Emese

Emese in legend

Emese's Dream, the legend concerning the conception of Prince Álmos, is one of the earliest known tales from Hungarian history. The legend can be tentatively dated to around 860-870, and with certainty to between 820 and 997 (the birth of Álmos and the acceptance of Christianity).

In the legend, Emese, the wife of Chief Ögyek (Ügek), was impregnated by a Turul bird. The Turul appeared to her in a dream and told her that from her womb a great river would begin, and flow out over strange lands. According to dream interpreters, this meant that she would give birth to a son who would lead his people out of their home in Levedia, and that her descendants would be glorious kings. Emese's son was named Álmos; his name derives from the Hungarian word álom, meaning dream, thus "Álmos" can be interpreted as "the Dreamt One".

The legend has several variants, namely regarding whether Emese was impregnated by the Turul bird or whether she was already pregnant at the time of her dream, and whether the bird appeared to her literally or in a dream while she was asleep. Some variations of the legend may have been introduced in the 19th century during the reemergence of Hungarian nationalism at that time.

"In the 819th year of Our Lord's incarnation, Ügyek, who, as we said above, being of the family of King Magog became a long time later the most noble prince of Scythia, took to wife in Dentumoger the daughter of Duke Eunedubelianus, called Emese, from whom he sired a son, who was named Álmos. But he is called Álmos from a divine event, because when she was pregnant a divine vision appeared to his mother in a dream in the form of a falcon that, as if coming to her, impregnated her and made known to her that from her womb a torrent would come forth and from her loins glorious kings be generated, but that they would not increase in their land. Because, therefore, a dream is called "álom" in the Hungarian language and his birth was predicted in a dream, so he was called Álmos. Or he is thus called Álmos, that is holy, because holy kings and dukes were born of his line."

"Ügyek's son Előd, fathered a son by the daughter of Eunodubilia in Scythian land, whose name was Álmos, because a bird in the shape of a falcon appeared in his mother's dream when she was pregnant, a rushing stream sprang from her womb, it grew, but not in its own land, and from this it was prophesied that glorious kings would come from her loins. Because dream is "álom" in our language, and the birth of that boy was prophesied by a dream, that's why he was called Álmos."

Emese in written sources

Emese is mentioned in two historical works: the Gesta Hungarorum and the Chronicon Pictum. Neither source is contemporary with Emese, as each was written centuries after her death (the Gesta around 1200 and the Chronicon Pictum in the 14th century). Both works freely intermingle actual historical events with legend and chivalric tales, so it is impossible to know if Emese is mentioned as legend or as an actual historical personage.

Interpretations

It is questionable which chronologically was the first text, since the 14th-century Chronincon Pictum preserved the text of several earlier works, including the presumed 11th-century primordial gesta (Hungarian: ősgeszta). Historian Bálint Hóman considered the latter work already contained the legend of Emese's dream, which was later adopted by several chronicles, including Anonymus. In contrast, György Györffy argued the Gesta Hungarorum provides a grammatically more complete and tidy story about Emese's dream, while the historian also highlighted the text corruption regarding the name of Eunedubelianus ("Eunodbilia") in the Chronicon Pictum. Györffy claimed that Anonymus created the name of Eunedubelianus from Enech, Dula and Belar – characters of the legend of the wondrous hind. Gyula Kristó and many scholars accepted Györffy's consideration. Opposing this viewpoint, philologist János Horváth, Jr. argued the primordial gesta influenced Anonymus' work. Accordingly, "Emese's dream, although stripped of its pagan and totemistic character, could still be included in the oldest written source, which Anonymus logically adds, but the chronicle confuses it precisely by using Anonymus' addition". Dezső Dümmerth argued that the order of the ancient, more logical dream narration was preserved in the chronicles: Anonymus wrote in a more pleasing style, but he messed up a text in which there was a memory of shamanic divination.

György Szabados highlighted that the name of Emese appears in only the Gesta Hungarorum, while the chronicle variants refer to her simply as "the daughter of Eunodbilia". Literary historian Géza Szentmártoni Szabó claimed the names appearing in the dream are actually symbols, forms of manifestation of totemic animals (Eleud = Ölyűd, "buzzard"; Eunodbilia = Ünődbéli → ünő, "deer cow" or "doe"). Szabó argued Anonymus made the word "emesu" a personal name due to a misunderstanding. According to him, the word emes, i.e. émés, in the form émést, was probably formed from the verb émik, which in the Old Hungarian language meant a half-awake, half-ecstatic state during vigil, when the boundaries between dream and reality are blurred. In his 16th-century world chronicle, Lutheran pastor István Székely was the first to publish the "Turul dream" in Hungarian in this context. György Szabados accepted Szabó's theory. He argued the primordial gesta contained the Turul legend, and the text "ex filia Eunodbilia" can be translated as "the woman from the gens Eunod or Ünőd". Later, Anonymus mistakenly invented the name Emese and masculinized the phrase "Eunodbilia" to create the name of the chieftain of Dentumoger. Tibor Szőcs argued that the Hungarian word ímés or émés is mentioned in István Székely's 1559 book is an example of a hapax legomenon. Linguist László Balogh read the chieftain's name as an adjective "Yunedubelia" and translated it as "from the tribe Jenő".

Name

Emese is also a feminine Hungarian name. According to linguist Dezső Pais, its meaning is mother or breastfeeder. Emese means "little mother" in ancient Hungarian. It derives from "eme", mother, and the agglutinating "[s]e", which stands for "little". Its root is Finno-Ugric, cf. Finnish emä, from Proto-Finnic *emä, from Proto-Uralic *emä, and Hungarian anya, from Proto-Uralic *ańa. Cognates of emä include Estonian ema, Northern Sami eapmi ("pistil"), and Nganasan немы (ńemy). However, as linguist Loránd Benkő wrote, the word "emse" (=mother) first appears only 1681, so this can also be a retrospective identification attempt with the progenitress of the Árpád dynasty.