Friday 10 April 2015

Happy Stone Castle

On 5/4/15 my parents took me back to the place where I was conceived. Boldogkővár (translated: Happy Stone Castle) is in the North-East of Hungary, near the Slovakian border. 

Fűzér Castle
The day was a nostalgic journey, we visited two castles in one day. The first was Fűzér Castle, and Fűzér village, where my parents got married on October 13th in 1962. Three authorities had to permit my being: the postman and policeman of the village were their witnesses at the registry office and then they sneaked into the church as well, just to secure God's will (or the Church's - I am sure I had had God's will many times over by then). In 1962 in Hungary people went to church incognito. Not that my parents were very religious, but they wanted to satisfy my grandmother's needs. 

An interesting detail came to light on this occasion: my father told me that they had wanted to get married on 12th October, but because they were hikers and it was such an unusual thing to do to just turn up in the village in your hiker gear and demand to be wed, the registrar postponed the ceremony to the 13th and went to the county head office to ask for permission. So my parents broke new grounds and finally got married on 13th October - a Friday.
The Catholic Church 
 By the time they walked over to Boldogkővár on their honeymoon hiking tour - some 50 kms in the mountains of Zemplen - the villagers'  gossip had already overtaken them. The people in the village asked them whether they have heard about the hikers that had got married in Fűzér - and my parents laughingly revealed their identity. 

Boldogkőváralja
This time we had lunch in the castle cave, where there is a Mediaeval Restaurant. All cutlery and plates are made of wood and the menu is phenomenal. No fizzy drinks, all home made and all the food is cooked on open fire. There, I read some more about the castle in old-new Hungarian - in verse, stating that the castle must have got its name from a man who must have lead a very happy life in that castle. This is extremely reassuring.