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Hungarian Folktales
From the crossroads of Central Europe come Hungarian stories of adventure, morality, everyday life, fairies and magic.
Hungary nestles in the crossroads of Europe, and so Hungarian culture shares elements from West and East, with a rich tradition of folk beliefs and folktales that have been passed down through the generations. This delightful collection gathers together tales told by the authors and folklorists Baroness Orczy, János Kriza, John Erdélyi and Julius tales of fairy folk, adventure and adversity, fables and lessons, magical creatures and transformations – from ‘Uletka and the White Lizard’ with its echoes of Snow White, to the adventure of ‘Prince Mirkó’ with its bloodshed and diamond castles.
FLAME TREE 451 : From myth to mystery, the supernatural to horror, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic.
Hungary nestles in the crossroads of Europe, and so Hungarian culture shares elements from West and East, with a rich tradition of folk beliefs and folktales that have been passed down through the generations. This delightful collection gathers together tales told by the authors and folklorists Baroness Orczy, János Kriza, John Erdélyi and Julius tales of fairy folk, adventure and adversity, fables and lessons, magical creatures and transformations – from ‘Uletka and the White Lizard’ with its echoes of Snow White, to the adventure of ‘Prince Mirkó’ with its bloodshed and diamond castles.
FLAME TREE 451 : From myth to mystery, the supernatural to horror, fantasy and science fiction, Flame Tree 451 offers a healthy diet of werewolves and mechanical men, blood-lusty vampires, dastardly villains, mad scientists, secret worlds, lost civilizations and escapist fantasies. Discover a storehouse of tales gathered specifically for the reader of the fantastic.
- GenresMythology
256 pages, Paperback
Published October 10, 2023
About the author
Jake Jackson
174 books175 followersSF and dark fantasy author but also a writer/creator of practical music books - Beginner's Guide to Reading Music, Guitar Chords, Piano Chords, Songwriter’s Rhyming Dictionary and How to Play Guitar. Other publications include Advanced Guitar Chords, Advanced Piano Chords, Chords for Kids, How to Play the Electric Guitar, Piano & Keyboard Chords, Scales and Modes and Play Flamenco. Also editor of Mythology books
Released EP Jakesongs on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, LastFM, etc and on CDBaby. Lifelong passion for fantastic worlds of any kind, from movies to fiction, art to music, posters, album and paperback book covers.
Jake Jackson is the artist name for Nick Wells, Publisher of Flame Tree Press / Flame Tree Publishing.
Released EP Jakesongs on iTunes, Amazon, Spotify, LastFM, etc and on CDBaby. Lifelong passion for fantastic worlds of any kind, from movies to fiction, art to music, posters, album and paperback book covers.
Jake Jackson is the artist name for Nick Wells, Publisher of Flame Tree Press / Flame Tree Publishing.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 15, 2026
Overview
This book is a collection of mostly Hungarian (I will get back to this later) tales in a wide range of fairy, everyday life and joke tales with the idea to give a flavour of English speaking audiences about Hungarian culture and folklore. As a Hungarian myself, I had an unfair advantage of knowing the subject and the original language, so my review might be a bit “harsh”.
Style and Translation
Translating culturally heavy materials is always difficult, because the translator ought to have extensive knowledge and background of the specific culture and needs to find a way how to switch that in a way where nothing gets lost, but the other person with their own language and culture understands it. The translator of these tales did a good job to keep the spirit, the essence of these folktales. I did not mind that some character names were anglicized for a better appeal.
I also liked that the book start with a substantial informative chapter, which should provide enough background and context to the reader. It was a good idea!
I think this book achieves its main goal and does work well to provide an idea, a flavor about Hungarian folklore, but I do have a few points, which could be improved in next edition (some will sound hair splitting, sorry):
1) Inconsistencies in the translation
Translating from Hungarian to English is a challenge, because Hungarian is a very expressive language and has multiple words to describe the same thing, but each word has a slight different meaning; while English is a bit simplier in this aspect. I noticed a few inconsistencies in translation where:
- certain expressions were oversimplified: “I don’t know where”
- certain words were kept in Hungarian with or little explanation on what they meant: koma, táltos etc
- certain words and expressions were translated or half translated but there are no explanations for the reader to actually understand them: Operenczian sea, large forest, far away land
- some expressions were translated differently in different tales: Óperenciás sea - Operenczian sea - Operenczian land etc
I would recommend to include an appendix, where these Hungarian words are explained, to give an actual context to those readers, who would like to know what is the Óperenciás sea or who is a táltos and what it means if this word is used in context of an animal.
2) Lack of indicated sources
Folktales just as folksongs are collected by researchers not just to save them for later genrations, but also they are a good source material to understand how our ancestors were living and what they were believing in. In some occasions researchers can also find historical origins as well. I would suggest to indicate the source, who, when and where collected the tale - because there are many versions, variations and it could give an additional context to the reader especially if the tale if a cultural-crossover. (Will get back to this)
3) Not sticking to the classical folktales
It would have been a much better and safer bet to translate the “Seventy-seven Hungarian Folktales” by Gyula Illyés, as that is considered as a classical, traditional tales collection. While reading this book I felt that I do recognize the “Hungarianness” in these tales, but I did not recognize any of them as tales I knew. Some of these were quite “modern”, I feel the classical tales like “Zöld Péter”, “Tündérszép Ilona és Árgyélus” or “Babszem Jankó” would have been more appropriate.
4) Cultural cross-over
I hinted at this already through this review, but some of these tales are and are from areas, where due to historical reasons different cultures met and had an influence on each other. As a Hungarian I did recognize these and understood the Slavic influences (both Slovak and Ukrainian) but I would not dare to “sell” these as Hungarian tales in a book, which does not require the reader to have previous knowledge in Hungarian culture and history. This is why I recommended to add the sources (2) and rather to stick to classics (3).
Final thought
The book is entertaining and I’m sure those who are interested in Hungarian folklore will find it interesting and learning a few things. I’m glad overall that such a book does exist!
This book is a collection of mostly Hungarian (I will get back to this later) tales in a wide range of fairy, everyday life and joke tales with the idea to give a flavour of English speaking audiences about Hungarian culture and folklore. As a Hungarian myself, I had an unfair advantage of knowing the subject and the original language, so my review might be a bit “harsh”.
Style and Translation
Translating culturally heavy materials is always difficult, because the translator ought to have extensive knowledge and background of the specific culture and needs to find a way how to switch that in a way where nothing gets lost, but the other person with their own language and culture understands it. The translator of these tales did a good job to keep the spirit, the essence of these folktales. I did not mind that some character names were anglicized for a better appeal.
I also liked that the book start with a substantial informative chapter, which should provide enough background and context to the reader. It was a good idea!
I think this book achieves its main goal and does work well to provide an idea, a flavor about Hungarian folklore, but I do have a few points, which could be improved in next edition (some will sound hair splitting, sorry):
1) Inconsistencies in the translation
Translating from Hungarian to English is a challenge, because Hungarian is a very expressive language and has multiple words to describe the same thing, but each word has a slight different meaning; while English is a bit simplier in this aspect. I noticed a few inconsistencies in translation where:
- certain expressions were oversimplified: “I don’t know where”
- certain words were kept in Hungarian with or little explanation on what they meant: koma, táltos etc
- certain words and expressions were translated or half translated but there are no explanations for the reader to actually understand them: Operenczian sea, large forest, far away land
- some expressions were translated differently in different tales: Óperenciás sea - Operenczian sea - Operenczian land etc
I would recommend to include an appendix, where these Hungarian words are explained, to give an actual context to those readers, who would like to know what is the Óperenciás sea or who is a táltos and what it means if this word is used in context of an animal.
2) Lack of indicated sources
Folktales just as folksongs are collected by researchers not just to save them for later genrations, but also they are a good source material to understand how our ancestors were living and what they were believing in. In some occasions researchers can also find historical origins as well. I would suggest to indicate the source, who, when and where collected the tale - because there are many versions, variations and it could give an additional context to the reader especially if the tale if a cultural-crossover. (Will get back to this)
3) Not sticking to the classical folktales
It would have been a much better and safer bet to translate the “Seventy-seven Hungarian Folktales” by Gyula Illyés, as that is considered as a classical, traditional tales collection. While reading this book I felt that I do recognize the “Hungarianness” in these tales, but I did not recognize any of them as tales I knew. Some of these were quite “modern”, I feel the classical tales like “Zöld Péter”, “Tündérszép Ilona és Árgyélus” or “Babszem Jankó” would have been more appropriate.
4) Cultural cross-over
I hinted at this already through this review, but some of these tales are and are from areas, where due to historical reasons different cultures met and had an influence on each other. As a Hungarian I did recognize these and understood the Slavic influences (both Slovak and Ukrainian) but I would not dare to “sell” these as Hungarian tales in a book, which does not require the reader to have previous knowledge in Hungarian culture and history. This is why I recommended to add the sources (2) and rather to stick to classics (3).
Final thought
The book is entertaining and I’m sure those who are interested in Hungarian folklore will find it interesting and learning a few things. I’m glad overall that such a book does exist!
October 1, 2024
Lots of odd stories in this collection! Maybe it was just this translation, but many of them featured unreasonable, crazy demands and people getting married immediately after meeting each other. It was hard to connect to any of the characters
February 20, 2025
So strange. I found myself just barely stuffing through this book. I was 2/3 of the way through before I got to take that made a little sense and was actually a quite good tale. I may revisit the book someday.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews