Fairy Folk & Worlds Beyond Our Own

Fairies, giants, kings, fair maidens and witches: these are the characters that await you in this chapter. We also meet the classic enemy of Hungarian folktales, the dragon, and the heroes who fight them, often accompanied on their journeys by real helpers (such as the táltos horse) and often by treacherous and powerful characters, who at first appear to be friends, but are not.

In this long chapter we can even discover traces of the medieval trial by fire – the false heroes are burned in a hot tub of lead, while the real hero survives immersion in the hot substance without burning. (The false hero is a character appearing near the end of magical tales, claiming to be the hero or heroine, and demanding their position.) Water, life-giving water, plays a central role in many of the tales in this section, as do journeys and adventures to worlds far from our own. The mood of the chapter is lifted and smiles are brought to the reader’s face by the actions and antics of various non-mundane creatures (such as fairies).