The Witch of Funtinel

The romantic, fairy tale-like story of the witch of Funtinel mixed with realistic elements - like the author's more important writings - guides the reader back to his narrower homeland, Transylvania. The heroine of the three-volume, voluminous novel is the bewitchingly beautiful girl from the mountains, Nuca. Under the Cathedral, Urszun lives in a strange, round wooden house with his father, the speechless Tóderik. He knows no other law than the law of forests and mountains, nor does he learn goodness from God or in its shadow, but from nature. Her life is not easy, as her father is taken away by the gendarmes, so the ten-year-old girl grows up relying on herself and people's compassion. She matures into a young woman of radiant beauty who attracts men like a magnet about whom she knows nothing. He longs for happiness, but he will be unhappy, in the midst of the future fulfillment predicted by a gypsy woman: whoever he accepts into his bed will die. Nuca would be the first to escape her own doom. She will fall in love with the son of the king of the mountains, the Lord of Life. He builds a small hut on the Komárny, where he endlessly waits for the hunting season, which brings him his lover and the father of her child. And the prophecy seems to lie, she finds her happiness for a short time, her love keeps the gentleman until she realizes that neither she nor the child binds the frivolous young man to her. The prophecy is then fulfilled, the gentleman is murdered. And a life-giving lord kidnaps the child - his grandchild - to raise him as an heir. From that moment on, Nuca consciously uses her witch power: not only does she see the past and the future in people's eyes, but she avenges all the wrongs men have ever committed against women. Wandering in the snow, she fulfills her destiny - her own little son makes fun of her, so Nuca curses and condemns her unknown child to death - forever creating the myth of the fairy-witch of the mountains.