The Monmouth inquirer., 1926-02-25

lily IN Hungary.
end; it's drunken glory would STAY all
utterance No pure Magyar could lis
ten without emotion to the story OF
the sorrows of Iluska.
No one can say whence these songs
have come. The peasant says they
wander in the air. 1t may be; this
air is surely tenanted. What is true
is that he and his have preserved the
nation This brave, patient, enduring
folk has sung its race back to its an
cient freedom 1t has sung, in the
sweet mother-tongue that but for it
had been long forgotten, of the glO-
rious dead and the stricken field, of
memories enshrined in wonderful lore,
of hope and of regret; never of de-
spair.
Their Pastoral Life.
Pastoral Hungary has features all
its own. 1t stretches across the vistas
of the Great Plain in the region Of
the Hortobagy. There is the genuine,
original Magyar, the Centaur Mazeppa,
who, like the sires of old, that rushed
Alexander on the plains of Sogdiana,
rides like a devil of the twilight;
eats, drinks, sleeps on his small, tire
less charger, and chokes with pure de-
light in lust of life and rush of wind.
The long white gatya-no penitent
sheet--the embroidered sleeveless
waistcoat, the plumed or beribboned
hat, the gorgeous mantle, the deep
bowled pipe, mark this tanned Baccha-
nalian cavalier more surely than does
the anthropoIogist
Change in pastoral Hungary is i'm
perceptible, but the modern spirit, the
fruit of competition, is making itself
felt Sleepy medievalism feels the
gaIvanic touch of modern cooperative
principles.
The national asset is the horse, as
is natural in the case of a race where
man and horse were inseparable in
death as in life, He has long been in
state policy, ward of court. Highly
specialized state studs on great do
mains received him from Arabia, from
England, and from Businesses of the
Karst and the stock of the village;
exhausted upon him all the theories of
the Sledmere stud; bred, lent, sold,
gave, and altogether played Provi-
dence to the trend of his evolution.
Rural Hungary is under the joint
but informal direction of church and
feudal magnate, whose interests are
one with those of the state. These
interests may be summed up in the
universal ban upon the golden calf of
socialism. For the most part these
gods of the fields do not seek tithes
and labor only. They have each
genuine desire to see a contented and
Industrious peasantry always amen
able to patriarchal influences.
The Magyar peasant sees his proxi-
mate deity in the lord of the manor
and his intermediate god in the state.
on Festal Days.
The peasant labors in the field
among the corn and grasses in sum-
mer; never comes to the city save In
national moments.
See him on St Stephens day in pic
turesque garb, not riotously boisterous,
but gay in color and mood. Or see
him at wedding arranged to suit the
crops and rather for the convenience
of the villagers. Then the festivities
last from one to four days.
The peasant girl, whose considera-
ton depends upon the number of pet
ticoats she can afford to wear-some-
times as many as 23-wears the jack
boots, which are family heirlooms, and
thus weighted dances till she col
lapses. and revives to dance again.
There is always, save at harvest
time, dancing on the village green.
which revives memories Of the May
pole. The music is generally sponta-
neous and comes from the gypsies
(czigany), for what Magyar win play
when he can dance? At such time he
literally buckets in to the mad glory
of the csardas Hungarian dances),
and there prefgures the national vir-
tue of endurance in two hours of VIC
lent and uninterrupted movement.
One thing only can come between
the peasant and his gayeties. On Sun
day morning. with no trace of the glo-
rious carouse, but with every trace
Of deep and still reverence. he listens
to the man of God.