Ildiko Kriza Shepherd and Lamb
(A ballad-type along Hungarian and Romain border)
Razprava primerja romunsko balado z naslovom Miorifa - Jagnje z madžarsko različico o umorjenem gorskem pastirju. Avtorica v prvem delu predstavi teoretični okvir preučevanja te balade, v drugem pa madžarsko varianto romunske balade, ki je nedvomno prišla v madžarsko ljudsko izročilo iz Moldavije.
The paper compares the Romanian ballad "Miorifa" (Lamb) with its Hungarian variant about a murdered mountain shepherd. While the first part of the paper deals with the theoretical aspect of the ballad research its second part focuses on the Hungarian variant of this Romanian ballad which had doubtlessly became incorpo-rated into the Hungarian folk tradition by way of Moldavia.
Miorifa (pron. meeoritsa, = little lamb) is one of the most bautiful and best known ballad of Romanian folk poetry. Because of its association with pastoral life and its many-layered mythical meaning, it is generally regarded as a typical Romanian ballad. Writers, philosophers and folklorists have devoted much attention to it and specialists are constantly enriching the literature with new insights.
I- Romain ballad and its myth
Among the many popular and specialist descriptions in the international literature, the best known is the admiration expressed by the writer Mihail Sadoveanu who said lr> 1923 in his academic inaugural address on Poezia populara “we can rightly ask whether this ballad is matched in other folk poetry or art poetry, whether they have a similarly harmonious and artistic poem with its endless variants?... This ballad is so uniquely artistic in its entire structure and so imbued with deep sentiment for eternal nature that I personally regard it as the most noble poetic manifestation of our nation” (Sadoveanu Buc. 1954. 15). Later, after studying the theme, he wrote his novel The Axe (tom. Baltagul), in which he retells and further develops the folk poetiy (Sadoveanu
1930). In addition, the ballad, taken from the famous collection of Vasile Alecsandri, was included in the school curriculum and became widely known as an essential part of the national culture (Alecsandri 1866. 463).
The literature classifies Miori[a as pastoral poetry and distinguishes the colinda from the ballad (Densu§ianu 37-103, 123-161). According to the conclusion “the Miorija was born out of an episode in the life of shepherds, in the time when transhumance was still practised and shepherds met as they moved from one place to another. Later, a number of famous monographs were written on this theme, analysing all the ballad motifs separately and tracing its origin back to the archaic Balkan culture and Greek connections” (Caracostea 1934).
In 1964 Adrian Fochi, familiar with all the earlier literature, wrote what is still the most important monograph, Miori[a, analysing 825 texts and reporting on comparative morphological research. Fochi’s study is an essential work for folkloristics (Fochi 1964). In the introduction to the book, Pavel Apostol challenges Lucian Blaga’s myth creation (Apostol 1964. 12). Placing the emphasis on the mythical images in the ballad, Blaga assumes the existence of a mother-centric myth, and considers that this is why the marriage with a supernatural being (with the queen, the Earth goddness or the Sun’s sister) figures in the ballad (Blaga 1944). The elements of cosmic marriage are rooted in pre-Christian culture. In Blaga’s myth was used a special Romania term “place of Mioriia” as a symbole of folk soul and surrounding (Miskolczy 1994). In contrast of theory of pre-Christian heritage Mircea Eliade shows the link between the folklore elements and Christian thinking (Eliade 1965). The common feature of all the varied approaches is that Miori(a occupies a special place in Romanian folkoristics and philosophical thinking (Vrabie 1966. 275).
What is the ballad about?
A considerable part, around half, of the hundreds of variants are ritual songs or colindas, while the other half are ballads. This difference can be observed in a number of respects in the system of motifs (Fochi 1964. 413). Romanian ballad catalogue made by Amzulescu thought, this ballad belong the poetry of shepherds (Amzulescu 1964. II. 196), but Helga Stein found an other system and called “Unmotivierte menschlichen Grausamkeit” (Stein 1974. 163)- The folklorists accepted Fochi’s conclusion in most regards. Ion Talo§, for example, studied the Transylvanian variants of Miori(a and on the basis of the colinda texts made a thorough examination of the elements referring to an archaic burial rite, that is, to pre-Christian times (Talo§ 1984. 15).
The text of the ballad consists of four narrative units.
1. Three shepherds meet on a mountain pasture and two of them decide to kill the third because he is the wealthiest, his flock is larger and his pasture better.
2. The chosen victim has a miraculous lamb who finds out about this and tells its master about the planned murder.
3. Knowing the inescapable future, the shepherd asks to be buried in the pasture, near the flock, with his favourite objects (axe, flute) placed beside him. And he asks that they say of his death that a princess became his wife, the sun and the moon were the witnesses, and the guests at the wedding were the trees and birds of the forest, the whole of nature.
4. In the last part of the ballad the shepherd asks the lamb in this spirit to take news of the miraculous marriage to his mother/younger sister.
The mythical elements and the especially beautiful poetic images have drawn the attention of many researchers, and the international parallels and links have been traced. Only Adrian Fochi has discussed the Hungarian variants, on the basis of the publications and data of Jozsef Farago (Farago 1961. 257). In the light of the latest publications I am undertaking to supplement these results and communications with the aim of reviving one of the processes of folklore through a concrete example of the question of transmission and borrowing.
II.	Hungarian ballad of the murdered mountain shepherd
The lamb, which plays such a prominent role in the Romanian poetry, does not figure in the Hungarian ballads. Consequently the title and type identification could not be based on the Romain folklore. The Hungarian ballads are about the last will of the murdered mountain shepherd which is why Farago, for example, uses the type identification of “Will-making shepherd’, while Vargyas used the title “The mountain shepherd murdered by robbers” in his book on European ballads (Vargyas 1986. II. 397). Hungarian ballads research has not devoted very much attention to this type and it seems to me that it has not been given the place deserves (Kriza 1969. 79). It is found in a small part of the Hungarian-speaking territory, in a region characterized for centuries by continuous Hungarian-Romanian coexistence (e.g. Moldavia). Vargyas mentioned in 1986 only of 14 variants, although Farago’s study indicates the existence °f 30 texts (Farago 1961. 357). New texts published in the last decade regularly produce new variants, showing the popularity of the ballad (Kallos 1973, 120; 1996, 96; Pozsony 1994. 60).
The type is characterized by a uniform text structure and variation not affecting the subject. It consists of three elements, all of which are also found in Romanian folklore.
1. The shepherd is murdered by robbers in the mountain pasture.
2. He asks to be buried and to have his flute beside him so that the wind can play a lament.
3. He asks that his mother/younger sister be told of his death that “he married the Sun’s sister, the Earth’s fat”.
It is a demonstrable fact that the Hungarian-language ballad of the murdered mountain shepherd, the news of whose death is told in mythological images, is found among the earliest authentic folklore records. The ballad was written down in 1841-42 and sent, together with many other ballads and songs, by the local parish priest of Klezse (Cleja) to the Hungarian Academy of Sciences of the time (Domokos-Rajeczky 1956. I. 115). Because of the vicissitudes of history, the record made in the early days °f folklore collecting, at the time of the origin of official folklore studies, remained unknown for a long time. Extracts from it were first published in 1936, but the full source was not published until 1956. When it was found that the 1841/42 ballad followed the laws of Hungarian folklore in recounting a well formed, full series of events in a closed, uniform structure. There is no sign indicating that it could have been translated from Romanian. Here, as in Hungarian ballads in general, the point of departure is a conflict among people and violent death which, together with the outline of the tragedy and communication of the catharsis, form a short dramatic structure. Then, as later, the description of nature and lyric experience are lacking from all variants.
Adrian Fochi, who knew the data, saw that the Hungarian ballads differed in structure from the Romanian, and examined the question with a critical eye, declared that the Hungarian ballad could not be a translation (Fochi 1964. 472). In his opinion, the Hungarian variant probably came into being as a result of a popular borrowing hundreds of years previously (Fochi 1964. 514). The earlier history of the ballad is unknown, but he assumes that the Moldavian Hungarians borrowed the text from the Transylvanian Hungarians in the 18,h century at the latest, or earlier. Elements that did not survive later (or only in fragments) in Transylvania, were preserved by the traditional communities in Moldavia. (Fochi did not make a separate evaluation of the few Transylvanian variants.) In contrast, in Transylvania the Romanians preserved ballads/ colindas which are the oldest version of the Miori[a and not close to the Hungarian variants (Farago 1977. 427).
As already mentioned, the very first version of The murdered mountain shepherd was recorded as a result of intentional collecting of folk poetiy. It was found in Klezse (Cleja) by Jänos Petras in 1841/42. Three hand-written notebooks of the folklore material he collected have come down to us. Petras was born in Moldavia in Forrofalva (Faraoani) in 1813. He became a Catholic priest, was parish priest in a number of villages, then from 1843 until his death in 1886, the victim of a murder and robbery, he lived in Klezse (Cleja). I mentioned all this to show that he was a person familiar with the culture of the region from inside. His comments on the texts show that he regarded the use of dialect words as natural. But he did not know the meaning of the shepherd’s marriage with the sister of the Sun. Among the folklore material he collected, what he wrote down in 1843 was numbered one, while the data 1841/42 figures on the second and third notebooks. Most of the ballads are found in the first notebook, probably as a result of subsequent systematization.
It is an interesting fact of cultural history that the manuscript remained unknown. This situation made it possible to identify further traits of the genre because it was not until 90 years later, in 1931, that the next information on the ballad was written down by Sändor Veres (who later became a famous composer in Switzerland). In the material he collected he found a new type and a search for parallels began. The ballad was known in most of the villages of Moldavia and despite the use of a characteristically individual performance style, the text was very uniform. This observation led to the conclusion that the ballad was of Romain origin. (“This story is an adaptation of the most wide-spread Romanian ballad Miori(a” Vargyas 1986. 399)- Research brought to light more and more unknown ballads from Moldavia, and the scholars thought Moldavia was found to be the source of the most archaic Hungarian ballads and ballads which have been forgotten in other parts of the country can be found here. The Hungarian villages in the eastern part of the country can be found here. The Hungarian villages in the eastern part of the Carpathians became separated from the mother country after the political and cultural borders were formed. Because of its situation as an isolated language area, archaic text variants survived.
Two decades later the outstanding Hungarian collector of ballads, Zoltan Kallos also found again Hungarian ballads in Moldavia which were unknown in Hungary (Kallos 1973). Moreover, the stock of the folklore there reflected a state prior to the modernization in the 19"’ century (renewal of the language), and its poetic world was linked to the symbols of the Middle Ages. Together with the existence of special ballads, numerous ethnographic phenomena showed that the continued existence of an earlier social state can be traced in the Hungarian villages of Moldavia (Pozsony
1994. 18). A comparison of data on social development, ethnography and folklore led to the opinion that the ballad found in Hungarian folk poetry is not a translation of the Romanian Miorifa but the further development of a popular borrowing that took place in the early modern age.
The Hungarian ballad begins with the demand made by foreign shepherds who arrive: (Literal translation)
The handsome, fine, white shepherd Guards his thousand lambs, countless sheep On the snowy hillside, in the snowy mountains He looks out over the snowy mountain There come three wicked swineherds:
He recognises they are murders and says:
1 know, I know, that you take off my head When you have taken my head, bury me,
Bury me by the gate of my sheep-pen,
Put my longer pipe beside my head,
When wind comes, blows it softly,
People listening to it and will say
The handsome white shepherd is lamenting himself.
He asks also to give the message to the relatives:
When you first reach a small smoky house You will find my old mother in it,
She is washing a large woolen cloth mourning for me,
1 know it well, she will ask about me.
You should say, 1 had married I married the offspring of Earth, the sister of Sun I married the fat of Earth and sister of Sun
Discussion of ballad’s heros is short and brief: J61 latorn, hogy fejem veszitek, ha rnegtehetitek” (1 know, that you take off my head...). Then he asks the murderers to bury him with his flutes and then take the news to his mother such as: meghazasodott a napnak hügäval, földnek zsirjäval (he married the Sun’s sister, the Earth’s fat). Other expressions (e.g. “föld unokäja” = grandchild of the Earth) still figure among the variants. Parallels of the unequivocal astral symbols can be found in the culture of Antiquity. In the Hungarian language they are found in l6lh century Protestant hymns and they have survived right up to the present in folk tales.
The Hungarian ballads consists of three motifs only, which are also exist in Romanian folklore. The similarity can be found not only at the level of motifs but also in the shaping of the text. In both the Romanian and the Hungarian ballad the shepherd is hilled. He enters into a mythical marriage and in his will gives instructions for his burial and for news of his death. The closest link can be observed in the section concerning the mythical marriage (Kriza 1978. 178).
The poetic image of supernatural marriage or death marriage can also be found in Greek, Armenian, Spanish and Ukrainian variants (Miskolczy 1994. 142). Mythical marriage is a common element of the folk tales. The supernatural bride as the hero also appears in tales and ballads. So we can say this folklore element appears in 20th century folklore tradition in a variety of ways. In the case of the Ukrainian lad who is pushed
into the sea/river, the messenger says that his beloved should not wait for him any longer because he has married another, the mermaid has become his wife. Other example is known from the Furmanov film entitled Chapayew, the brave partizan. In this song the soldier is dying, a black raven croaking above him, he asks the bird fly to his mother and wife saying to them he has not died, but has a new marriage under the brush. The Greek kleftis who is murdered in the mountains, was said at home to have married the Sun’s sister. All these poetical images have a mythological background, being related to the cult of the sun and astral symbolism (Caracostea 1935.). The personification of the Sun, and the marriage of its sister with an earthly being (shepherd) still lives in 20"' century Hungarian folklore as a tale motif, like in the tale AT 465 A (Nagy 1993. 153).
The symbolism of death is highly varied in Hungarian folklore too. The union with the Earth’s fat could be linked both with pre-Christian fertility magic and with the Christian form of burial (Kriza 1969. 89). Burial in the ground and the funeral rites stand opposed to the sacrifice left unburied. Right up to the 20"’ century the funeral songs for the dead preserved, in the context of the Christian world-view, the notion that the souls of the dead went/flew to heaven and the body to the earth (Kriza 1993-194). Only girls or men who died young were entitled to the death-wedding feast. They were buried with the pomp of a wedding and the wake consisted of wedding feast rites (Kligman 1988.). According to the Christian funeral songs, Jesus came as the bridegroom for the girl, while a virgin called the young man into the choir of angels. Only unmarried, “pure” young people were entitled to marriage with the heavenly beings. In the ballad too, it is this “purity” that makes it possible to sing of the heavenly wedding and death marriage. Mythological symbols appear in the funeral songs only indirectly, through parallel nature images.
In the Hungarian ballad, mythological images assist the portrayal of tragedy. The death awaiting the hero is itself the tragedy, but the murderers bear the burden of the will because they must take the news of their secret deed, and the mother suffers tragedy on hearing the news of the death communicated with symbols. The unique character of the Hungarian ballads arises from the portrayal of tragedy expressed with archaic elements. Despite the relationship between the motifs, it has a special message for those familiar with the given folklore.
References
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Povzetek Pastir in jagnje
(Baladni tip s področja ob madžarsko-romunski meji)
Razprava primerja romunsko balado z naslovom Miorga - Jagnje, za katero menijo poznavalci, da je ena najlepših romunskih balad, z madžarsko različico o umorjenem gorskem pastirju. Zaradi povezave s pastirskim življenjem in njenih različnih mitoloških pomenov je ta pesem uvrščena kot tipična romunska balada (čeprav je po vlogi vsaj 50 njenih variant od stotih kolednic). Avtorica v prvem delu predstavi teoretični okvir preučevanja te balade, ki so jo raziskovali tako romunski kot madžarski folkloristi (npr. Vargyas). Predstavi njeno vsebino, ki je v romunskem izročilu zgrajena iz štirih pripovednih enot, v madžarskem pa iz treh. Balada govori o umorjenem pastirju in njegovem čudežnem jagnjetu. V njej se med seboj povezujejo pastoralni in mitološki elementi. V drugem delu razprave predstavi madžarsko varianto romunske z naslovom Razbojniki umorijo gorskega pastirja, ki je nedvomno prišla v madžarsko nacionalno ljudsko izročilo iz Moldavije, kjer so stoletja živeli drug ob drugem madžarska in romunska skupnost. Glavni motiv v tej baladi je motiv mistične poroke umorjenega s »Sončevo sestro«, kar avtorica razlaga s predkrščansko-poganskimi elementi, ki so pogosti v madžarski in romunski folklori. S primerjavo obeh balad skuša avtorica predstaviti baladni tip, njegov razvoj in razširjenost v dveh različnih nacionalnih pesemskih izročilih.