Paper short abstract:

This paper intends to draw the attention to how the archives of Hungarian historical legends have been formed by collecting the Hungarian folklore material by now, furthermore in what form the genre catalogue (type and motif index) will be created supported by this rich text base.

Paper long abstract:

One of the main tasks of the international folklore has already been the compilation of the manifold folkloristic catalogues (type and motif indices) for more than a hundred years. Contrary to plenty of national tale catalogues, the other determining prose epic genre , in case of the legend, those scientific systematizations which have ever been formed from first to last are belief legend catalogues. Nowadays no historical legend catalogues with comprehensive demand , based on rich text basis exist yet. The reason of it is the lack of the consciously collected and archived data base. Also in case of Hungarian folklore extremely rich in historical legends, it was the main obstacle of carrying out the scientific systematization.

Within the scope of Hungarian Academy of Sciences forming archive has come into a state by now which became approximately complete. Namely, a scientifically complete data base which is spread into all generic subgroups. Presently, The Archives of Hungarian Historical Legends consists of 102.000 texts, it was based on 4 main columns: it contains the publications which have ever been published, moreover legends with Hungarian references, archives which also contain folklore material and its archives of manuscripts with historical legendary topics, published and manual with geographic name collectios considered as the collection of the rich historical and local legends. At last but not least, the intensive recently made fieldwork expecially aims at the so-called "white stains" both in geographical and in thematic sense.