his
battle-axe through the brazen gate, making a hole so big that a child of
five years old could walk through it.'

_Myself_. Of what religion were the old Hungarians?

_Hungarian_. They had some idea of a Supreme Being, whom they called
Isten, which word is still used by the Magyars for God; but their chief
devotion was directed to sorcerers and soothsayers, something like the
Schamans of the Siberian steppes. They were converted to Christianity
chiefly through the instrumentality of Istvan or Stephen, called after
his death St. Istvan, who ascended the throne in the year one thousand.
He was born in heathenesse, and his original name was Vojk: he was the
first kiraly, or king of the Magyars. Their former leaders had been
called fejedelmek, or dukes. The Magyar language has properly no term
either for king or house. Kiraly is a word derived from the Sclaves;
haz, or house, from the Germans, who first taught them to build houses,
their original dwellings having been tilted waggons.

_Myself_. Many thanks for your account of the great men of your country.

_Hungarian_. The great men of my country! I have only told you of
the--. Well, I acknowledge that Almus and Arpad were great men, but
Hungary has produced many greater; I will not trouble you by
recapitulating all, but there is one name I cannot forbear
mentioning--but you have heard it--even at Horncastle, the name of
Hunyadi must be familiar.

_Myself_. It may be so, though I rather doubt it; but, however that may
be, I confess my ignorance. I have never, until this moment, heard of
the name of Hunyadi.

_Hungarian_. Not of Hunyadi Janos, not of Hunyadi John--for the genius
of our language compels us to put a man's Christian name after his other;
perhaps you have heard of the name of Corvinus?

_Myself_. Yes, I have heard of the name of Corvinus.

_Hungarian_. By my God, I am glad of it; I thought our hammer of
destruction, our thunderbolt, whom the Greeks called Achilles, must be
known to the people of Horncastle. Well, Hunyadi and Corvinus are the
same.

_Myself_. Corvinus means the man of the crow, or raven. I suppose that
your John, when a boy, climbed up to a crow or raven's nest, and stole
the young; a bold feat, well befitting a young hero.

_Hungarian_. By Isten, you are an acute guesser, a robbery there was,
but it was not Hunyadi who robbed the raven, but the raven who robbed
Hunyadi.

_Myself_. How was that?

_Hungaria