[2] Enc. Britt. "Huns."
[3] See "Rege a csoda-szarvasról, by Arany János, an English translation of which has been published by Mr. Butler in his Legends, Folk Songs, &c., from the Hungarian." Cf. Hungary, by Professor Vambéry, cap. iii.
[4] According to Hungarian history, Árpád found numerous small nationalities inheriting Attila's realm, with each of whom he had to settle separately. The number of nationalities has been further increased by fresh arrivals from Asia, and immigrants from Western Europe during the past ten centuries: thus we hear of the continuous irruption of Besseni (Petchenegs) during the reign of Stephen the Saint (first King of Hungary, A.D. 1000); of Cumani in the time of Salamon (A.D. 1060) and his successors; and of Tartars under Batu Khan (A.D. 1285) in the time of Béla IV. During this last invasion large tracts of land became depopulated, the inhabitants having either perished or fled; so that the king was obliged to invite immigrants from Western Europe, and this was the origin of the Saxon settlements in Transylvania. This will to some extent show the difficulties which beset the writer who attempts to give a sketch of the races inhabiting modern Hungary. A further difficulty, in tracing the origin of such races, is due to the variety of spelling adopted by different writers in describing the same race, and the unscrupulous use of the names Huns, Scythae, &c. when writing about tribes inhabiting regions beyond the borders of the then known civilised world. Vide infra, p. x.
[5] We have attempted to give but a brief sketch of the Magyars, feeling that when there is so lucid a work as "Hungary," by so well-known an authority as Professor Vambéry, within the reach of all, and dealing with this subject in a way that it would be folly for us to attempt, we may content ourselves with referring all readers to that work, and to Der Ursprung der Magyaren by the same author.
[6] The Székely (in German "Székler," in Latin "Siculus") inhabit the eastern parts of Transylvania, the territory occupied by them forming an oblong strip between the Saxon settlement of Besztercze and Brassó (Kronstadt), with two branches to the west known as Marosszék and Udvarhelyszék. Another district (szék) inhabited by them, Aranyos-szék, lies in the western part of Transylvania between the districts of Torda and Alsó-Fejér.
[7] The Nationality of the Huns and Avars, a paper read before the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Oct. 4, 1881. Cf. also "The Origin of the Magyars," by the same author.
[9] Kozma says, that in the two above-mentioned countries the word "Huns" was used, up to the thirteenth century, among the people as equivalent to giants, who figured in fairy tales. Simrock and Grimm are inclined to see real persons in them, and say they were the Huns, and in later history the Magyars.
[10] 1883, vol. i. pp. 466, 467.
[11] Cornhill Magazine, May, 1882.