Due to a lack of reliable source material, it is difficult to separate the legends concerning Emese from her actual role as an historical person.

[7] "In the 819th year of Our Lord's incarnation, Ügyek, who, as we said above, being of the family of King Magog became a long time later the most noble prince of Scythia, took to wife in Dentumoger the daughter of Duke Eunedubelianus, called Emese, from whom he sired a son, who was named Álmos.

Historian Bálint Hóman considered the latter work already contained the legend of Emese's dream, which was later adopted by several chronicles, including Anonymus.

In contrast, György Györffy argued the Gesta Hungarorum provides a grammatically more complete and tidy story about Emese's dream, while the historian also highlighted the text corruption regarding the name of Eunedubelianus ("Eunodbilia") in the Chronicon Pictum.

[11] Györffy claimed that Anonymus created the name of Eunedubelianus from Enech, Dula and Belar – characters of the legend of the wondrous hind.

Dezső Dümmerth argued that the order of the ancient, more logical dream narration was preserved in the chronicles: Anonymus wrote in a more pleasing style, but he messed up a text in which there was a memory of shamanic divination.

[11] György Szabados highlighted that the name of Emese appears in only the Gesta Hungarorum, while the chronicle variants refer to her simply as "the daughter of Eunodbilia".

Literary historian Géza Szentmártoni Szabó claimed the names appearing in the dream are actually symbols, forms of manifestation of totemic animals (Eleud = Ölyűd, "buzzard"; Eunodbilia = Ünődbéli → ünő, "deer cow" or "doe").

He argued the primordial gesta contained the Turul legend, and the text "ex filia Eunodbilia" can be translated as "the woman from the gens Eunod or Ünőd".

According to him, the "real miraculous (totemistic pagan) element of the legend would be fertilization from the Turul; however, according to the narration of our gestas, Emes [Emese] only dreams of it, and even in a blessed state.

[14] Györffy claimed that Emese's story is mere a literary borrowing from Anonymus by adopting the origin myth of Cyrus the Great, denying its nature of an ancient Hungarian tradition.

[14] Szabados argued the awareness of the descent of the Árpád dynasty from Attila and the legend of Emese's dream are not two mutually exclusive origin stories, but two complementary elements of a single tradition: the first Hungarian ruling house's own authentic heritage.

Falcons "populate many legends of the foundation of dynasties and empires";[16] they are popular in the traditions and symbolism of the steppe people, and are not exclusive or originary of any specific ethnic group living therein.

Historians Gyula Kristó and Victor Spinei wrote that Emese's story initially narrated the origin of Álmos's dynasty from a totemic ancestor.

Consequently both historians rejected the nomadic and steppe nature of the Turul legend, and assumed a much more ancient folkloristic tradition that can be traced back to the dawn of humanity.