Origins
“Fehérlófia” (“Son of the White Mare”) is one of the best-loved Hungarian wonder tales, preserved from the country’s deep oral tradition and shaped by steppe myth and Indo-European hero cycles. Its pattern blends two classic threads: the marvellous birth and superhuman nurturing of a hero, and the descent into the underworld to free abducted princesses (the tale type scholars tag as a cousin of ATU 301, “The Stolen Princesses”). What follows keeps to the traditional Hungarian cast and structure—white mare, iron-forged hero, giant companions, iron-bearded dwarf, three dragon-lords, and the great bird—while telling the story in vivid, continuous prose with the tale’s hallmark sayings and exchanges.
The Beginning
There was once a white mare that strayed from the royal studs. She hid in a forest hollow and brought forth a child—no ordinary infant, but a boy with eyes like blue steel. She nursed him as only a creature of wonder can nurse.
“Suckle, my son, suckle for three times nine years; then you will be stronger than iron, truer than tempered steel,” murmured the White Mare, and the child suckled and grew until the trees seemed small about him.
When at last the white mare’s milk ran dry and her flanks grew hollow, she called the lad to her.
“Now, my son,” she said, “it is time. Go to the smith who can hammer thunder. Bid him forge you a club, and test it upon the mountain.”
The smith stoked his furnace till it roared like a storm. He beat out a great iron cudgel. The youth—now tall as a door and broad as a gate—swung it at a granite shoulder. The club bent like lead.
“Not this, master. Forge me another. When I strike, it must not bend; when I cast, it must not break.”
The second club snapped clean in two.
“Still not it,” said the youth.
At the third forging the smith wrought a bar of steel so dense the anvil creaked beneath it. The youth hurled it at the mountain; the rock groaned; the club rang and leapt back whole into his hand.
“This will do,” he said.
He returned to the hollow, but the White Mare, her duty done, laid her head upon his breast and sighed her last.
“Remember what is right, and measure your strength with mercy,” were her final words. He buried her where the sun first warms the earth and took the name the world would use for him ever after: Fehérlófia—Son of the White Mare.
The Three Mighty Companions
He went out to seek his fortune and fellows worthy of it. In a greenwood he saw a man wrenching oaks out of the soil as if they were carrots.
“Ho there!” cried Fehérlófia. “What do they call you?”
“Fanyűvő,” said the man, grinning—Tree-Tearer. “Shall we measure our strength?”
They gripped one another and wrestled till the earth smoked. Neither could throw the other, so they embraced and pledged brotherhood.
Farther on they found a fellow grinding boulders between his palms like hard bread into crumbs.
“What is your name?” asked Fehérlófia.
“Kőmorzsoló,” he said—Stone-Crumbler. Again they tried their power, and again neither yielded. Kőmorzsoló joined them.
A third man was kneading a bar of iron as a baker kneads dough.
“And you?”
“Vasgyúró—Iron-Kneader.”
They laughed, shook hands that could bend horseshoes, and the four of them built a stout house at the forest’s edge. They agreed to hunt by turns: three would go ranging while the fourth kept the pot and cooked the dinner.
The Iron-Bearded Dwarf
On the first day Fanyűvő stayed to cook. As the stew sweetened the air, a tiny, wiry old man appeared—no taller than the hearth-stool, but with a beard long and heavy as chain.
“Give me a spoon of your broth, lad,” he piped, “or I’ll give you a taste of my beard.”
Fanyűvő laughed and set the spoon aside. In a blink the dwarf whipped his beard round the oak post, round Fanyűvő’s ankles, and whirled him about the house till sparks flew, then gobbled the stew and vanished. Ashamed, Fanyűvő said nothing when the others returned.
Next day Kőmorzsoló cooked—and fared the same.
On the third day Vasgyúró stayed, swore he’d smash the intruder, and was duly thrashed and left groaning.
“Tomorrow I cook,” said Fehérlófia.
When the dwarf popped up and squeaked his demand, Fehérlófia merely said, “Eat, then; but leave enough for four.”
The little man looped his beard to snatch the pot—and Fehérlófia seized that beard in both hands and pulled. The dwarf shrieked.
“Tie me! Tie me fast—only, tie me to the little sapling there, not to the old oak!”
Fehérlófia smiled. “To the old oak, rather.” He bound the dwarf to the thickest trunk with the iron chain that hung by the door, and the dwarf kicked and pleaded till the bark groaned.
“Mercy!” he squealed. “Loosen one link and I’ll show you where treasure lies—deep under a well with iron hoops.”
Fehérlófia loosed one link, then another, and marched the prisoner to a moss-rimmed well where the wind sounded hollow. Quick as a stoat the dwarf slipped free and plunged down the dark.
“After him!” cried Fehérlófia, and when his companions lowered the basket, he climbed in with his club and descended—down, down, to the underworld.
The Three Castles and the Dragons
He stepped out into a world of strange light where three paths parted. Along the first stood a copper castle; in its high window sat a pale princess. She started when Fehérlófia entered.
“Who are you?”
“A friend to the lost, and the enemy of man-eaters. Who keeps you here?”
“A sárkány with three heads,” she whispered. “When he rides in, the doors groan and the very hearth shrinks. Take heed: on the sideboard stand three flagons. Drink from the red thrice; touch not the blue or the green, for they are the dragon’s strength.”
The floor trembled; wind funneled through the keyhole; the doors flew wide and the three-headed dragon stormed in on a whistling gale.
“I smell man’s flesh!” roared the left head.
“And I see the fool who brings it,” said Fehérlófia, rising. “Leave boasting and draw steel.”
They fought till sparks went up like swarming bees. Fehérlófia’s club smoked; the dragon’s swords rang. At last Fehérlófia struck, and one head thudded to the flags, then the second, then the third. The princess wept for joy and gave him a copper ring.
He went on to a silver castle, where the second princess trembled, for her keeper was a six-headed dragon. Again Fehérlófia drank the reddest draught thrice, and when the storming beast crashed in, their blows cracked the cornice. Six heads fell one by one. She gave him a silver ring.
At the golden castle he found the youngest princess and the fiercest foe: a nine-headed sárkány whose capering horses tore sparks from stone.
“If you spare me, I’ll heap your lap with gold,” hissed the last head when eight lay writhing.
“No quarter for those who feed on the helpless,” said Fehérlófia, and the ninth head rolled.
The princess set a golden ring on his finger. “Now send us up, hero,” she urged, “for our father grieves, and the dwarf will not let you go easily.”
The Rope and the Betrayal
At the foot of the well Fehérlófia lit a fire, made a signal, and had his comrades lower the basket. He sent the eldest princess up first, then the second, then the youngest. Each time the rope came down sure and steady.
“Now me, brothers!” he called, stepping in.
The rope rose two fathoms, three—and stopped. A knife flashed above, the fibres parted with a dry hiss, and Fehérlófia dropped back to the underworld floor. He stood up, unbroken but stung to the heart.
“So—this is how they measure friendship,” he said softly. “Very well. I will climb another way.”
Above, the three companions led the princesses home and boasted that they had slain the dragons. The king promised the eldest princess to the eldest liar, the second to the second, and set a day for the wedding of the youngest.
The Great Bird and the Living Waters
In the underworld Fehérlófia wandered until he came upon a nest wide as a threshing-floor. Three chicks within screeched and flapped; a black serpent reared to strike. With one swing of his club Fehérlófia smashed the serpent flat.
A shadow fell. The sky darkened. Down stooped the Great Bird—older than kings, stronger than storms.
“Kraa! Who has saved my young?” she croaked.
“I,” said Fehérlófia, lifting his club.
“Then what do you seek, earth-son?”
“The upper world.”
“I will carry you,” said the Bird, “but I burn through meat and water. Fetch nine oxen and nine skins of water. Each time I turn my head, give me meat; each time I look under my wing, give me water. If you fail me, I drop you.”
Fehérlófia quartered the dragons’ stores, filled skins from the underworld springs, loaded the Bird, and climbed upon her back.
They rose. When the Bird turned her head, he thrust meat into her beak. When she looked under her wing, he poured water. Higher they went, through shadows and shining, until the last side of meat was gone and still the light of the upper world seethed far above.
The Bird turned her head again.
“Meat!” she croaked. “Meat! If no meat, I’ll eat you!”
Fehérlófia did not hesitate. “Better a strip of me than the whole of me,” he said, drew his knife, and cut a piece from his own thigh. He fed it to the Bird and gave her water. She screamed—no cry of hunger, but of respect—and flung herself the last distance upward, bursting into the day. She set him down on sweet grass and spat out what remained: a mouthful of living water. She poured it on his wound; the flesh knit as if it had been a dream.
“You fed me with yourself; I restore you with life,” said the Bird, and was gone on the wind.
Truth Rises
Fehérlófia strode to the king’s city on the very morning the bells were tuning for the weddings. He came in in a hunter’s cloak and stood at the gate till the youngest princess passed. She knew him at once.
“Father, this is the hero who freed us,” she said. “Let him speak before vows bind us to liars.”
The hall hushed. Fehérlófia told the tale without boasting, and the princesses held up the copper, silver, and golden rings he had won. The king’s face darkened.
“Truth rises like oil over water,” he said at last. He turned to the three false heroes. “What shall be the measure for those who betray a friend and steal a deed?”
“Let the well keep those who love the well,” said Fehérlófia, and the king’s men took the traitors away to a judgement as the old laws commanded. (Some say they were cast down the same shaft they had left him in; some, that they were banished beyond all borders. It is enough that they troubled honest men no more.)
Then the king set the eldest princess with honour to a prince of a neighbouring land, the second likewise, and the youngest—who had waited with a steadfast heart—he gave to Fehérlófia.
The wedding feasting lasted three days and three nights; the fourth day they fed the poor and loosed the birds. In the courtyard a white foal stamped, flicked its tail, and whinnied into the sun, and some who heard it swore there was an echo in that sound of a gentle, mighty voice:
“Measure your strength with mercy.”
So Fehérlófia, Son of the White Mare, ruled with a hand as firm as iron and a heart as mild as milk, and if you ask the old smith what became of the third club, he will tell you it still hangs above the forge, straight as truth and bright as justice.
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