The Turul and the Habsburg Gate

The bronze bird of prey on this gate holds a sword in its talons that tradition says was given to the first Hungarian ruler, and it was placed here on the orders of a dynasty from Vienna.

The turul comes from the country's founding story. A woman named Emese is said to have dreamed that such a bird came to her and that a line of rulers would spring from her, and her descendants led the Hungarian tribes to the plain where they settled around the year nine hundred. Every Hungarian royal house after that claimed descent from that line.

This statue is from 1905, part of the same rebuilding that gave the palace its grandest form. Since 1867 the emperor in Vienna had also been king of Hungary, and if you build a gate on the Hungarian royal hill from that position, you are better off putting a Hungarian origin myth on it than an Austrian eagle. So the bird watching over the stairs here is as much a political gesture as a legend.

It weighs nine tonnes and is seven metres wide, which became clear in 2021 when it was taken down for restoration and a sixty-tonne crane was needed to put it back.

We walk on toward the yellow palace standing on the square behind it.