That’s How the Story Goes

Duality in conformity to principle

The world of folktales at once follows the laws of reality and violates those rules. The stone is heavy, the water flows – but at the same time the dead speak, a horse flies without wings, and evil is only invincible until someone defeats it. The laws of reality and the internal rules of the world of wonder work together and simultaneously; their layers, one on top the other, are so thin that neither invalidates the other. The laws of the folktale are thus simultaneously familiar from the world of experience, and yet unreal, as they point beyond it.
Everyday reality is organized according to the order, necessity and causal relationships of nature: things are as they should be, and changes are described by series of facts, events, and states. Facts are the smallest building blocks of the world – they can be formulated in sentences, but they are always more than that, as the things to which sentences refer are themselves part of the reality outside of language. The world of reality is thus stratified, unknowable, and in a state of flux: every process has a precedent and a consequence, every state transforms into another, every event indicates something new. In these layers, oral tradition plays a special role: the storyteller simultaneously preserves and shapes what we know as reality, while collection and transcription records but also rearranges this richness.
In the world of folktales, different laws prevail: here wonders, magic and possibility count as rules. What is impossible in our world is self-evident there: a castle on stilts, a talking animal or a twelve-headed dragon are as necessary as gravity is for us. Folktales are among the most ancient formulations of possible worlds: where everything can be different, where the impossible becomes a rule, and possibility becomes actual reality. This modal logic creates the independent world of folktales, which does not deny but complements the order of reality.
The duality in conformity to principle lies precisely in this: the folktale simultaneously acknowledges and shapes the rules of reality, while opening a gateway to the worlds beyond. The order of nature and the logic of wonders do not extinguish, but rather enrich each other, creating a tension in which the world of Hungarian folktales can remain relevant and alive to this day.