Dialogues of judgement and dream interpretation in folk tales. Royal advisers and dream interpreters

Abstract

In the Hungarian-language narratives of the Carpathian Basin we frequently encounter accounts of royal dreams and the monarch's order that they be deciphered, alongside the cruelty of the judgment which hangs over heroes, the discursive form of forgiveness, and the dialogue between the heroes and their helpers. This is because peasant storytellers liken the popular heroes and prophets to the speech and acts of the prophets, magicians, and sages familiar to them through biblical texts. In this study, I intend to examine the heroes' dream-interpreting and judgmental practices, and the linguistic form of parables used when counselling the hero. Through close reading, I attempt to compare the events and dialogues known from the biblical texts with the stories and parables recurring in Hungarian, and Hungarian-language «gypsy» narratives.