Form and Content
Kate Seredy explains in the foreword to The White Stag that she wrote the novel because she had felt dissatisfied with a book on Hungarian history that presented a dry “unending chain of facts, facts, facts” and argued that the Magyar (Hungarian) race was not descended from Attila the Hun. Her book, therefore, fictionalizes and romanticizes the westward drive of the Huns and Magyars and the life of Attila the Hun, using the rhythms and rhetoric of folklore as it establishes Attila as the founder of Hungary. Seredy’s black-and-white illustrations depict chiefly the warriors, who, like comic book superheroes, appear noble, mighty-thewed, and glorious. These drawings also hint at a slant to the eyes to reveal the Huns as an Asiatic race.
The book traces four generations of Huns. Nimrod, a great hunter, is the leader of a tribe suffering from hunger and illness. His two sons, Hunor and Magyar, have been gone for months, following a miraculous white stag. Nimrod asks their god, Hadur, for a sign that their fortunes will improve. Hadur sends first an eagle, which plunges into his sacrificial pyre; then two more, which depart northward and westward; then a fourth; and then a great red eagle, which flies away to the west. Nimrod interprets these signs: He is the first eagle, who is soon to die, while his two sons will lead their tribe nearer to their destined home. After they are gone, there will be another leader, and it will be his son, greatest of all, who will lead them to the promised land.
Hunor and Magyar return and tell a tale of having followed the White Stag on a visionary quest to a beautiful country with food enough for all. A prophetical young boy, Damos, has a mystical dream in which Hunor and Magyar are paired with two white herons, and shortly thereafter Nimrod’s sons marry two lovely “Moonmaidens.”
Seredy traces the journeys of the tribe, which splits into Huns and Magyars—some choosing to travel to the less populated northern regions with the peaceful Magyar and others, fierce and wild, preferring to wage war through Europe with pitiless Hunor. Hunor’s son, Bendeguz, grows into a brawny warrior who builds the Hun tribe into a restless, reckless army. Bendeguz falls in love with a captured princess, Alleeta, the daughter of King Ashkenaz of the Cimmerians; Damos, now grown old, marries them.
Worrying that Hadur has turned his back upon the tribe, Bendeguz desires to remain with Alleeta in the peaceful land where their army is encamped. Damos replies that the Huns have a destiny to fulfill and that their travels are not yet over. When Alleeta dies giving birth, Bendeguz is so angry at Hadur that he declares their son, Attila, will become the Scourge of God. Bendeguz rears Attila without love or comfort, and the boy becomes a ruthless warrior. Attila’s army rampages across Europe, always seeking their foretold home. At last, the White Stag reappears during a blizzard to guide them across the Carpathian Mountains, where the Huns find a beautiful valley rich with greenery and game. Attila vows to protect this land and its people.
Setting
The story begins somewhere east of the Ural Mountains of Central Asia in the dawn of prehistory, when the game deserts the ancestral hunting grounds of the Hun-Magyar tribes. The tribes are forced to migrate westward in search of better hunting grounds. The people leave the headlands and snow-capped mountains of the Altain-Ula and slowly wend their way westward, following the mythical White Stag to the promised land foretold to them...
(This entire section contains 259 words.)
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by their god Hadur.
For fifteen years the tribe camps alongside a beautiful mountain lake, until the game disappears and a drought forces them to move once again. The people's wanderings take them steadily away from Asu (Asia), the Land of the Rising Sun, and into Ereb (Europe), the Land of the Setting Sun. They constantly wage war with other tribes that stand in their way, as they sweep across the plains of Scythia, into the land between the Rivers Tanais (Don) and Rha (Volga). Eventually they reach the boundaries of Europe. Led by Attila, the Huns press through Sarmatia and into eastern Dacia, crossing the rivers Tyras (Dniester) and Pyretrus (Prut).
Winter descends upon them, and their way is blocked by the massive Carpathian Mountains, which they must traverse to reach the Danube Plains. Again the mythical White Stag comes to their aid, and the tribe finds its way through the mountain passes. When spring returns, they have reached the land promised to them by Hadur, the fertile plains between two rivers, the Pathissus and the Danube. They have arrived in the land that will become Hungary.
Literary Qualities
The White Stag is based on two early epic stories of the origin of the Magyars, The Miraculous Stag and The Lay of the White Steed. The Miraculous Stag recalls that the stag was the totem animal of the Magyars, while The Lay of the White Steed tells of the Magyars' conquest of their homeland. There is some question, however, whether in fact the Magyar people are to be identified with Attila and the Huns. Most scholars believe that the Magyars entered Hungary not in the fifth century, but in the ninth century, following the paths taken earlier by the Huns.
Traditionally, Prince Geza and his son Vajk, who later converted to Christianity and became St. Stephen, first king of Hungary, are considered the founders of the modern Hungarian nation. Seredy's portrayal of Attila the Hun as the founder of Hungary, then, must be considered more as fantasy than fact.
Her narrative presentation is skillfully unified by the three dominant symbols of The White Stag, the eagles, and the flaming sword, respectively representing fidelity to an ideal, trust in the god Hadur, and conquest. Her art nouveau illustrations may well represent her finest work as a children's illustrator. Seredy wrote afterwards that perhaps "tribal memory asserted itself" as she was writing this book, and she frankly acknowledges in her foreword that her intention was "to pay homage to a race of brave men whose faith in their own destiny had led them to a land they still call their own." The White Stag is most memorable for its epic scope and mythic treatment of the story of the founding of the Hungarian nation.
For Further Reference
Bingham, Jane M., ed. Writers for Children. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1988. Includes an excellent critical and biographical source. Good survey and treatment of Seredy's major works.
Cech, John, ed. American Writers for Children, 1900-1960. Detroit: Gale Research, 1983. A fine introductory article on Seredy's life and career includes summaries of her major works.
Kassen, Aileen M. "Kate Seredy: A Person Worth Knowing." Elementary English 45 (March 1968): 303-315. This article provides useful background information about the author for teachers and students.
Kirkpatrick, D. L., ed. Twentieth-Century Children's Writers. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983. Contains a short biographical sketch and bibliographical list of Seredy's works.
Kunitz, Stanley, and Howard Haycraft, eds. The Junior Book of Authors. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1951. The entry on Seredy provides excerpts from an interview with the author in which she talks about how she came to America and began as a children's writer.
Senick, Gerard J., and Melissa R. Hug, eds. Children's Literature Review. Vol. 10. Detroit: Gale Research, 1986. Features a long article with condensed reviews and critical commentary on each of her books.