Quote Originally Posted by cegorach
THey in fact ARE Huns - the tribes which didn't go with the rest as it is claimed.
Make that Hungarian-Magyars. An eclectic mix of Fenno-Ugric-Turkic-Khazar (speaking a clearly Fenno-Ugric language with a whole lot of Turkic and Khazar influences) steppe nomads who were driven from the South Russian steppe by the... whatchamacallit... well, those guys whose most commonly used names in various languages mean roughly "steppe dweller", anyway... around early 10th century AD. The Magyars arrived to find the Great Hungarian plain a sparsely inhabited and contested borderland between some three nearby minor principalities, and as a fully developed steppe army had little trouble setting up shop and creating themselves some "elbow room" by enacting a sort of "scorched earth" policy to lands in the immediate vicinity of their new holdings.

I've read the typical pattern of intra-nomad conquest was for the main body of the defeated tribes to submit to and meld into the victor without further ado, while the defeated ruling military elite fled. Something of the sort probably happened to the Hungarians too, as apparently early on the primary goal of their raids was abducting women. Anyway, they went on to both provide mercenary service to whoever could pay enough and raid deep into Europe, for their part contributing to the emergence of the characteristic European pattern of fortress-saturated feudalism. The Great Hungarian Plain can't support much in the way of proper pastoralism so they duly had to settle down - pretty much certainly as a ruling warrior class over the heads of whatever peasantry already existed in the area and could be enticed and/or bullied to moving there - and some major defeats such as River Lech further convinced them to calm down and start to behave. They converted to Christianity sometime in the early 11th century, although that didn't keep them from annihilating one of the main colums of the Peasants' Crusade when it wouldn't stop lynching Jews, looting towns and generally causing distruption the Hungarian elite newly taken to the idea of feudalism frowned upon.

The Huns were pretty much goners after Attila - his sons tore the empire apart in succession dispute, the usual story. Some remnants claiming - probably justifiably - descent from the same dynasty that produced Attila hung around the western and northern coastline of Black Sea for a few more centuries, but they were but minor steppe princedoms and of rather little importance compared to successive nomadic powers like the Bulgars, Avars (who probably unintentionally spawned the Slavs), Khazars and Hungarian-Magyars. Those away from the steppe doubtless settled down as farmers and most were likely eventually absorbed, like pretty much everyone else in the area, into the rapidly spreading rather loose Slav canfederation, which took over much of what had once been Hunnish territory AFAIK. Not that the Huns proper had been a particular majority even in the empire that bore their name, since it naturally contained the usual gaggle of conquered peoples (presumably mostly assorted German- and Iranian-speakers), tributary, subject and allied peoples, Roman leftovers, opportunistic adventurers and all the other usual odds and ends early Migrations era powers now tended to include.