Articles by Initial Letters

Arany Piroska was born in 1931 in the eastern Hungarian town of Derecske, where she grew up and later worked as a school teacher. Since the 1960s she has been writing down stories heard there from her grandparents and extended family. folkMAGazin has been publishing selected stories from her book “Kendőmesék” (Magyar Kultúra Kiadó. Győr, 2008.) “Kendő” is the Hungarian word for the headscarf traditionally worn by rural married women in this part of the world. This is the story of Marcsa’s worn-out old black shawl: Marcsa hadn’t married yet, time was marching on and people were starting to talk‘old maid’. When the widowed landowner in the next village died, her son immediately sent a blackshawl to Marcsa asking her to accompany him to a special mass for his mother. She went to the mass. A very strange way to start a courtship. Yet, the connection between the son and Marcsa was immediate and strong. The next Sunday he came and took her home. She lived with him until he was called into the military. He went off to war and never returned. Marcsa returned to her parents’ home pregnant with his son. They were to have married at the next harvest.