Emese (fl. 9th century CE) was the daughter of Prince Önedbelia of

Dentumoger Dentumoger, or Dentü-Mogyer, is a legendary homeland of the Hungarians before their conquest of the Carpathian Basin around 895. This name is recorded by the anonymous author of the ''Gesta Hungarorum'' ("Deeds of the Hungarians") who identifies ...

, the consort of the Scythian (i.e. from

Scythia Scythia (Scythian: ; Old Persian: ; Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ) or Scythica (Ancient Greek: ; Latin: ), also known as Pontic Scythia, was a kingdom created by the Scythians during the 6th to 3rd centuries BC in the Pontic–Caspian steppe. His ...

) lord

Ügyek Ügyek (second half of the 8th century – first half of the 9th century), also known as Ugek or Vgec, was – according to the chronicler Anonymus (or "Master P.") – the father of Álmos, the first Grand Prince of the Hungarians. However, accord ...

, and the mother of

High Prince Álmos High may refer to: Science and technology * Height * High (atmospheric), a high-pressure area * High (computability), a quality of a Turing degree, in computability theory * High (tectonics), in geology an area where relative tectonic uplift t ...

in Hungarian historical mythology; thus, she was the ancestress of the Hungarian royal house of

Árpád Árpád (; 845 – 907) was the head of the confederation of the Magyar tribes at the turn of the 9th and 10th centuries. He might have been either the sacred ruler or ''kende'' of the Hungarians, or their military leader or '' gy ...

, the dynasty which founded the Hungarian Kingdom. Due to a lack of reliable source material, it is difficult to separate the legends concerning Emese from her actual role as an historical person. Emese was a Hungarian woman who lived in an epoch when the Magyars' cohabitation with the Khazars ceased, and the

Pechenegs The Pechenegs () or Patzinaks tr, Peçenek(ler), Middle Turkic: , ro, Pecenegi, russian: Печенег(и), uk, Печеніг(и), hu, Besenyő(k), gr, Πατζινάκοι, Πετσενέγοι, Πατζινακίται, ka, პა� ...

forced them to resettle in the Carpathian basin, where they established their kingdom. According to tradition, she is the mother of the Magyar royal dynasty, which sprang from one of the seven original Magyar tribes. Hence, she has been credited as "the mother of all ethnic Hungarians".

Emese in legend

Emese's Dream, the legend concerning the conception of

Prince Álmos Álmos (also "Almus", Slovak, hr, Almoš; 1070 or 1075 – 1 September 1127) was a Hungarian prince, the son of King Géza I of Hungary and brother of King Coloman. He held several governmental posts in the Kingdom of Hungary. Life Ear ...

, is one of the earliest known tales from Hungarian history. The legend can be tentatively dated to around 860-870, and with certainty to between 820 and 997 (the birth of Álmos and the acceptance of Christianity). In the legend, Emese, the wife of Chief Ögyek (Ügek), was impregnated by a

turul The Turul is a mythological bird of prey, mostly depicted as a Falcon, in Hungarian tradition and Turkic tradition, and a national symbol of Hungarians. Origin The Turul is probably based on a large falcon. The Hungarian language word ''tur ...

bird. The turul appeared to her in a dream and told her that from her womb a great river would begin, and flow out over strange lands. According to dream interpreters, this meant that she would give birth to a son who would lead his people out of their home in

Levedia Hungarian prehistory ( hu, magyar őstörténet) spans the period of history of the Hungarian people, or Magyars, which started with the separation of the Hungarian language from other Finno-Ugric or Ugric languages around , and ended with the ...

, and that her descendants would be glorious kings. Emese's son was named Álmos; his name derives from the Hungarian word ''álom'', meaning dream, thus "Álmos" can be interpreted as "the Dreamt One". The legend has several variants, namely regarding whether Emese was impregnated by the turul bird or whether she was already pregnant at the time of her dream, and whether the bird appeared to her literally or in a dream while she was asleep. Some variations of the legend may have been introduced in the 19th century during the reemergence of Hungarian nationalism at that time."Feminism, the Murderer of Mothers" by Eva V. Huseby-Darvas, in Women out of place: the gender of agency and the race of nationality. Brackett F. Williams, (editor) New York: Routeledge, 1996. pp. 161–185.

Emese in written sources

Emese is mentioned in two historical works: the Gesta Hungarorum and the Chronicon Pictum. Neither source is contemporary with Emese, as each was written centuries after her death (the Gesta around 1200 and the Chronicon Pictum in the 14th century). Both works freely intermingle actual historical events with legend and chivalric tales, so it is impossible to know if Emese is mentioned as legend or as an actual historical personage. In the Gesta Hungarorum ''("The Deeds of the Hungarians")'', the anonymous author writes "In the year of the Lord 819 Ügek, noble Lord of Scythia descending from the great house of Magog, took in marriage the daughter of Eunedubelia of Dentumoger, Emesu. From her a son was born and given the name Almus. The child was given this divine name for when his mother was pregnant with him there appeared to her a in a dream a bird, and instantly it seemed to her that from her womb a spring began and from her loins spread a great line of kings but they did not propagate in their own lands." The Chronicon Pictum contains the text "Eleud, the son of Ugek by the daughter of Eunodbilia in

had a son, who was named Almus because in a dream of his mother there appeared a bird in the shape of a hawk who impregnated her, and from her womb a fast-flowing stream began to flow, but it was in foreign lands that it grew and propagated. So it happened that from her loins a great line of kings was born."

Name

Emese is also a feminine Hungarian name. Its meaning is ''mother'' or ''breastfeeder''. Emese means "little mother" in ancient Hungarian. It derives from "eme", mother, and the agglutinating " ", which stands for "little". Its root is Finno-Ugric, c.f. Finnish emä, from Proto-Finnic *emä, from

Proto-Uralic Proto-Uralic is the unattested reconstructed language ancestral to the modern Uralic language family. The hypothetical language is believed to have been originally spoken in a small area in about 7000–2000 BCE, and expanded to give differentia ...

*emä, and Hungarian

anya Aanya, Anya or Anja is a given name. The names are feminine in most cultures especially Indian, and unisex in several African and European countries. Origins and variant forms * Aanya or Anya is an Indian name that means inexhaustible, limitless ...

, from Proto-Uralic *ańa. Cognates of emä include

Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...

ema, Northern Sami eapmi (“pistil”), and Nganasan немы (ńemy).

Sources

* {{authority control Given names Hungarian prehistory House of Árpád 9th-century Hungarian people 9th-century Hungarian women