Saint Andrew’s Wolves: Transcultural Aspects of Two Hungarian Legends

Abstract

The folk customs and beliefs associated with the feast day of Saint Andrew the Apostle, coinciding with the winter solstice, play an important role in the Hungarian folk tradition, as well as in the folk culture of many other Eastern and Central European nations. In the Hungarian folklore, among the easternmost Hungarian ethnic groups (Seklers in Transylvania and Changos in Ghimeş valley and Moldavia), some archaic narrative traditions related to this prominent feast day have survived. These traditions, some of which are rooted in the narrative tradition of the Middle Ages, represent unique elements in the corpus of European folk poetry. The paper explores this tale or legend type (Saint Andrew as Lord of the Wolves), which has survived in only a few versions, with an outlook on its international analogies and connections to other thematic groups of the folklore.