Today you can still have fun and feast, because the carnival, the time of fun and merriment, is still going on, but tomorrow everything will change, because fasting is coming. Today is Shrove Tuesday, the last day of Carnival.
Shrove Tuesday is the last day of the carnival. The word itself perfectly expresses what it means, since
until midnight tonight, we can eat, drink and be merry for the last time from a rich table, then the forty-day fast begins.
In the Hungarian language, the word took root as a mirror translation of the Latin carnem levare, meaning to leave meat. But this is where the word carnival comes from, as the Latin carne and vale mean meat, burn with you! That is why the carnival is usually held at the very end of the carnival, that is, Shrove Tuesday, or right before it, that is, on Shrove Tuesday or Shrove Monday.
William Dyce: Jesus Fasting in the Wilderness (source: Wikipedia)
The name itself also refers to the next period of the church’s liturgical year, as tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, i.e. the first day of fasting.
Since Ash Wednesday is a so-called moving holiday, since it is aligned with the current Easter and falls on the fortieth day before it, the date of Shrove Tuesday also wanders in the calendar from year to year. The earliest possible date is February 3 and the latest is March 9. This year it falls on February 13.
In our country, this day has ancient roots. Already in the XVII. You can also read regarding it in Magyar Simplicissimus, born in the 19th century and published in Kassa and attributed to Daniel Speer. Let’s pass the word on to this volume:
„On Shrove Tuesday night, the butcher boys used to do such strange pranks, among other things. They pull a rope from the innkeeper in Lócs to the guardhouse on the other side, and in the middle of it they hang a well-tied goose by its feet. The lads run under the rope on a saddleless horse, trying to catch the goose’s neck (…) The one who took it is chief for a year and enjoys special privileges among the artisans”.
The Magyar Simplicissimus remembers a different kind of duel in connection with Eger:
“unmarried lads and any braggarts may invite the other to a lance, or to break a spear, in the following manner. The matter must be reported to the city judge by paying a HUF. If this has happened, the judge obliges them not to tease each other or back down until the end of the day, when the deadline for breaking the spear is set. Each can provide himself with blood, armour, armor and a good horse for the appointed time. Of course, the lance or spear is given by the superior without an iron tip, in the same length and with the exception of decoys. When the lance was extended to them, they rushed at each other from two sides in the right direction. There is no saddle on the horse. The one who knocks the other off the horse wins (…) It rarely happens that one of the parties does not want to appear. In this case, the one who stood up for the fight buys a lamp covered with blisters from the butcher, puts a burning candle in it and ties it to a spear with a pair of ragged trouser legs. saying what, or if they don’t know where it might be found. The one who doesn’t show up has to put up with it. Otherwise, fifty or more hajdus are assigned to separate them and make peace if the parties have paid each other sufficiently. In such cases, they usually praise both of them and thereby achieve that they forgive each other and become good friends once more.”
Photo: Gyula Péter Horváth/Hirado.hu
The fight between voivode Cibere and king Konc is connected to Shrove Tuesday, who in folk etymology represent Lent and carnival.
Their struggle, their symbolic duel, was performed at the climax of the carnival in Magyarhon. The name of voivode of Cibere refers to the sour cibere soup as a lean fasting food, and that of the king of Konc refers to meaty, fatty dishes. The fight between the two is already mentioned in the XVI. century, from the pen of András Szkhárosi Horvát, who wrote in his song “Kétféle hitróla”:
„There will always be a big fight during the carnival, When Cibere bán enters the Bánság, Voivode Konc is angry, raging in his anger, Because he has no decency during the forty-six days. Oh, what a shame it is for the salty bacon, For the pork sod, that they are silent on smoke, But they are only in lentil and pea dignity, The poor bites can’t get fish.”
Buses parade on the first day of the Mohács bus tour (MTI/Tamás Sóki)
András Horváth Szkhárosi might certainly have written all of this in the years following the occupation of Buda, between 1542 and 1549, we do not know the exact date, the text was preserved in Péter Bornemisza’s songbook published in 1582.
We also know from the records that Kiszileves and Sódor clashed in the Felvidék at the end of the fast, but then Sódor won. This custom is a local version of the fight between Voivode Cibere and King Konc.
In Zala, on the other hand, the custom of masquerading was popular – as it was called there – húšhagát, or húsajó Tuesday. According to this, the children dressed up as masks in the early followingnoon, that is, they dressed up in various costumes and walked around the village in them, making a lot of noise around them. And the villagers treated the masqueraders with small gifts. Similar to this is the bus tour in Mohács, which has survived to this day as a winter-waiting-spring custom, and is already mentioned in a record from 1783.
Shrove Tuesday therefore gives joy to fasting with a holiday. Mihály Vitéz Csokonai gives this good advice for this day in his poem “The Farewell Words of the Carol: “You have to live even during fasting / Because whoever finds a nice partner, / It’s not greasy – you can live with it. / The chicken is also clucking! / You have to live the fast too!”
Featured image: Bussers dance in front of the bonfire symbolizing the end of winter on Széchenyi Square on the fourth day of the Mohács Busójárás, Carnival Sunday (Photo: MTI/Judit Ruprech)