László Joó

Divided into four sections, "Song" is inspired by the Siberian and Finno-Ugric legends about Creation, in which the world begins with characters who are only half-human, one being half-bird, the other half-bear. The narrator delves into the origins of Hungarian culture, the Iranian and Turkish influences that impacted the society, and finally the story of Stephen, the emperor who brought Christianity to the country and shifted the capital west in an attempt to link with Europe.

Based on a true story, a love affair develops between a half brother and half-sister. When pregnancy results and word gets out the public is outraged.

A group of landless Hungarian peasants accept work as migrant-labourers on a northern German farm where the wages are good, and the wives and family are allowed to accompany them. Though in the midst of WWII, they are relatively well-off. However, as they witness the treatment accorded to POWs and others not so gently regarded, and at the conclusion of the year's harvest, they choose to return to Hungary and are quickly swept up in the tides of war.

During a mining accident, the police arrest the sole survivor on suspicion of murder, whose pickaxe is stained with the blood of one of the victims. The investigation reveals that the identity card found on the victim belongs to another person, that the collapse was deliberate and that the miner believed to be the victim has escaped.

Joseph II, the enlightened Austro-Hungarian emperor, entrusts his loyal and confidential subject, Ráby Mátyás, formerly a treasurer, to examine the abuses made by the magistrates of Szentendre and Izbég. Following his old friend, Dacsó Marci's directions, Ráby reveals horrible robberies, tax evasions, frauds, and other illegal acts having been committed against the people.

Every member of a small community in the snow-capped Bükk Mountains is trying to help the doctor get to István Simon forester's house where his wife is about to give birth to their first child.

Panni, coming from a landless family of ten and Miska have loved each other for a long time. The pretty Panni, however, has another suitor as well: Komáromi, the big farmer. The two men fight from time to time, but then, during the time Miska is serving his military duty, Panni marries Komáromi to end the tremendous squalor of her family.

March 15, 1848; the revolution breaks out in the town of Pest. Yet at café Pilvax, in among he revolutionary youth, there is the informer of the imperial court as well. Hearing the news of the attack led by Jellasics, the inhabitants of the villages pour into the national army, and Hajdú Gyurka also escapes from his landlord. Petőfi is there at the camp of the revolutionaries, raising them to enthusiasm with his poetry.

Imre, secretary of the illegal communist party arrives in Budapest secretly in 1942, in order to start the newspaper of the party in the fight against war. Not even his own mother can see him.

A Hungarian soldier returning from fighting in the Second World War marries the woman he believes to be the widow of a former comrade who he thinks died in the POW camp in which they were held.