I write the beginning of this article while travelling on a train in Somogy County, Hungary. It is raining heavily and it is one of those greyish-yellowy days where the land and horizon are ill-defined and the bleakness is never-ending. I wonder if that is how it was for the Magyars when they were rampaging across the Great Hungarian Plain. Somehow I hadn't imagined those horse-riders of the Middle Ages having to contend with this bleakness - instead I had pictured either endless hot and dry vistas or sparkling snow crunching under foot and hoof.
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