The Enchanted Night

Transporting stories of intrigue, superstition and rivalry from a European master, in English for the first time

In this stark, haunting collection, Miklós Bánffy narrates with wry wisdom stories of cunning, betrayal and myth ranging from classical antiquity to the Transylvania of his own day. These are communities of sharp rivalries and religious superstition: young Borbálka, about to marry an unsuitable man, receives strange counsel from a suspicious figure in her village; four men seek to exploit the captive Gavrila Lung for money, while mountain wolves howl in the distance; when Old Damaskin betrays his stepson to hold on to his land, his wife extracts bizarre revenge.
Translated into English for the first time by the award-winning Len Rix, this collection further establishes Bánffy as one of the foremost European writers of the twentieth century.'The Tolstoy of Transylvania... Bánffy's trilogy is just about as good as any fiction I have ever read.' - Charles Moore, Daily Telegraph

'The elegiac wisdom of his writing makes him one of those people whose life you wish could have ended in something other than calamity... a great storyteller.' - Guardian

'A genuine case of a rediscovered classic. The force of Bánffy's enthusiasm produces an effect rather like that of the best Trollope novels, but coming from a past world that now seems excitingly exotic.' - Times Literary Supplement

'Bánffy's masterpiece resembles Proust, [yet] he writes with all the psychological acumen of Dostoevsky.' - The London Magazine

'Hungary's Tolstoy.' - StandpointMiklós Bánffy was born Count Miklós Bánffy de Losoncz in Hungary in 1873. Over the course of his life he studied law, wrote plays, novels and stories, and became a groundbreaking set designer, an accomplished cartoonist, a politician and a diplomat.
A leading figure in the Transylvanian Hungarian community, in 1943 he urged the Romanian government to cut ties with the German side in the Second World War; two years later, a retreating German army looted his estate. He stayed in Transylvania after it was invaded by the Soviet Red Army, and, emaciated and penniless, reunited with his family in Budapest in 1949. He died a year later.WOLVES
It was winter. Thick snow covered the mountains and
valleys of Transylvania. It had left tall round shepherd’s caps
on the circular Vlach huts, turning them from black mushrooms
into white. It had draped its soft white coat over the mountain
slopes, sprinkled the forests with a mica-like glitter, settled thick
on the mud and frozen clods and transformed the fields around
the River Maros into a sea of blinding white.
Everything so white, so utterly, inexpressibly white.
Only on the Hungarian side, all the way down to the Maros,
was the never-ending whiteness ripped apart. In almost every
village blackened roof beams poked out through the snow.
Scorched and dying poplars thrust their branches into the sky
like enormous black brooms. The walls of once-grand houses
and mansions, their sides besmirched by fire, criss-crossed each
other at strange angles on the ruined street corners, abandoned
to the empty silence. As if intent on claiming everything, the
snow had poured into the gardens and roofless rooms alike,
scattering its fine dust under any vaulting that had not collapsed.
But despite its best efforts, on the floors of the houses and out
in the gardens, mysterious dark-red stains had welled up, stains
that had remained slippery underfoot. The snow had blanketed
everything under its immaculate whiteness, but these dark red
stains resisted every onslaught. No sooner were they covered over
than they appeared again.
Among the scorched and trampled evergreens of what had
once been gardens and in the stubble fields beyond, fresh burial
mounds had risen. Stray dogs prowled around them, snarling and
bickering as they scratched at the soil. Crows swirled above in a
vast cloud, cawing loudly.
There was a horror in the wintry silence, a silence more
profound than in any previous winter. It was as if life itself had
been somehow diminished; as if there were fewer people now
alive than in the past.
It was a terrifyingly silent winter, the winter that followed the
Hora Peasant Uprising.
The snows had brought out the wolves. They now roamed
down from the forests towards the wintry villages, ever closer to
the isolated farmsteads and settlements. At first they came singly
or in pairs; then, as the winter tightened and extended its grip,
there were more and more of them, in ever larger packs.
They roamed in the greying light of evening and late into
the night, trotting steadily around the edges of the forests, one
behind the other, their heads down, in complete silence – perfectly
anonymous-looking predators. At first glance you might have
thought they were grey, dirty Komondors, the huge dogs used
by the shepherds. They would squat at the edge of the woods,
unmoving, as dogs do, and wait – wait with menacing patience
for the darkness of night.
They attacked only at night. There would be scarcely a sound,
but by morning half a dozen ewes would be missing, with nothing
left of them but large bloodstains in the snow. The wolves
plundered everywhere, always in the dark of night, stealthily, like
craven thieves. Attempts to guard the farms and the flocks proved
fruitless. The strong, brave Kuvasz dogs set to guard them could
do nothing: they were the first to be torn to pieces, and the silence
of the night remained almost unbroken.
The bailiffs put a bounty of two silver twenty-crown coins
on every wolf ’s head, a great sum at the time. But few were
hunted, even though the proclamation was made all across the
mountains, for the forests held another quarry that seemed more
worth the trouble. On the heads of the rebel leaders an even
greater price had been placed: three hundred pieces of gold for
Hora himself and the same for Kloska. The two had been duly
captured and taken to Gyulafehervar, and now the hunt was on
in the mountains for Hora’s deputy, Gavrila Lung. On his head,
dead or alive, were a hundred pieces of gold. The wolves were
left to roam in peace.
Late one afternoon a small, drab-looking group of men
made its way from Toszerat in the Szamos valley up towards
Mount Humpleu. They walked one behind the other, in silence.
Leading the way was old Maftye, the sawmill owner, a short,
dog-faced, grey-haired man. Behind him came a tall rifleman,
his superior status shown by his enormous sheepskin cap and
the blue stitching on his ragged coat. He was the real leader, it
was plain to see. Behind him were two men from Gyurkuca, the
skinny Pantyilimon and Simion the Israelite. Last of all came the
younger Maftye, a shepherd’s boy from Merreggyo, nicknamed
“Rooster”.
They had come well prepared for the journey. Over their leather
jackets they wore thick loden coats, all very much alike except that
the tall rifleman’s was more ornate. Each had a wooden water flask
and variously coloured bags and rucksacks on their backs. The tall
one carried his forest ranger’s gun, the others long-handled axes.
They were making good progress towards Mount Humpleu,
following a single track across the wide expanse. Their tightly
laced-up boots and the lower halves of their trousers were dusted
with glittering crystals. Under old Maftye’s tread the powder
creaked and groaned. Behind them they left white tracks as bright
as steel in the soft clean snow.
When they reached the meadow of Pojen the old man suddenly
stopped and pointed with the handle of his axe towards the edge
of the forest on the other side. Seven wolves were trotting along,
slowly and lazily, one behind the other. They were going in the
same direction as the men, towards Mount Humpleu.