Emese

Emese (fl. 9th century CE) was the daughter of Duke Eunedubelianus of Dentumoger, the consort of the noblest Scythian (i.e. from Dentumoger, Scythia) prince Ügyek, and the mother of High Prince Álmos in Hungarian historical mythology; thus, she was the ancestress of the Hungarian royal house of Árpád, the dynasty which founded the Hungarian Kingdom. Due to a lack of reliable source material, it is difficult to separate the legends concerning Emese from her actual role as an historical person.

According to tradition, she is the mother of the Magyar royal dynasty, which sprang from one of the seven original Magyar tribes. Hence, she has been credited as "the mother of all ethnic Hungarians".

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.

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 . 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. In contrast, János Horváth, Jr. emphasized contradictions between Emese's dream and the "Attilid tradition". According to him, the "real miraculous (totemistic pagan) element of the legend would be fertilization from the Turul; however, according to the narration of our gestas, Emes [Emese] only dreams of it, and even in a blessed state. The fetus (Álmos) only gets its name from this wonderful dream vision, but it itself was conceived by a mundane father, Ügyek. The miraculous fact of the story is therefore reduced to a simple dream, and with it the pagan stamp is also removed". Horváth claimed the content of the Turul legend was deliberately withered and subordinated to the "Attila genealogy", since the "fertilizing" role of the Turul would have been synonymous with the end of the Hunnic ruler's bloodline. György Györffy and Gyula Kristó shared similar viewpoints. Györffy claimed that Emese's story is mere a literary borrowing from Anonymus by adopting the origin myth of Cyrus the Great, denying its nature of an ancient Hungarian tradition. Ethnographer István Pál Demény rejected this view and listed many differences between the two myths. they are popular in the traditions and symbolism of the steppe people, and are not exclusive or originary of any specific ethnic group living therein. 19th-century historian Arnold Ipolyi cited Shahnameh'''s Simurgh as a similar example regarding its role at the birth of Rostam. Historians Gyula Kristó and Victor Spinei wrote that Emese's story initially narrated the origin of Álmos's dynasty from a totemic ancestor. Accordingly, Anonymus deliberately transformed this pagan story into a Christianized form. György Szabados emphasized that the Turul is mentioned as occurring in a dream of Emese, when she was already pregnant, while former historiography interpreted this as "impregnation" after Dezső Pais and Dezső Dümmerth made mistranslations. László Geréb provided the correct sentence: "a vulture-shaped bird appeared in her [Emese's] dream when she was pregnant". Szabados cited the 7th-century Chronicle of Fredegar, which implies that the Merovingians were descended from a sea-beast called a quinotaur, thus the Hungarian chronicler had no reason to introduce a Christian line into a legend of steppe tradition. György Szabados revived the story of Māhāmāyā of Shakya, to whom a white elephant appeared in a dream before the Buddha was born, while István Pál Demény mentioned similar stories from the faith of Native Americans. Consequently both historians rejected the nomadic and steppe nature of the Turul legend, and assumed a much more ancient folkloristic tradition that can be traced back to the dawn of humanity. 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.