Among the numerous interesting and remarkable topics of applied law related to the period between the two World Wars, this study focuses on a very special aspect of judicial practice of that time. It attempts to trace archaic standards, legal folk traditions, as refl ected by court decisions or brought up by the parties during the litigation process. Based on this approach, studies and case-studies published in a Hungarian ethnographical journal, Ethnographia, were re-evaluated in order to exploit a rich historical source and extract interesting legal historical information that had not been directly expressed before.
