Varázsostor

Varázsostor is a magical whip whose function in the play is revealed through action rather than description: it helps make Csongor’s pursuit of the little devils effective, then becomes part of a comic exchange that turns their enchanted equipment against them. Its appearances connect magical force to practical use, but also show how easily control can shift between owner, tool, and the things the tool is meant to command.

Function and First Use

The whip is introduced among the magical equipment sought by Csongor. When asked what use there is in the objects, Kurrah explains that whoever wears the outfit will be invisible, then begins to cut up a boot. The sequence sets the whip beside the boots and the concealment garment as part of a set of useful magical possessions, though the evidence here does not specify the whip’s precise power or explain its construction.

The distinction matters: the whip’s later uses are grounded in what characters do with it, not in an abstract catalogue of its powers. It appears as an implement for urging or directing, while the magical equipment around it offers other forms of advantage. Together, the objects make Csongor’s encounter with the little devils a struggle over who can possess and use the means of getting ahead.

Csongor’s Capture of the Equipment

When the little devils cannot all obtain the property they want, Csongor orders them to place it before him and run up the mountain. He declares that whoever reaches him first will receive it. As they dash away, he tells Balga to keep them there and says that he will return for him; he then takes the little devils’ possessions. The whip belongs to the equipment involved in this contest, and the episode marks a transfer of control: the little devils’ things become Csongor’s prize, secured through a contest he has arranged.

The scene’s force lies in the contrast between speed and possession. The little devils run, while Csongor appropriates their property and leaves Balga to hold them in place. The whip is not simply a tool shown in isolation; it is part of the material reward produced by the trick and part of the gear that accompanies Csongor’s onward journey.

The Little Devils’ Exchange

The little devils later propose not to steal their things back outright but to exchange them, expecting the substitution to become a joke when the travelers try to use the boots and whip. Duzzog presents the plan as a practical piece of mischief: the equipment can be returned in altered form, and the users will discover the trick when they attempt to set the boots moving by whipping them. The plan makes the whip’s relation to the boots explicit. It is meant to act on them, but that familiar action is also the moment at which the exchange will expose itself.

This reversal makes the object’s usefulness precarious. The whip is associated with the power to urge the boots onward, yet the little devils imagine that the same operation can betray the user: attempting to make the boots obey becomes evidence that the equipment has been swapped. Their joke depends on the gap between expected function and actual possession, not on the whip losing its identity as a whip.

Balga and the Boots

In a later scene, Balga whips his boots and addresses them as though they were a horse, calling them gray and dappled and urging them forward. The stage direction explicitly records him whipping the boots. This is the clearest enacted use of Varázsostor in the supplied evidence: Balga treats the boots as a mount that needs to be driven, applying the whip to make them carry him.

The gesture also turns the enchanted equipment into a comic instrument of labor. What was won from the little devils is not merely possessed; it must be handled and prompted. Balga’s horse-like address transfers the habits of riding to a pair of boots, collapsing the distinction between footwear and animal while making the whip’s action visible. The magic is thus presented through an ordinary, recognizable gesture—urging something forward—made strange by its target.

Narrative Significance

Across these episodes, the whip is defined by a chain of practical relations: it belongs to the magical gear, passes into Csongor’s possession with the little devils’ property, figures in the devils’ plan to exchange the equipment, and is finally used by Balga against the boots. That chain keeps the object attached to the play’s comic contest over ownership and command. Csongor can seize the equipment, but possession does not remove the possibility of deception; Balga can wield the whip, but the sight of him driving boots like a horse makes the supposed advantage a source of comedy.

The whip also gives the magical objects a physical presence in performance. Its significance emerges when it is used: first as part of the prize in a contest, then as the expected means of setting the boots in motion. The little devils’ exchange plot makes that expectation vulnerable, and Balga’s whipping gesture realizes the comic mismatch between an ordinary tool, an enchanted object, and a pair of boots treated as a living mount. The evidence does not establish whether the whip itself changes, breaks, or loses its power; its role is instead to expose how magical usefulness depends on who holds the object and what they expect it to make obey.