The Sas-hill was once called King-hill, as the noble hunting parties reposed here after the royal hunting events. Later, when the area became the property of the monks of Buda, the name of the hill was changed to Monk-hill, Priest-hill and God-hill.
How and when did it become ‘Sas-hill’? There is an interesting legend about its present name, ‘Sas-hegy’ (meaning ‘Eagle-mountain’ in Hungarian). In September1686, when the Castle of Buda was taken back from the Turks, birds of freedom, that is, eagles flew towards the castle from this hill. However, it only received a Hungarian name during Gábor Döbrentei’s renown crusade in 1847, when most vineyard sites were baptized. According to László Siklóssy’ work ‘How was Budapest built? – The history of the Public Works Committee 1870-1930’, the origin of the name is rather more prosaic. The author is on the opinion that it was simply misspelled. The German-speaking civic population of Buda had called this hill ‘Adelsberg’, the ‘Hill of the Noble’. Over time, this was distorted to read ‘Adlersberg’ and was eventually translated as ‘Eagle-hill’by Gábor Döbrentei.
Since the 12th century Buda has been the town of the vineyards and wine. The whole Buda wine-district was named after the Sas Hill. Our film presents a beautiful map from 1778 on which the rocky peaks of the Sas Hill were entirely surrounded by vineyards. In the end of the former vineyards and orchards appeared summer houses and later residential buildings. Reminiscence of Gábor Vida, professor of genetics convince us: it was high time to declare Sas Hill a nature conservation area in 1958.
