Page:The folk-tales of the Magyars.djvu/11

 INTRODUCTION.

the arrival of the Magyars, Hungary was the "cock-pit of eastern Europe;" its history one incessant struggle between nation and nation, which either perished or was driven out by some more powerful neighbour. First we hear of the subjection of what was known as Pannonia, by the Romans; then, when that great power began to wane, a motley horde under the great Attila swept down and founded a kingdom. "Attila died in Pannonia in 453. Almost immediately afterwards the empire he had amassed rather than consolidated fell to pieces. His too-numerous sons began to quarrel about their inheritance; while Ardaric, the King of the Gepidae, placed himself at the head of a general revolt of the dependent nations. The inevitable struggle came to a crisis near the river Netad, in Pannonia, in a battle in which' 30,000 of the Huns and their confederates, including Ellak, Attila's eldest son, were slain. The nation thus broken rapidly dispersed. One horde settled under Roman protection in Little Scythia (the Dobrudsha); others in Dacia Kipensis (on the confines of Servia and Bulgaria), or on the southern borders of Pannonia." A tradition asserts that the Magyars are descendants of those Huns, who, after their defeat., returned to their homes in Asia. On the other hand, one of their most learned men says, we cannot