can be found in abundance in other parts of the Carpathian Basin , particularly in the Eastern Carpathians, in the Szekler region, where the waters are referred to as borvíz, and in some parts of Transdanubia, where they are known as savanyúvíz. The mineral waters mentioned above which bubble up from the depths of the earth have been drunk by their local populations since the Middle Ages and are considered to be very healthy. The chemical analyses which have been undertaken since the end of the 18th century, and the medical observations, have tended to back up such views, and in the 19th century the waters of a number of excellent springs ended up being bottled. Such developments, however, did not put an end to the delivery of pitchers of csevice to the surrounding towns and villages. In earlier centuries the sale and delivery of mineral waters brought in a meagre income for the poorer members of the village community, particularly the women. In the 19th century local carters delivered the waters from the csevice springs to towns as far as Budapest, where the water was bottled and sold to the urban nobility. The word csevice is of Slovak origin, which dictionaries tell us entered the Hungarian language during the Middle Ages. Reference to the word is made in accounts of the beating of the bounds and estate descriptions from 1245 onwards. In the accompanying map the geographical names in which the word csevice occurs have been marked in. The mineral waters are present primarily in the hills situated immediately next to the third age igneous rock (eg. Mátra, Karancs, Medves) in tectonic zones in which the structure of the earth's crust is formed. The springs change from time to time, indeed from season to season, sometimes disappearing altogether only to reappear. The quantities of water coming up also change, as does their mineral content, and the amount of sparkle. It is for precisely this reason that the 18th and 19th century statistics and topographical descriptions are so important. These include the data for the 1730s and 1740s which appear in Mátyás Bél's Notitia county series which are given such prominence in this study. The paper also covers the storage of csevice, the means of transport, the vessels used and the lifestyles associated with its sale. We end by concluding that the free use of csevice springs is still common, while the bottling of the 27