Release date is 2025-05-14

Albert László from page images generously made available by the Hungarian Electronic Library

A tükör – Szegény kicsi Jula – Borzhistória by Mária Berde is a collection of short stories written in the early 20th century. It blends legend and village folklore with psychological realism, using a magical mirror and a rumored “fairy gate” to frame tales of desire, innocence, and fate. The pieces center on a European antiquarian, the harem girl Kandazé and the youth Timur, and a poor mountain child, Jula. The opening of the collection first follows A tükör: a European scholar buys an antique mirror in Istanbul, hears its Baghdadi origin myth, and at midnight the glass reveals the past—Kandazé, promised to the caliph, secretly loves Timur; their flight on the Tigris ends in betrayal and loss when Timur sacrifices her for the mirror and is himself claimed by the river, while the mirror later shatters in the scholar’s room, sobering his skepticism. The scene then shifts to Szegény kicsi Jula, a harsh mountain village where poverty and folk belief shape life: a wise-woman, Ágota, trades in cures and tales, the priest counters superstition, and little Jula yearns to be “innocent,” making small sacrifices to atone for imagined faults. After a brutal winter and late spring, Jula helps Ágota move to her forest hut and, drawn by Ágota’s stories of the Tündérkapu, slips away with a flower-filled cup toward the basalt “fairy gate” at dusk. The excerpt closes as she reaches the silent stone arch. (This is an automatically generated summary.)

Originally published: Maros-Vásárhely: Kosmos, 1920