Why Hungary jokes about Scotland more than any country

One might therefore expect the butt of Hungarian jokes to be the Romanians (which would be returning a favour) or perhaps the Slovaks, Croats or Serbs. Instead, the country Hungary most loves to make fun of is… Scotland.

Skót viccek (Scottish jokes) are based around two simple premises: that we’re drunkards and we’re skinflints. One such involves a little Scottish boy asking his father what will be going under the tree at Christmas. The reply? “Parquet, my boy”.

Indeed, to describe someone as a Skót in Hungarian is to call them tight-fisted, several collections of Skót viccek have been published and joke websites run to hundreds of gags about Scotland and the Scots.

But where does the image come from?

According to Dr Csaba Molnár, a science journalist based in Budapest who wrote an article about the subject for Hungarian website Index, there are two likely sources.

The first is related to the rise of Presbyterianism in the 16th and 17th Centuries, with puritanical doctrine emphasising abstinence, moderation and, of course, thrift.

In 1579 the Scottish Parliament passed an act making individual parishes responsible for enumerating the poor in their congregation, both making it codified that the poor must be helped but also outlawing things like begging and vagrancy.

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Not wanting to appear as if their lifestyles were responsible for their destitution, parishioners would ensure that, outwardly at least, they lived a life of moderation.

In the same period, thousands of Scots merchants travelled to Poland and the Baltic states to trade, travelling between villages to barter for goods. Given they drove a hard bargain, these merchants became known to the locals as miserly.

The effects of this can be seen today: in the Kashubian dialect of north-central Poland the traditional word for a commercial traveller is ‘szot’ (Scot), and there is a village in the Kuyavia-Pomerania region called Szkocja (Scotland).

Today many Polish second names are transliterations of Scots surnames: Czochran (Cochrane), Machlejd (MacLeod), Szynkler (Sinclair).

Dr Molnár says: "Scottish jokes are incredibly common in Hungary, perhaps second only to mother-in-law jokes.

"Most Hungarians actually have very little knowledge about the real Scots and Scotland, except of course the kilts, which are also quite funny for an average Hungarian.

"According to the historical studies, the Scottish jokes appeared in Poland, where the Scottish merchants were trading intensively in the 16-17th Century.

"Many Scots settled permanently in Poland. Perhaps some Poles did not sympathize with the Scots, and therefore they made up jokes about their perceived bad habits.

"Hungary and Poland had a very close relationship historically, so the Scottish jokes spread to Hungary - despite the fact that very few Hungarians had actually met Scots."

That may explain why the notion of stingy Scots took hold in Eastern Europe in general, but why are Skót viccek such a specifically Hungarian phenomenon?

The answer may lie in a connection between New College, Edinburgh and Debrecen Reformed College.

A Hungarian joke book (Image: Supplied)

In the 19th Century, the Free Church of Scotland’s mission in Pest began inviting Hungarian students to travel to Scotland to be trained as missionaries.

Later, the Free Church of Scotland Scholarship Fund offered students from Debrecen Reformed College the opportunity to attend New College, with the students then bringing Scottish Puritanism back to Hungary.

According to historians Abraham Kovacs and Richard Horcsik this led to “a transplanted Scottish Presbyterian culture” in the east of Hungary, probably giving rise to the stereotype of miserly Scots.

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There are, however, more positive connections between Hungary and Scotland. Legend has it the Picts arrived in Scotland – via Ireland – from the ancient land of Scythia in the Russian steppes, and that they share ancestry with the Jász people of modern day Hungary.

Saint Margaret of Scotland was born in the Kingdom of Hungary, her English father having been exiled there following the defeat of his father, Edmund Ironside, by Canute.

Some scholars suggest that Mac or Mc, meaning ‘son of’, shares a root word with the Hungarian ‘mag’, meaning ‘seed’ and even the disputed origin of the word ‘Celt’ has been linked to modern day Hungary.

The names Keltoi and Celtae are used in Greek and Latin respectively to refer to the people of the upper Rhine and Danube from the 6th to 1st Century BC, but the etymology of the name is uncertain.

French scholar Henri Hubert postulated it came from the people themselves, from the root word ‘quel’ meaning “to rise”. In his book The Early Hungarians, historian Barath Tibor links this to the Hungarian word meaning the same, ‘kel’, and the word for East, ‘keleti’, and theorises the name ‘Celts’ means people who came from the east – i.e from where the sun rose.

As for Dr Molnár, what’s his favourite Skót vicc?

"A Scottish boy sits backwards on a horse. His neighbour tells him:
'You are sitting on the horse backwards.'
'I know,' he replies, 'but it swallowed a penny with the oats last
night, and I am waiting for it.'"
 

10 Hungarian jokes about Scots

The Scot and his wife go to a restaurant. They order a sandwich, and when the waiter brings it out the husband cuts it in half - but only he eats.

“Aren’t you going to eat?” the waiter asks the wife.

“Well, these must have been thrown in by a Scotsman.” Someone remarks.

Another replies: “One? There must have been three.”

A voice says: “The Red Cross is here!”

"Here I am, father."

"Are you here, my dear wife?"

"Yes honey, I'm here!"

"Are you here, my dear sister?"

"Here I am, brother."

"Is everyone here?"

"Yes," the relatives reply.

“Clearly the Scots.”

“Why?”

“Because they’d never throw anything on the pitch.”