"Let the Magyar be thankful, that the Székely is his acquaintance."
With regard to the alleged descent of the Székelys from the Huns, the evidence in proof of such a pedigree is very meagre. First, it has not as yet—with any degree of accuracy—been determined who the Huns were. Prof. Vambéry has, with infinite pains, collected and analysed some seventy words, mostly proper names—all that has come down to us of the old Hunnish language—and come to the conclusion that the Huns and Avars for the greater part belonged to the Turco-Tartar branch of the Ural-Altaic race; yet he is bound to acknowledge that he would gladly welcome a few historical facts to support him in his conclusions, which are built upon an almost entirely philological basis.[7] Indeed, it seems as though the term "Hun" was a sort of conventional designation, like "Scythian," or "Barbarian" with the ancient Greeks and Romans; or "Frenghi" with the modern Turks. Attila and the various races he pressed into his service were, of course, the Huns par excellence. After his death and the fatal battle near the river Netad his hordes appear to have well-nigh vanished from Europe; but their terrible deeds left an indelible impression upon the people who were unfortunate enough to have been brought into contact with the "scourge of God" and his fierce warriors. In the lapse of time all kinds of weird traditions gathered round their names, in the usual way, when great names pass into the possession of the Folk Historian;[8] and so they drifted through legends of saints into the region of myths. Thus we find the name Hüne (Heune, Hewne, Huyne) becomes synonymous with "giant," and to this day the Westphalian and Dutch peasant speaks of the great tumuli as "Hünen gräber"—graves of the giants, or Huns.[9] To add to the confusion, it would appear that there were some German tribes who were known as Hunes. Mr. Karl Blind has pointed out in the Gentleman's Magazine,[10] that our own Venerable Bede speaks of Hunes as being among the tribes of Germany that came over to Britain together with the Saxons. Elsewhere[11] he explains "the tribal origin of Siegfried (of the Nibelungen lied) as a German Hüne;" a word which has nothing whatever to do with the Mongolian Huns. We know mediæval writers were not very particular about facts, and the licentia poetica was claimed not only by poets, but also by historiographers, as an indisputable privilege. Thus, João Barros, in his chronicle of Clarimundus,[12] calmly tells us that Count Henry of Portugal, the Navigator, was of Hungarian descent, and that he found the statement in a Magyar book.[13] This alleged pedigree was the cause of a fierce controversy amongst Hungarian savants, and was fully threshed out in the early part of the present century.[14]
Vigfusson[15] remarks that the northern poet, whom he designates the "Tapestry poet," uses Hunar (Huns), Hynske (Hunnish) as a vague word for "foreign." Probably the East Baltic folk would have been Huns to the earlier poets. With regard to the German and Scandinavian Huns, it is noteworthy what Olaus Magnus writes with regard to the "Huns" of his time. The learned prelate says that "in provincia Middelpadensi versus Boreales partes Suetiæ superioris, ubi ferè major pars virorum Huni nomine appellantur tamquam populi clarius contra Hunos olim belligerantes ac triumphantes."[16] His statement is borne out by his colleague, Joannes Magnus,[17] who asserts that "non desunt qui dicant ipsos Hunnos à Septentrionale parte Scandiæ utra Helsingorum terras ex Medelphatia primum erupisse: in qua etiam hodie plurimi præstantissimæ fortitudinis homines inveniuntur, qui Hunni proprio nomine appellantur, quique magna et præclara opera in tyrannos, qui patriæ libertatem vexaverat, peregerunt."
In the face of all this, it is quite evident how difficult a task awaits those who attempt to identify the lineal descendants of the Huns: and those who uphold the Hunnish descent of the Székelys do not appear, as yet, to have advanced sufficient historical grounds to establish the connection of the modern Székelys with the Huns of Attila.[18]
It is well known that the Hun descent of the Magyars and Székelys has equally been questioned. Savants of such authority as Budenz and Hunfalvy disclaim the Hun relationship, and endeavour to prove the Finn-Ugrian origin of the Magyars. Whereas Professor Vambéry, in his work on the "Origin of the Magyars," which received so favourable a reception at the hands of the whole learned world, defends, as we saw above, a Turco-Tartar descent.
It lies far beyond the limits of this work to give even a brief outline of the history of the Székelys: yet a few data may not be out of place to show that, although they are at the present time, and mayhap always have been, a Magyar-speaking people, yet they are in many respects distinct from the race known as the Magyars. Ibn Dasta, an Arab writer,[19] at the end of the ninth century, informs us that in his time some Bulgarians lived on the banks of the River Itil (Volga); and that they consisted of three tribes, viz.: the Berzuls, the Esseghels, and the Uz. He further says that "the first territory of the Magyars lies between the country of the Bisseni and the Esseghel Bulgarians."
Another Arab writer, Ibn Muhalhal, about the middle of the tenth century, mentions a people named "Jikil," who lived next to the "Bajnak." If the writers who would identify in this Ashkal, Esseghel, or Jikil people, the parents of the Székely race, be right in their conclusions, then the Siculi (as they are called in Latin deeds) are of Bulgarian descent.[20] But we know full well how dangerous it is to build up theories on a mere similarity of names amongst barbarous or semi-barbarous races. The first reliable information we have about them is that about the year 1116 A.D. Bisseni and Siculi formed the body-guard of the Magyar King Stephen II. in his war against the Czechs. They supplied the vanguard of the army of King Géjza against Henry of Austria about 1146. More than half a century later, i.e. A.D. 1211, Andreas II. presented some uninhabited territory in Transylvania to the Teutonic knights; and, in a deed dated 1213, William, Bishop of Transylvania, granted the tithes of his territory to the same order, but reserved to himself the right of collecting them from all Magyar or Székely immigrants who might settle on the lands in question.[21] King Béla IV. ordered the Székelys[22] to supply him with one hundred mounted warriors in war; and later on, to show them his gratitude for their faithful services, he created them military nobles:[23] "Quod non sub certo numero (in a body as hitherto) sed eo modo sicut servientes regales, per se et personaliter armata nobiscum exercituare teneantur."[24] The Székelys of Hungary Proper gradually disappear, but the Siculi of Transylvania figure throughout the pages of Hungarian history as a separate people, with institutions and privileges of their own, and acting as a sort of border-fencibles in the numerous wars with the enemies of the Magyars. They furnished a separate title to the Prince of Transylvania,[25] and, although recent reforms have swept away old barriers, yet one still hears people speaking of the three nations of Transylvania, viz. the Magyars, the Székelys, and the Saxons.[26] Whether they ever spoke a language of their own we are unable to say; they speak several dialects, which have been carefully studied by Kriza,[27] himself a Székely by birth, and which possess peculiarities not to be found amongst the Magyars, or any other part of the realm of St. Stephen. A passage[28] in a work entitled "Hungaria et Attila," by Nicolaus Oláh, Archbishop of Esztergom (died 1568), might, perhaps, be quoted to prove that an independent Székely language had existed once, but there is an ambiguity about the statement of the learned prelate which makes it useless to the philologist. At any rate, we do not possess a single scrap of the old language, if it ever existed.
Having thus made ourselves acquainted with the Székelys, we may proceed to consider the other Magyar-speaking nationalities.
The Csángós[29] are Hungarian settlers in Moldavia; there are so many similarities in their tongue to the Székely dialects that Hunfalvy appears to be quite confident that they are a people of Székely origin.[30] Of late years an attempt has been made to resettle them in the less populous crown lands in Hungary; the result, as one might expect, is, that some are content, whilst others lust after the flesh-pots of Moldavia.