MÓR JÓKAI

TRAVEL WRITINGS

TRAVEL SKETCHES,

THE FROZEN BALATON,

THE EMBRACING CASTLE RUINS

“My travelling companion, an English wine merchant who had turned his attention to the wines of the Balaton region, Mr. Wilkins, kept pondering until the Siófok road junction about what he had not seen. Throughout the entire journey he had not seen any green crops. Had the wheat frozen out? Or had nothing been sown this year? Or had the mice eaten it all? The great plain truly looked like a barren fallow field. But at the opening between the clay banks of Siófok, he could finally speak of what he did see. The entire mighty little inland sea lay frozen over. Instead of the living surface reflecting the drifting clouds and shores, there stretched a dead, motionless green plain, dark as malachite, streaked with white lines, scattered in the distance with moving ant-like masses: fishermen, skaters; today is a holiday, everyone is enjoying themselves. This is the second ice cover of Balaton this year. The first already lies out upon the sandy heathlands of Somogy in the shape of long white bastions and collapsed palace rows, driven there by a northern wind, while winter has drawn a second armour in its place. Balaton, too, has begun indulging in luxury, changing its toilette twice during one carnival season.
Beyond the Tihany Peninsula another phenomenon appears in this enchanted picture: there too the lake is frozen over, covered by the same malachite roof, yet nearer the Somogy shore a gigantic crack stretches across it from Tihany down to Badacsony, and in the opening gleams an azure-blue mirror of water. The hills of Zala are covered with hundreds upon hundreds of tiny wine houses gilded by the sun, and the shining dots reflected upon that long strip of open water appear like moving torches, while the ice sheet itself remains dull and without reflection. These fairy lanterns race alongside us upon the sky-blue road as long as Balaton lasts, until another marvel of optical illusion draws our attention elsewhere. Two ancient castle ruins appear among the hills of Zala, seeming from the swiftly rushing train as though they were moving before and behind one another. The two ruins are Csobánc and Szigliget. They too hurry toward each other; with majestic movement they approach, until they finally meet, Szigliget advancing before Csobánc — but the latter is larger, and when Szigliget stands entirely before it, the ruins of Csobánc still rise above its towers. Then perhaps the ghostly inhabitants of the two castle spirits converse with one another. Afterwards the two ruins bid farewell again, gliding away like spirits, one southward, the other northward. And this magical spectacle is repeated six times every day before those travelling by railway...”
(Source: National Széchényi Library – Hungarian Electronic Library)

“... We travel by cart through the valley whose every stone was gathered by the writer of legends, Sándor Kisfaludy, and from them he built his own memorial. The landscape celebrated in his poetry is still more beautiful than the rest. Drought lay upon the whole country like a curse, with withered brown fields everywhere, yet in the valleys of Csobánc, Tátika, and Rezi the meadows were still flowering, and the grass beneath these castles still grew lush and richly. Therefore it was not in vain that the blood of brave heroes was shed there, nor in vain the tears of poor fiddlers after them; at least the grass and meadow flowers remained grateful for it.
Who would not know these beautiful legends? Whoever has not yet heard of them should read the poems of Kisfaludy, for every line of them is born from our own blood. And whoever wishes to know even more should ask the old villagers in turn, the literate notaries, the schoolmasters; from every hill and every pile of stones they can tell yet another legend.
Whoever passes beneath Szigliget should not forget to have shown to him the Blessed Hill and the Cursed Hill: they lie not far from the road. Long ago, in the romantic age of arrows and bows, a passionate hunter fell in love with a young maiden and asked for her hand in marriage. But the girl refused him, for her heart belonged to a young peasant lad, and her parents too preferred him. The wedding day was set for Carnival season; the bridegroom’s wedding party came from Sümeg for the bride in splendid sleighs, with jingling harnesses and bannered horses galloping along the white road with the festive company. The rejected hunter watched them from behind a hollow tree trunk. When the sleigh carrying the bride approached him, he suddenly placed an arrow in his quiver and shot the girl through the heart. She died there in her bridegroom’s arms, her red blood staining the snow.
The wedding party pursued the murderer and overtook him not far away, beating him to death. The murdered girl was buried on one side of the road, while on the other side they covered the murderer’s body with stones, from which a great mound arose, for later every passer-by also threw another stone upon it; this custom survives to this very day. In the following spring a wild rose bush began to grow upon the murdered girl’s grave, while the murderer’s mound became overgrown with dark-blue sea holly thorns, which, when dried by autumn and blown rolling before the wind, the people call ‘devil’s cart’.
And wondrous indeed! The rose bush still blooms today atop the green mound though no one tends it, while the heap of stones is still covered with sea holly thorns, despite travellers continually throwing more stones upon it.”
(Source: OSZK Electronic Periodicals Archive and Database)

“Timár would sit for whole days beside the shore of the lake, listening to its mysterious speech; sometimes even in the calmest weather it would begin to roar, and its surface would turn emerald green as far as the infinite distance, while not a single sail moved above the melancholy green waves; no ship, ferry, or barge — as though it were the Dead Sea itself.
This lake possesses a wondrous dual power: it strengthens the body while darkening the soul. The chest feels liberated, the appetite becomes fiercely demanding; yet at the same time a melancholy sadness descends upon the spirit, lulling it back into the world of legends.
The picturesque mountain groups along the lake shore are still crowned with the castle ruins of the heroic recent past; in the castle gardens of Szigliget and Csobánc sage and lavender planted by the women of vanished families still grow green, though the walls crumble year by year, and now and then the steep wall of a tower still defies the storms by miracle alone. And even what is inhabited by the living moves toward decay. The hillside of Tihany itself continually collapses on its eastern side; old men still remember when carts could circle around the monastery, later only a footpath remained beside its walls, while today it stands directly upon the edge of the precipice, and stones constantly tumble down from beneath King Andrew’s massive building.
Atop the hill there were once two crater lakes: these too have vanished; beside the road a deserted church falls into ruin; where the village once stood there is now pastureland. And the great lake repays the stones falling into it with prehistoric shell fossils; it casts hoof-shaped shells upon its shores, and everything living within it is so strange and so unlike the creatures of other waters, as though this lake truly were the abandoned daughter of the ancient sea that once ruled here, still preserving memories of its far departed mother, the sea. Among its fish, snails, snakes, and even crayfish, white is the dominant colour: such creatures live nowhere else. Its mud is filled with crystal needles whose touch both burns and heals; its sponge raises blisters upon the skin, and all its water is sweet and drinkable. I know many people who are truly in love with Balaton.”

(Source: National Széchényi Library – Hungarian Electronic Library)


(Mór Jókai /1825–1904/ The greatest Hungarian storyteller. He first visited Lake Balaton in the summer of 1857, shortly after the Anna Ball. He stayed in Füred, then travelled to Tihany, and on the third day took an excursion to Keszthely aboard the steamer Kisfaludy. Returning to Balatonfüred by carriage, he explored and sketched the castle ruins of the Balaton Highlands. Numerous novels, novellas, and travel writings were created in his house in Balatonfüred.)