An Excursion: Setting World Records in Hungary

The morning hangs heavy and tepid in the still-dark July sky when Laszi arrives at Erzsike’s house. I have been living with Erzsike, teaching English in Hegyközszentmiklós, a Romanian town populated by 900 ethnic Hungarians. Erzsike is sturdy, ash-haired, probably 60, maybe older, a widow with hands thick from decades of farmwork and dishes. She feeds me incessantly: entire chickens she slaughters and plucks before I wake; thick slabs of zucchini, breaded and fried; watermelon wedges larger than championship trophies; and palacsinta, thin, buttery pancakes that ooze with sweet curd cheese and homemade apricot preserves. She has neither telephone nor indoor plumbing, but we watch Romanian MTV on her Soviet-era television or page through decade-old entertainment magazines.

Today, Laszi has said we’re taking an “excursion.” At 6:30 a.m., men wielding wooden archery bows — the Lowland Wolves, I learn — fold themselves into three sedans. Our route winds southwest for 150 kilometers, over the Romanian-Hungarian border and across the murky Tisza River on a derelict ferry. Gritty, potholed roads and unexpected detours slow us down. The trip lasts four hours in the un-air-conditioned car. The Christina Aguilera Christmas album plays on repeat.

At Ópusztaszer Nemzeti Történeti Emlékpark (the Hungarian National History Memorial Park, for those new to this mellifluous yet indecipherable language), the Lowland Wolves change into traditional Hungarian dress, knee-high leather boots and fur-trimmed caps. Some wear chain mail and armor. The leader sports a shiny gold tunic, black leather belt cinching his bulging midsection. Ópusztaszer is a site of legend — according to Hungarian lore, it is here where, in 896, Prince Árpád and his 250,000-odd Magyar compatriots came storming into the Carpathian Basin, snatching wealth and women and slaughtering Slavs. Hungarians remain proud of this conquest, depicted on a colossal panorama at Ópusztaszer.

Hours later, dust clogging the clammy creases of our skin, we file to the sprawling, scorched field. It is crowded and smells like burnt hay and sweat and I rise to my toes to peer over the broad shoulders and craning heads of other spectators. And then at 6 p.m., 1100 arrows shoot into the air at once, shot from 1100 bows held by 1100 Hungarian archers in 1100 fur-and-leather get-ups. This is a world record, a world record for the most arrows ever shot at once, a world record set in the dusty southern plans of Hungary, in 110-degree heat. The 1100 arrows hit the straw dummies on the opposite end of the field.

“Are those the Slavs?” I ask. “The Slavs Árpád killed in 896?”

“No, they are the Germans!” A pre-teen boy bounces on his toes, grinning as he tests his English. “The Germans! They are very dead.”

When I told the Lowland Wolves of my Hungarian ancestry, how one-eighth of my genes might share genetic material with theirs, I was an immediate inductee. But I decide this might not be the most opportune moment to mention my German-born mother. I’m glad I brought my American passport today and left my German one behind.