The handkerchief or shawl is however only the simplest form of headgear, and for more important occasions, jewelled embroidered caps, which receive almost as much attention as the boots, are worn, while every bit of finery a girl can pick up, incongruous or not, she puts into her cap with the assiduity of a bower-bird adorning its nest. Every girl makes her own bridal veil and the little cap she is to wear with it on that great day, which, in a country where the sexes are pretty equal in numbers, is sure to arrive if she is not too particular. Some of the caps are only a groundwork for the curious and elaborate head-dresses which rise from them—head-dresses with wings of stiffened velvet or silk and carrying veils recalling the wimples of the days of the English Edwards in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The appearance of these is sometimes so grotesque when seen in some far-away little church in a village among the mountains as to suggest a fancy ball; and the trimming, which looks picturesque at a distance and outside, seems tawdry when seen near at hand in a mass within four walls.
Even the babies wear caps, and the quaintest little objects they sometimes are, with these glittering and fantastically worked adornments constituting their sole clothing, their naked little bodies looking almost too small for their millinery.
For smaller matters, every peasant woman loves jewellery, and no girl is seen without a string of beads around her neck, and she often wears several of different colours.
SUNDAY COSTUME, ZSDJAR
The apron is a very important adjunct, and is not worn merely to preserve the clothing but as an ornament in itself. There is generally a plain one for the house and a decorated one for festivals and public functions. It is seen of all sizes, materials and colours, from tiny scraps of lace or silk to huge coloured ones, maybe purple with orange stripes, or scarlet and black such as the Roumanians wear. The Roumanians are peculiarly rich and choice in their dress, and some of the most beautiful costumes of all are found in this part of the country. The sleeve all made in one with the bodice, now so popular in England under the name of “Magyar,” has been adopted from the Hungarians.
The Wallach women living in Transylvania wear voluminous white chemise-like garments, and their immense puffed sleeves are embroidered in designs of red and blue. Their skirts may be a long piece of cloth clasped by silver ornaments made in curious massive patterns, which are repeated in their large earrings and in chains slung across their chests, while often the scarlet corals at their necks carry out the note of colour started in the crewel-work. The married women among them wear a kind of turban, generally of white, wound around their heads, while the younger ones as often as not go bareheaded, though they sometimes wear a handkerchief. They age very quickly, and the peachlike complexions and velvety dark eyes, which are most alluring, soon wither and dim.
The men of Hungary are not far behind their gay mates. In certain parts of the highlands they dress entirely in white, wearing short jackets and trousers of white felt and huge brass-studded leather belts. The felt and wool and linen in all the costumes was formerly home-made, and warranted to stand any amount of wear. Alas! now cheap imported cotton goods are quickly being substituted with disastrous results.
The sleeveless waistcoat, with its fancy embroidery, and the top-boots run parallel to these articles of the women’s attire, but one thing peculiar to the Hungarian men is the curious habit of wearing a top-coat without putting the arms into the sleeves. This is frequently seen in widely different parts of the country. The coat is a coat and not a cloak, and why sleeves should be fashioned at all if never for use is a problem that the Hungarian himself would find it hard to solve. The adoption of this singular mode is to be seen in the uniform of some of the British Hussar regiments. Possibly the custom has arisen from the beloved and indispensable sheep-skin of the dweller in the plains, which no Magyar shepherd would dream of going without. It is just a great loose cover-all of sheep’s-wool, and it is worn skin side out in fine weather and wool side out in the wet. It is the home, the companion, the comforter of the Alfölder: when the sun scorches down he makes a tent of it to shield him from the rays; when the icy winds of winter roam like wolves howling over the plateau he snuggles into it warm and safe. The skin side of this even does not escape the attentions of the Magyar girl’s nimble fingers, and it is often embroidered in elaborate and quaintly gay patterns.
Another curious feature of the costume of the men is found in the extraordinarily wide and many-folded linen trousers, so full and ample and short that they resemble a kilt and are the next step to the well-known Albanian skirt of pleated linen. These end in top-boots and make a very strange and noticeable item in the dress, especially when many of the men are seen at work together in the cornfields.