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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/16358-h.zip b/16358-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..88e8d73 --- /dev/null +++ b/16358-h.zip diff --git a/16358-h/16358-h.htm b/16358-h/16358-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c87538a --- /dev/null +++ b/16358-h/16358-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6772 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The English Gipsies and Their Language</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: smaller; + text-align: right; + color: gray;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">The English Gipsies and Their Language, by Charles G. Leland</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The English Gipsies and Their Language, by +Charles G. Leland + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The English Gipsies and Their Language + + +Author: Charles G. Leland + + + +Release Date: July 25, 2005 [eBook #16358] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH GIPSIES AND THEIR +LANGUAGE*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p>Transcribed from the 1874 Trübner & Co. edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p> +<h1>THE ENGLISH GIPSIES AND THEIR LANGUAGE<br /> +By Charles G. Leland</h1> +<p>Author of “Hans Breitmann’s Ballads,” “The +Music Lesson of Confucius,”<br /> +Etc. Etc.</p> +<p>Second Edition</p> +<p>LONDON<br /> +TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59 LUDGATE HILL<br /> +1874</p> +<p>[<i>All rights reserved</i>]</p> +<h2>PREFACE.</h2> +<p>As Author of this book, I beg leave to observe that all which is +stated in it relative to the customs or peculiarities of Gipsies <i>was +gathered directly from Gipsies themselves</i>; and that every word of +their language here given, whether in conversations, stories, or sayings, +was taken from Gipsy mouths. While entertaining the highest respect +for the labours of Mr George Borrow in this field, I have carefully +avoided repeating him in the least detail; neither have I taken anything +from Simson, Hoyland, or any other writer on the Rommany race in England. +Whatever the demerits of the work may be, it can at least claim to be +an original collection of material fresh from nature, and not a reproduction +from books. There are, it is true, two German Gipsy letters from +other works, but these may be excused as illustrative of an English +one.</p> +<p>I may here in all sincerity speak kindly and gratefully of every +true Gipsy I have ever met, and of the cheerfulness with which they +have invariably assisted me in my labour to the extent of their humble +abilities. Other writers have had much to say of their incredible +distrust of <i>Gorgios</i> and unwillingness to impart their language, +but I have always found them obliging and communicative. I have +never had occasion to complain of rapacity or greediness among them; +on the contrary, I have often wondered to see how the great want of +such very poor people was generally kept in check by their natural politeness, +which always manifests itself when they are treated properly. +In fact, the first effort which I ever made to acquire a knowledge of +English Rommany originated in a voluntary offer from an intelligent +old dame to teach me “the old Egyptian language.” +And as she also suggested that I should set forth the knowledge which +I might acquire from her and her relatives in a book (referring to Mr +Borrow’s having done so), I may hold myself fully acquitted from +the charge of having acquired and published anything which my Gipsy +friends would not have had made known to the public.</p> +<p>Mr Borrow has very well and truly said that it is not by passing +a few hours among Gipsies that one can acquire a knowledge of their +characteristics; and I think that this book presents abundant evidence +that its contents were not gathered by slight and superficial intercourse +with the Rommany. It is only by entering gradually and sympathetically, +without any parade of patronage, into a familiar knowledge of the circumstances +of the common life of humble people, be they Gipsies, Indians, or whites, +that one can surprise unawares those little inner traits which constitute +the <i>characteristic</i>. However this may be, the reader will +readily enough understand, on perusing these pages—possibly much +better than I do myself—how it was I was able to collect whatever +they contain that is new.</p> +<p>The book contains some remarks on that great curious centre and secret +of all the nomadic and vagabond life in England, THE ROMMANY, with comments +on the fact, that of the many novel or story-writers who have described +the “Travellers” of the Roads, very few have penetrated +the real nature of their life. It gives several incidents illustrating +the character of the Gipsy, and some information of a very curious nature +in reference to the respect of the English Gipsies for their dead, and +the strange manner in which they testify it. I believe that this +will be found to be fully and distinctly illustrated by anecdotes and +a narrative in the original Gipsy language, with a translation. +There is also a chapter containing in Rommany and English a very characteristic +letter from a full-blood Gipsy to a relative, which was dictated to +me, and which gives a sketch of the leading incidents of Gipsy life—trading +in horses, fortune-telling, and cock-shying. I have also given +accounts of conversations with Gipsies, introducing in their language +and in English their own remarks (noted down by me) on certain curious +customs; among others, on one which indicates that many of them profess +among themselves a certain regard for our Saviour, because His birth +and life appear to them to be like that of the Rommany. There +is a collection of a number of words now current in vulgar English which +were probably derived from Gipsy, such as row, shindy, pal, trash, bosh, +and niggling, and finally a number of <i>Gudli</i> or short stories. +These <i>Gudli</i> have been regarded by my literary friends as interesting +and curious, since they are nearly all specimens of a form of original +narrative occupying a middle ground between the anecdote and fable, +and abounding in Gipsy traits. Some of them are given word for +word as they are current among Gipsies, and others owe their existence +almost entirely either to the vivid imagination and childlike fancies +of an old Gipsy assistant, or were developed from some hint or imperfect +saying or story. But all are thoroughly and truly Rommany; for +every one, after being brought into shape, passed through a purely “unsophisticated” +Gipsy mind, and was finally declared to be <i>tácho</i>, or sound, +by real Rommanis. The truth is, that it is a difficult matter +to hear a story among English Gipsies which is not mangled or marred +in the telling; so that to print it, restitution and invention become +inevitable. But with a man who lived in a tent among the gorse +and fern, and who intermitted his earnest conversation with a little +wooden bear to point out to me the gentleman on horseback riding over +the two beautiful little girls in the flowers on the carpet, such fables +as I have given sprang up of themselves, owing nothing to books, though +they often required the influence of a better disciplined mind to guide +them to a consistent termination.</p> +<p>The Rommany English Vocabulary which I propose shall follow this +work is many times over more extensive than any ever before published, +and it will also be found interesting to all philologists by its establishing +the very curious fact that this last wave of the primitive Aryan-Indian +ocean which spread over Europe, though it has lost the original form +in its subsidence and degradation, consists of the same substance—or, +in other words, that although the grammar has wellnigh disappeared, +the words are almost without exception the same as those used in India, +Germany, Hungary, or Turkey. It is generally believed that English +Gipsy is a mere jargon of the cant and slang of all nations, that of +England predominating; but a very slight examination of the Vocabulary +will show that during more than three hundred years in England the Rommany +have not admitted a single English word to what they correctly call +their language. I mean, of course, so far as my own knowledge +of Rommany extends. To this at least I can testify, that the Gipsy +to whom I was principally indebted for words, though he often used “slang,” +invariably discriminated correctly between it and Rommany; and I have +often admired the extraordinary pride in their language which has induced +the Gipsies for so many generations to teach their children this difference. +<a name="citation0a"></a><a href="#footnote0a">{0a}</a> Almost +every word which my assistant declared to be Gipsy I have found either +in Hindustani or in the works of Pott, Liebich, or Paspati. On +this subject I would remark by the way, that many words which appear +to have been taken by the Gipsies from modern languages are in reality +Indian.</p> +<p>And as I have honestly done what I could to give the English reader +fresh material on the Gipsies, and not a rewarming of that which was +gathered by others, I sincerely trust that I may not be held to sharp +account (as the authors of such books very often are) for not having +given more or done more or done it better than was really in my power. +Gipsies in England are passing away as rapidly as Indians in North America. +They keep among themselves the most singular fragments of their Oriental +origin; they abound in quaint characteristics, and yet almost nothing +is done to preserve what another generation will deeply regret the loss +of. There are complete dictionaries of the Dacotah and many other +American Indian languages, and every detail of the rude life of those +savages has been carefully recorded; while the autobiographic romances +of Mr Borrow and Mr Simson’s History contain nearly all the information +of any value extant relative to the English Gipsies. Yet of these +two writers, Mr Borrow is the only one who had, so to speak, an inside +view of his subject, or was a philologist.</p> +<p>In conclusion I would remark, that if I have not, like many writers +on the poor Gipsies, abused them for certain proverbial faults, it has +been because they never troubled me with anything very serious of the +kind, or brought it to my notice; and I certainly never took the pains +to hunt it up to the discredit of people who always behaved decently +to me. I have found them more cheerful, polite, and grateful than +the lower orders of other races in Europe or America; and I believe +that where their respect and sympathy are secured, they are quite as +upright. Like all people who are regarded as outcasts, they are +very proud of being trusted, and under this influence will commit the +most daring acts of honesty. And with this I commend my book to +the public. Should it be favourably received, I will add fresh +reading to it; in any case I shall at least have the satisfaction of +knowing that I did my best to collect material illustrating a very curious +and greatly-neglected subject. It is merely as a collection of +material that I offer it; let those who can use it, do what they will +with it.</p> +<p>If I have not given in this book a sketch of the history of the Gipsies, +or statistics of their numbers, or accounts of their social condition +in different countries, it is because nearly everything of the kind +may be found in the works of George Borrow and Walter Simson, which +are in all respectable libraries, and may be obtained from any bookseller.</p> +<p>I would remark to any impatient reader for mere entertainment, who +may find fault with the abundance of Rommany or Gipsy language in the +following pages, that <i>the principal object of the Author was to collect +and preserve such specimens of a rapidly-vanishing language</i>, and +that the title-page itself indirectly indicates such an object. +I have, however, invariably given with the Gipsy a translation immediately +following the text in plain English—at times very plain—in +order that the literal meaning of words may be readily apprehended. +I call especial attention to this fact, so that no one may accuse me +of encumbering my pages with Rommany.</p> +<p>While writing this book, or in fact after the whole of the first +part was written, I passed a winter in Egypt; and as that country is +still supposed by many people to be the fatherland of the Gipsies, and +as very little is known relative to the Rommany there, I have taken +the liberty of communicating what I could learn on the subject, though +it does not refer directly to the Gipsies of England. Those who +are interested in the latter will readily pardon the addition.</p> +<p>There are now in existence about three hundred works on the Gipsies, +but of the entire number comparatively few contain fresh material gathered +from the Rommany themselves. Of late years the first philologists +of Europe have taken a great interest in their language, which is now +included in “Die Sprachen Europas” as the only Indian tongue +spoken in this quarter of the world; and I believe that English Gipsy +is really the only strongly-distinct Rommany dialect which has never +as yet been illustrated by copious specimens or a vocabulary of any +extent. I therefore trust that the critical reader will make due +allowances for the very great difficulties under which I have laboured, +and not blame me for not having done better that which, so far as I +can ascertain, would possibly not have been done at all. Within +the memory of man the popular Rommany of this country was really grammatical; +that which is now spoken, and from which I gathered the material for +the following pages, is, as the reader will observe, almost entirely +English as to its structure, although it still abounds in Hindu words +to a far greater extent than has been hitherto supposed.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY.</h2> +<p>The Rommany of the Roads.—The Secret of Vagabond Life in England.—Its +peculiar and thoroughly hidden Nature.—Gipsy Character and the +Causes which formed it.—Moral Results of hungry Marauding.—Gipsy +ideas of Religion. The Scripture story of the Seven Whistlers.—The +Baker’s Daughter.—Difficulties of acquiring Rommany.—The +Fable of the Cat.—The Chinese, the American Indian, and the Wandering +Gipsy.</p> +<p>Although the valuable and curious works of Mr George Borrow have +been in part for more than twenty years before the British public, <a name="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a> +it may still be doubted whether many, even of our scholars, are aware +of the remarkable, social, and philological facts which are connected +with an immense proportion of our out-of-door population. There +are, indeed, very few people who know, that every time we look from +the window into a crowded street, the chances are greatly in favour +of the assertion, that we shall see at least one man who bears in his +memory some hundreds of Sanscrit roots, and that man English born; though +it was probably in the open air, and English bred, albeit his breeding +was of the roads.</p> +<p>For go where you will, though you may not know it, you encounter +at every step, in one form or the other, <i>the Rommany</i>. True, +the dwellers in tents are becoming few and far between, because the +“close cultivation” of the present generation, which has +enclosed nearly all the waste land in England, has left no spot in many +a day’s journey, where “the travellers,” as they call +themselves, can light the fire and boil the kettle undisturbed. +There is almost “no tan to hatch,” or place to stay in. +So it has come to pass, that those among them who cannot settle down +like unto the Gentiles, have gone across the Great Water to America, +which is their true Canaan, where they flourish mightily, the more enterprising +making a good thing of it, by <i>prastering graias</i> or “running +horses,” or trading in them, while the idler or more moral ones, +pick up their living as easily as a mouse in a cheese, on the endless +roads and in the forests. And so many of them have gone there, +that I am sure the child is now born, to whom the sight of a real old-fashioned +gipsy will be as rare in England as a Sioux or Pawnee warrior in the +streets of New York or Philadelphia. But there is a modified and +yet real Rommany-dom, which lives and will live with great vigour, so +long as a regularly organised nomadic class exists on our roads—and +it is the true nature and inner life of this class which has remained +for ages, an impenetrable mystery to the world at large. A member +of it may be a tramp and a beggar, the proprietor of some valuable travelling +show, a horse-dealer, or a tinker. He may be eloquent, as a Cheap +Jack, noisy as a Punch, or musical with a fiddle at fairs. He +may “peddle” pottery, make and sell skewers and clothes-pegs, +or vend baskets in a caravan; he may keep cock-shys and Aunt Sallys +at races. But whatever he may be, depend upon it, reader, that +among those who follow these and similar callings which he represents, +are literally many thousands who, unsuspected by the <i>Gorgios</i>, +are known to one another, and who still speak among themselves, more +or less, that curious old tongue which the researches of the greatest +living philologists have indicated, is in all probability not merely +allied to Sanscrit, but perhaps in point of age, an elder though vagabond +sister or cousin of that ancient language.</p> +<p>For THE ROMMANY is the characteristic leaven of all the real tramp +life and nomadic callings of Great Britain. And by this word I +mean not the language alone, which is regarded, however, as a test of +superior knowledge of “the roads,” but a curious <i>inner +life</i> and freemasonry of secret intelligence, ties of blood and information, +useful to a class who have much in common with one another, and very +little in common with the settled tradesman or worthy citizen. +The hawker whom you meet, and whose blue eyes and light hair indicate +no trace of Oriental blood, may not be a <i>churdo</i>, or <i>pāsh-ratt</i>, +or half-blood, or <i>half-scrag</i>, as a full Gipsy might contemptuously +term him, but he may be, of his kind, a quadroon or octoroon, or he +may have “gipsified,” by marrying a Gipsy wife; and by the +way be it said, such women make by far the best wives to be found among +English itinerants, and the best suited for “a traveller.” +But in any case he has taken pains to pick up all the Gipsy he can. +If he is a tinker, he knows <i>Kennick</i>, or cant, or thieves’ +slang by nature, but the Rommany, which has very few words in common +with the former, is the true language of the mysteries; in fact, it +has with him become, strangely enough, what it was originally, a sort +of sacred Sanscrit, known only to the Brahmins of the roads, compared +to which the other language is only commonplace <i>Prakrit</i>, which +anybody may acquire.</p> +<p>He is proud of his knowledge, he makes of it a deep mystery; and +if you, a gentleman, ask him about it, he will probably deny that he +ever heard of its existence. Should he be very thirsty, and your +manners frank and assuring, it is, however, not impossible that after +draining a pot of beer at your expense, he may recall, with a grin, +the fact that he <i>has</i> heard that the Gipsies have a queer kind +of language of their own; and then, if you have any Rommany yourself +at command, he will perhaps <i>rākker Rommanis</i> with greater +or less fluency. Mr Simeon, in his “History of the Gipsies,” +asserts that there is not a tinker or scissors-grinder in Great Britain +who cannot talk this language, and my own experience agrees with his +declaration, to this extent—that they all have some knowledge +of it, or claim to have it, however slight it may be.</p> +<p>So rare is a knowledge of Rommany among those who are not connected +in some way with Gipsies, that the slightest indication of it is invariably +taken as an irrefutable proof of relationship with them. It is +but a few weeks since, as I was walking along the Marine Parade in Brighton, +I overtook a tinker. Wishing him to sharpen some tools for me, +I directed him to proceed to my home, and <i>en route</i> spoke to him +in Gipsy. As he was quite fair in complexion, I casually remarked, +“I should have never supposed you could speak Rommany—you +don’t look like it.” To which he replied, very gravely, +in a tone as of gentle reproach, “You don’t look a Gipsy +yourself, sir; but you know you <i>are</i> one—<i>you talk like +one</i>.”</p> +<p>Truly, the secret of the Rommany has been well kept in England. +It seems so to me when I reflect that, with the exception of Lavengro +and the Rommany Rye, <a name="citation5"></a><a href="#footnote5">{5}</a> +I cannot recall a single novel, in our language, in which the writer +has shown familiarity with the <i>real</i> life, habits, or language +of the vast majority of that very large class, the itinerants of the +roads. Mr Dickens has set before us Cheap Jacks, and a number +of men who were, in their very face, of the class of which I speak; +but I cannot recall in his writings any indication that he knew that +these men had a singular secret life with their <i>confrères</i>, +or that they could speak a strange language; for we may well call that +language strange which is, in the main, Sanscrit, with many Persian +words intermingled. Mr Dickens, however, did not pretend, as some +have done, to specially treat of Gipsies, and he made no affectation +of a knowledge of any mysteries. He simply reflected popular life +as he saw it. But there are many novels and tales, old and new, +devoted to setting forth Rommany life and conversation, which are as +much like the originals as a Pastor Fido is like a common shepherd. +One novel which I once read, is so full of “the dark blood,” +that it might almost be called a gipsy novel. The hero is a gipsy; +he lives among his kind—the book is full of them; and yet, with +all due respect to its author, who is one of the most gifted and best-informed +romance writers of the century, I must declare that, from beginning +to end, there is not in the novel the slightest indication of any real +and familiar knowledge of gipsies. Again, to put thieves’ +slang into the mouths of gipsies, as their natural and habitual language, +has been so much the custom, from Sir Walter Scott to the present day, +that readers are sometimes gravely assured in good faith that this jargon +is pure Rommany. But this is an old error in England, since the +vocabulary of cant appended to the “English Rogue,” published +in 1680, was long believed to be Gipsy; and Captain Grose, the antiquary, +who should have known better, speaks with the same ignorance.</p> +<p>It is, indeed, strange to see learned and shrewd writers, who pride +themselves on truthfully depicting every element of European life, and +every type of every society, so ignorant of the habits, manners, and +language of thousands of really strange people who swarm on the highways +and bye-ways! We have had the squire and the governess, my lord +and all Bohemia—Bohemia, artistic and literary—but where +are our <i>Vrais Bohémiens</i>?—Out of Lavengro and Rommany +Rye—nowhere. Yet there is to be found among the children +of Rom, or the descendants of the worshippers of Rama, or the Doms or +Coptic Romi, whatever their ancestors may have been, more that is quaint +and adapted to the purposes of the novelist, than is to be found in +any other class of the inhabitants of England. You may not detect +a trace of it on the roads; but once become truly acquainted with a +fair average specimen of a Gipsy, pass many days in conversation with +him, and above all acquire his confidence and respect, and you will +wonder that such a being, so entirely different from yourself, could +exist in Europe in the nineteenth century. It is said that those +who can converse with Irish peasants in their own native tongue, form +far higher opinions of their appreciation of the beautiful, and of the +elements of humour and pathos in their hearts, than do those who know +their thoughts only through the medium of English. I know from +my own observation that this is quite the case with the Indians of North +America, and it is unquestionably so with the Gipsy. When you +know a true specimen to the depths of his soul, you will find a character +so entirely strange, so utterly at variance with your ordinary conceptions +of humanity, that it is no exaggeration whatever to declare that it +would be a very difficult task for the best writer to convey to the +most intelligent reader an idea of his subject’s nature. +You have in him, to begin with, a being whose every condition of life +is in direct contradiction to what you suppose every man’s life +in England must be. “I was born in the open air,” +said a Gipsy to me a few days since; “and put me down anywhere, +in the fields or woods, I can always support myself.” Understand +me, he did not mean by pilfering, since it was of America that we were +speaking, and of living in the lonely forests. We pity with tears +many of the poor among us, whose life is one of luxury compared to that +which the Gipsy, who despises them, enjoys with a zest worth more than +riches.</p> +<p>“What a country America must be,” quoth Pirengro, the +Walker, to me, on the occasion just referred to. “Why, my +pal, who’s just welled apopli from dovo tem—(my brother, +who has just returned from that country), tells me that when a cow or +anything dies there, they just chuck it away, and nobody ask a word +for any of it.” “What would <i>you</i> do,” +he continued, “if you were in the fields and had nothing to eat?”</p> +<p>I replied, “that if any could be found, I should hunt for fern-roots.”</p> +<p>“I could do better than that,” he said. “I +should hunt for a <i>hotchewitchi</i>,—a hedge-hog,—and +I should be sure to find one; there’s no better eating.”</p> +<p>Whereupon assuming his left hand to be an imaginary hedge-hog, he +proceeded to score and turn and dress it for ideal cooking with a case-knife.</p> +<p>“And what had you for dinner to-day?” I inquired.</p> +<p>“Some cocks’ heads. They’re very fine—very +fine indeed!”</p> +<p>Now it is curious but true that there is no person in the world more +particular as to what he eats than the half-starved English or Irish +peasant, whose sufferings have so often been set forth for our condolence. +We may be equally foolish, you and I—in fact chemistry proves +it—when we are disgusted at the idea of feeding on many things +which mere association and superstition render revolting. But +the old fashioned gipsy has none of these qualms—he is haunted +by no ghost of society—save the policeman, he knows none of its +terrors. Whatever is edible he eats, except horse-meat; wherever +there is an empty spot he sleeps; and the man who can do this devoid +of shame, without caring a pin for what the world says—nay, without +even knowing that he does not care, or that he is peculiar—is +independent to a degree which of itself confers a character which is +not easy to understand.</p> +<p>I grew up as a young man with great contempt for Helvetius, D’Holbach, +and all the French philosophers of the last century, whose ideal man +was a perfect savage; but I must confess that since I have studied gipsy +nature, my contempt has changed into wonder where they ever learned +in their <i>salons</i> and libraries enough of humanity to theorise +so boldly, and with such likeness to truth, as they did. It is +not merely in the absolute out-of-doors independence of the old-fashioned +Gipsy, freer than any wild beast from care for food, that his resemblance +to a “philosopher” consists, or rather to the ideal man, +free from imaginary cares. For more than this, be it for good +or for evil, the real Gipsy has, unlike all other men, unlike the lowest +savage, positively no religion, no tie to a spiritual world, no fear +of a future, nothing but a few trifling superstitions and legends, which +in themselves indicate no faith whatever in anything deeply seated. +It would be difficult, I think, for any highly civilised man, who had +not studied Thought deeply, and in a liberal spirit, to approach in +the least to a rational comprehension of a real Gipsy mind. During +my life it has been my fortune to become intimate with men who were +“absolutely” or “positively” free-thinkers—men +who had, by long study and mere logic, completely freed themselves from +any mental tie whatever. Such men are rare; it requires an enormous +amount of intellectual culture, an unlimited expenditure of pains in +the metaphysical hot-bed, and tremendous self-confidence to produce +them—I mean “the real article.” Among the most +thorough of these, a man on whom utter and entire freedom of thought +sat easily and unconsciously, was a certain German doctor of philosophy +named P---. To him God and all things were simply ideas of development. +The last remark which I can recall from him was “<i>Ja, ja</i>. +We advanced Hegelians agree exactly on the whole with the Materialists.” +Now, to my mind, nothing seems more natural than that, when sitting +entire days talking with an old Gipsy, no one rises so frequently from +the past before me as Mr P---. To him all religion represented +a portion of the vast mass of frozen, petrified developments, which +simply impede the march of intelligent minds; to my Rommany friend, +it is one of the thousand inventions of <i>gorgio</i> life, which, like +policemen, are simply obstacles to Gipsies in the search of a living, +and could he have grasped the circumstances of the case, he would doubtless +have replied “<i>Āvali</i>, we Gipsies agree on the whole +exactly with Mr P---.” Extremes meet.</p> +<p>One Sunday an old Gipsy was assuring me, with a great appearance +of piety, that on that day she neither told fortunes nor worked at any +kind of labour—in fact, she kept it altogether correctly.</p> +<p>“<i>Āvali</i>, <i>dye</i>,” I replied. “Do +you know what the Gipsies in Germany say became of their church?”</p> +<p>“<i>Kek</i>,” answered the old lady. “No. +What is it?”</p> +<p>“They say that the Gipsies’ church was made of pork, +and the dogs ate it.”</p> +<p>Long, loud, and joyously affirmative was the peal of laughter with +which the Gipsies welcomed this characteristic story.</p> +<p>So far as research and the analogy of living tribes of the same race +can establish a fact, it would seem that the Gipsies were, previous +to their quitting India, not people of high caste, but wandering Pariahs, +outcasts, foes to the Brahmins, and unbelievers. All the Pariahs +are not free-thinkers, but in India, the Church, as in Italy, loses +no time in making of all detected free-thinkers Pariahs. Thus +we are told, in the introduction to the English translation of that +very curious book, “The Tales of the Gooroo Simple,” which +should be read by every scholar, that all the true literature of the +country—that which has life, and freedom, and humour—comes +from the Pariahs. And was it different in those days, when Rabelais, +and Von Hutten, and Giordano Bruno were, in their wise, Pariahs and +Gipsies, roving from city to city, often wanting bread and dreading +fire, but asking for nothing but freedom?</p> +<p>The more I have conversed intimately with Gipsies, the more have +I been struck by the fact, that my mingled experiences of European education +and of life in the Far West of America have given me a basis of mutual +intelligence which had otherwise been utterly wanting. I, myself, +have known in a wild country what it is to be half-starved for many +days—to feel that all my thoughts and intellectual exertions, +hour by hour, were all becoming centered on one subject—how to +get something to eat. I felt what it was to be wolfish and even +ravening; and I noted, step by step, in myself, how a strange sagacity +grew within me—an art of detecting food. It was during the +American war, and there were thousands of us pitifully starved. +When we came near some log hut I began at once to surmise, if I saw +a flour sack lying about, that there was a mill not far distant; perhaps +flour or bread in the house; while the dwellers in the hut were closely +scanned to judge from their appearance if they were well fed, and of +a charitable disposition. It is a melancholy thing to recall; +but it is absolutely necessary for a thinker to have once lived such +a life, that he may be able to understand what is the intellectual status +of those fellow beings whose whole life is simply a hunt for enough +food to sustain life, and enough beer to cheer it.</p> +<p>I have spoken of the Gipsy fondness for the hedgehog. Richard +Liebich, in his book, <i>Die Zigeuner in ihrem Wesen und in ihrer Sprache</i>, +tells his readers that the only indication of a belief in a future state +which he ever detected in an old Gipsy woman, was that she once dreamed +she was in heaven. It appeared to her as a large garden, full +of fine fat hedgehogs. “This is,” says Mr Liebich, +“unquestionably very earthly, and dreamed very sensuously; reminding +us of Mahommed’s paradise, which in like manner was directed to +the animal and not to the spiritual nature, only that here were hedgehogs +and there houris.”</p> +<p>Six or seven thousand years of hungry-marauding, end by establishing +strange points of difference between the mind of a Gipsy and a well-to-do +citizen. It has starved God out of the former; he inherited unbelief +from his half fed Pariah ancestors, and often retains it, even in England, +to this day, with many other unmistakable signs of his Eastern-jackal +origin. And strange as it may seem to you, reader, his intercourse +with Christians has all over Europe been so limited, that he seldom +really knows what religion is. The same Mr Liebich tells us that +one day he overheard a Gipsy disputing with his wife as to what was +the true character of the belief of the Gentiles. Both admitted +that there was a great elder grown up God (the <i>baro puro dewel</i>), +and a smaller younger God (the <i>tikno tarno dewel</i>). But +the wife maintained, appealing to Mr Liebich for confirmation, that +the great God no longer reigned, having abdicated in favour of the Son, +while the husband declared that the Great older God died long ago, and +that the world was now governed by the little God who was, however, +not the son of his predecessor, but of a poor carpenter.</p> +<p>I have never heard of any such nonsense among the English wandering +Gipsies with regard to Christianity, but at the same time I must admit +that their ideas of what the Bible contains are extremely vague. +One day I was sitting with an old Gipsy, discussing Rommany matters, +when he suddenly asked me what the word was in the <i>waver temmeny +jib</i>, or foreign Gipsy, for The Seven Stars.</p> +<p>“That would be,” I said, “the <i>Efta Sirnie</i>. +I suppose your name for it is the Hefta Pens. There is a story +that once they were seven sisters, but one of them was lost, and so +they are called seven to this day—though there are only six. +And their right name is the Pleiades.”</p> +<p>“That <i>gudlo</i>—that story,” replied the gipsy, +“is like the one of the Seven Whistlers, which you know is in +the Scriptures.”</p> +<p>“What!”</p> +<p>“At least they told me so; that the Seven Whistlers are seven +spirits of ladies who fly by night, high in the air, like birds. +And it says in the Bible that once on a time one got lost, and never +came back again, and now the six whistles to find her. But people +calls ’em the Seven Whistlers—though there are only six—exactly +the same as in your story of the stars.”</p> +<p>“It’s queer,” resumed my Gipsy, after a pause, +“how they always tells these here stories by Sevens. Were +you ever on Salisbury Plain?”</p> +<p>“No!”</p> +<p>“There are great stones there—<i>bori bars</i>—and +many a night I’ve slept there in the moonlight, in the open air, +when I was a boy, and listened to my father tellin’ me about the +Baker. For there’s seven great stories, and they say that +hundreds of years ago a baker used to come with loaves of bread, and +waste it all a tryin’ to make seven loaves remain at the same +place, one on each stone. But one all’us fell off, and to +this here day he’s never yet been able to get all seven on the +seven stones.”</p> +<p>I think that my Gipsy told this story in connection with that of +the Whistlers, because he was under the impression that it also was +of Scriptural origin. It is, however, really curious that the +Gipsy term for an owlet is the <i>Māromengro’s Chavi</i>, +or Baker’s Daughter, and that they are all familiar with the monkish +legend which declares that Jesus, in a baker’s shop, once asked +for bread. The mistress was about to give him a large cake, when +her daughter declared it was too much, and diminished the gift by one +half.</p> +<blockquote><p> “He nothing +said,<br /> +But by the fire laid down the bread,<br /> +When lo, as when a blossom blows—<br /> +To a vast loaf the manchet rose;<br /> +In angry wonder, standing by,<br /> +The girl sent forth a wild, rude cry,<br /> +And, feathering fast into a fowl,<br /> +Flew to the woods a wailing owl.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>According to Eilert Sundt, who devoted his life to studying the <i>Fanten +and Tataren</i>, or vagabonds and Gipsies of Sweden and Norway, there +is a horrible and ghastly semblance among them of something like a religion, +current in Scandinavia. Once a year, by night, the Gipsies of +that country assemble for the purpose of un-baptizing all of their children +whom they have, during the year, suffered to be baptized for the sake +of gifts, by the Gorgios. On this occasion, amid wild orgies, +they worship a small idol, which is preserved until the next meeting +with the greatest secresy and care by their captain. I must declare +that this story seems very doubtful to me.</p> +<p>I have devoted this chapter to illustrating from different points +the fact that there lives in England a race which has given its impress +to a vast proportion of our vagabond population, and which is more curious +and more radically distinct in all its characteristics, than our writers, +with one or two exceptions, have ever understood. One extraordinary +difference still remains to be pointed out—as it has, in fact, +already been, with great acumen, by Mr George Borrow, in his “Gipsies +in Spain,” and by Dr Alexander Paspati, in his “Études +sur les Tchinghianés ou Bohémiens de l’Empire Ottoman” +(Constantinople, 1870); also by Mr Bright, in his “Hungary,” +and by Mr Simson. It is this, that in every part of the world +it is extremely difficult to get Rommany words, even from intelligent +gipsies, although they may be willing with all their heart to communicate +them. It may seem simple enough to the reader to ask a man “How +do you call ‘to carry’ in your language?” But +can the reader understand that a man, who is possibly very much shrewder +than himself in reading at a glance many phases of character, and in +countless trickeries, should be literally unable to answer such a question? +And yet I have met with many such. The truth is, that there are +people in this world who never had such a thing as an abstract idea, +let us say even of an apple, plumped suddenly at them—not once +in all their lives—and, when it came, the unphilosophical mind +could no more grasp it, than the gentleman mentioned by G. H. Lewes +(History of Philosophy), could grasp the idea of substance without attribute +as presented by Berkeley. The real Gipsy could talk about apples +all day, but the sudden demand for the unconnected word, staggers him—at +least, until he has had some practice in this, to him, new process. +And it is so with other races. Professor Max Müller once +told me in conversation, as nearly as I can recollect, that the Mohawk +Indian language is extremely rich in declension, every noun having some +sixteen or seventeen inflexions of case, but no nominative. One +can express one’s relations to a father to a most extraordinary +extent, among the dilapidated descendants of that once powerful tribe. +But such a thing as the abstract idea of <i>a</i> father, or of ‘father’ +<i>pur et simple</i>, never entered the Mohawk mind, and this is very +like the Gipsies.</p> +<p>When a rather wild Gipsy once gives you a word, it must be promptly +recorded, for a demand for its repetition at once confuses him. +<i>On doit saisir le mot échappê au Nomade, et ne pas l’obliger +à le répéter, car il le changera selon so, façon</i>, +says Paspati. Unused to abstract efforts of memory, all that he +can retain is the sense of his last remark, and very often this is changed +with the fleeting second by some associated thought, which materially +modifies it. It is always difficult, in consequence, to take down +a story in the exact terms which a philologist desires. There +are two words for “bad” in English Gipsy, <i>wafro</i> and +<i>vessavo</i>; and I think it must have taken me ten minutes one day +to learn, from a by no means dull gipsy, whether the latter word was +known to him, or if it were used at all. He got himself into a +hopeless tangle in trying to explain the difference between <i>wafro</i> +and <i>naflo</i>, or ill, until his mind finally refused to act on <i>vessavo</i> +at all, and spasmodically rejected it. With all the patience of +Job, and the meekness of Moses, I awaited my time, and finally obtained +my information.</p> +<p>The impatience of such minds in narrative is amusing. Let us +suppose that I am asking some <i>kushto Rommany chal</i> for a version +of Æsop’s fable of the youth and the cat. He is sitting +comfortably by the fire, and good ale has put him into a story-telling +humour. I begin—</p> +<p>“Now then, tell me this <i>adrée Rommanis</i>, in Gipsy—Once +upon a time there was a young man who had a cat.”</p> +<p>Gipsy.—“<i>Yeckorus—’pré yeck cheirus</i>—<i>a +raklo lelled a matchka</i>”—</p> +<p>While I am writing this down, and long before it is half done, the +professor of Rommany, becoming interested in the subject, continues +volubly—</p> +<p>—“<i>an’ the matchka yeck sala dicked a chillico +apré a rukk</i>—(and the cat one morning saw a bird in +a tree”—)</p> +<p>I.—“Stop, stop! <i>Hatch a wongish</i>! That +is not it! Now go on. <i>The young man loved this cat so +much</i>”—</p> +<p><i>Gipsy</i> (fluently, in Rommany), “that he thought her skin +would make a nice pair of gloves”—</p> +<p>“Confound your gloves! Now do begin again”—</p> +<p><i>Gipsy</i>, with an air of grief and injury: “I’m sure +I was telling the story for you the best way I knew how!”</p> +<p>Yet this man was far from being a fool. What was it, then? +Simply and solely, a lack of education—of that mental training +which even those who never entered a schoolhouse, receive more or less +of, when they so much as wait patiently for a month behind a chair, +or tug for six months at a plough, or in short, acquire the civilised +virtue of Christian patience. That is it. We often hear +in this world that a little education goes a great way; but to get some +idea of the immense value of a very little education indeed, and the +incredible effect it may have upon character, one should study with +gentleness and patience a real Gipsy.</p> +<p>Probably the most universal error in the world is the belief that +all men, due allowance being made for greater or less knowledge, or +“talents,” have minds like our own; are endowed with the +same moral perception, and see things on the whole very much as we do. +Now the truth is that a Chinese, whose mind is formed, not by “religion” +as we understand it, but simply by the intense pressure of “Old +Custom,” which we do not understand, thinks in a different manner +from an European; moralists accuse him of “moral obliquity,” +but in reality it is a moral difference. Docility of mind, the +patriarchal principle, and the very perfection of innumerable wise and +moral precepts have, by the practice of thousands of years, produced +in him their natural result. Whenever he attempts to think, his +mind runs at once into some broad and open path, beautifully bordered +with dry artificial flowers, <a name="citation21"></a><a href="#footnote21">{21}</a> +and the result has been the inability to comprehend any new idea—a +state to which the Church of the Middle Ages, or any too rigidly established +system, would in a few thousand years have reduced humanity. Under +the action of widely different causes, the gipsy has also a different +cast of mind from our own, and a radical moral difference. A very +few years ago, when I was on the Plains of Western Kansas, old Black +Kettle, a famous Indian chief said in a speech, “I am not a white +man, I am a <i>wolf</i>. I was born like a wolf on the prairies. +I have lived like a wolf, and I shall die like one.” Such +is the wild gipsy. Ever poor and hungry, theft seems to him, in +the trifling easy manner in which he practises it, simply a necessity. +The moral aspects of petty crime he never considers at all, nor does +he, in fact, reflect upon anything as it is reflected on by the humblest +peasant who goes to church, or who in any way feels himself connected +as an integral part of that great body-corporate—Society.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER II. A GIPSY COTTAGE.</h2> +<p>The Old Fortune-Teller and her Brother.—The Patteran, or Gipsies’ +Road-Mark .—The Christian Cross, named by Continental Gipsies +Trushul, after the Trident of Siva.—Curious English-Gipsy term +for the Cross.—Ashwood Fires on Christmas Day.—Our Saviour +regarded with affection by the Rommany because he was like themselves +and poor.—Strange ideas of the Bible.—The Oak.—Lizards +renew their lives.—Snails.—Slugs.—Tobacco Pipes as +old as the world.</p> +<p>“Duveleste; Avo. Mandy’s kaired my patteran adusta +chairuses where a drum jals atut the waver,” which means in English—“God +bless you, yes. Many a time I have marked my sign where the roads +cross.”</p> +<p>I was seated in the cottage of an old Gipsy mother, one of the most +noted fortune-tellers in England, when I heard this from her brother, +himself an ancient wanderer, who loves far better to hear the lark sing +than the mouse cheep when he wakes of a morning.</p> +<p>It was a very small but clean cottage, of the kind quite peculiar +to the English labourer, and therefore attractive to every one who has +felt the true spirit of the most original poetry and art which this +country has produced. For look high or low, dear reader, you will +find that nothing has ever been better done in England than the pictures +of rural life, and over nothing have its gifted minds cast a deeper +charm.</p> +<p>There were the little rough porcelain figures of which the English +peasantry are so fond, and which, cheap as they are, indicate that the +taste of your friends Lady --- for Worcester “porcelain,” +or the Duchess of --- for Majolica, has its roots among far humbler +folk. In fact there were perhaps twenty things which no English +reader would have supposed were peculiar, yet which were something more +than peculiar to me. The master of the house was an Anglo-Saxon—a +Gorgio—and his wife, by some magic or other, the oracle before-mentioned.</p> +<p>And I, answering said—</p> +<p>“So you all call it <i>patteran</i>?” <a name="citation24"></a><a href="#footnote24">{24}</a></p> +<p>“No; very few of us know that name. We do it without +calling it anything.”</p> +<p>Then I took my stick and marked on the floor the following sign—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/ill24b.jpg"> +<img alt="Sign" src="images/ill24s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“There,” I said, “is the oldest patteran—first +of all—which the Gipsies use to-day in foreign lands. In +Germany, when one band of Gipsies goes by a cross road, they draw that +deep in the dust, with the end of the longest line pointing in the direction +in which they have gone. Then, the next who come by see the mark, +and, if they choose, follow it.”</p> +<p>“We make it differently,” said the Gipsy. “This +is our sign—the <i>trin bongo drums</i>, or cross.” +And he drew his patteran thus—</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/ill25b.jpg"> +<img alt="Cross" src="images/ill25s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>“The long end points the way,” he added; “just +as in your sign.”</p> +<p>“You call a cross,” I remarked, “<i>trin bongo +drums</i>, or the three crooked roads. Do you know any such word +as <i>trúshul</i> for it?”</p> +<p>“No; <i>trushilo</i> is thirsty, and <i>trushni</i> means a +faggot, and also a basket.”</p> +<p>“I shouldn’t wonder if a faggot once got the old Rommany +word for cross,” I said, “because in it every stick is crossed +by the wooden <i>withy</i> which binds it; and in a basket, every wooden +strip crosses the other.”</p> +<p>I did not, however, think it worth while to explain to the Gipsies +that when their ancestors, centuries ago, left India, it was with the +memory that Shiva, the Destroyer, bore a trident, the tri-çûla +in Sanscrit, the <i>trisūl</i> of Mahadeva in Hindustani, and that +in coming to Europe the resemblance of its shape to that of the Cross +impressed them, so that they gave to the Christian symbol the name of +the sacred triple spear. <a name="citation26"></a><a href="#footnote26">{26}</a> +For if you turn up a little the two arms of a cross, you change the +emblem of suffering and innocence at once into one of murder—just +as ever so little a deviation from goodness will lead you, my dear boy, +into any amount of devilry.</p> +<p>And that the unfailing lucid flash of humour may not be wanting, +there lightens on my mind the memory of <i>The Mysterious Pitchfork</i>—a +German satirical play which made a sensation in its time—and Herlossohn +in his romance of <i>Der Letzte Taborit</i> (which helped George Sand +amazingly in Consuelo), makes a Gipsy chieftain appear in a wonderfully +puzzling light by brandishing, in fierce midnight dignity, this agricultural +parody on Neptune’s weapon, which brings me nicely around to my +Gipsies again.</p> +<p>If I said nothing to the inmates of the cottage of all that the <i>trushul</i> +or cross trident suggested, still less did I vex their souls with the +mystic possible meaning of the antique <i>patteran</i> or sign which +I had drawn. For it has, I opine, a deep meaning, which as one +who knew Creuzer of old, I have a right to set forth. Briefly, +then, and without encumbering my book with masses of authority, let +me state that in all early lore, the <i>road</i> is a symbol of life; +Christ himself having used it in this sense. Cross roads were +peculiarly meaning-full as indicating the meet-of life with life, of +good with evil, a faith of which abundant traces are preserved in the +fact that until the present generation suicides were buried at them, +and magical rites and diabolic incantations are supposed to be most +successful when practised in such places. The English <i>path</i>, +the Gipsy patteran, the Rommany-Hindu <i>pat</i>, a foot, and the Hindu +<i>panth</i>, a road, all meet in the Sanscrit <i>path</i>, which was +the original parting of the ways. Now the <i>patteran</i> which +I have drawn, like the Koua of the Chinese or the mystical <i>Swastika</i> +of the Buddhists, embraces the long line of life, or of the infinite +and the short, or broken lines of the finite, and, therefore, as an +ancient magical Eastern sign, would be most appropriately inscribed +as a <i>sikker-paskero dromescro</i>—or hand post—to show +the wandering Rommany how to proceed on their way of life.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/ill27b.jpg"> +<img alt="Svastika" src="images/ill27s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>That the ordinary Christian Cross should be called by the English +Gipsies a <i>trin bongo drum</i>—or the three cross roads—is +not remarkable when we consider that their only association with it +is that of a “wayshower,” as Germans would call it. +To you, reader, it may be that it points the way of eternal life; to +the benighted Rommany-English-Hindoo, it indicates nothing more than +the same old weary track of daily travel; of wayfare and warfare with +the world, seeking food and too often finding none; living for petty +joys and driven by dire need; lying down with poverty and rising with +hunger, ignorant in his very wretchedness of a thousand things which +he <i>ought</i> to want, and not knowing enough to miss them.</p> +<p>Just as the reader a thousand, or perhaps only a hundred, years hence—should +a copy of this work be then extant—may pity the writer of these +lines for his ignorance of the charming comforts, as yet unborn, which +will render <i>his</i> physical condition so delightful. To thee, +oh, future reader, I am what the Gipsy is to me! Wait, my dear +boy of the Future—wait—till <i>you</i> get to heaven!</p> +<p>Which is a long way off from the Gipsies. Let us return. +We had spoken <i>of patteran</i>, or of crosses by the way-side, and +this led naturally enough to speaking of Him who died on the Cross, +and of wandering. And I must confess that it was with great interest +I learned that the Gipsies, from a very singular and Rommany point of +view, respect, and even pay him, in common with the peasantry in some +parts of England, a peculiar honour. For this reason I bade the +Gipsy carefully repeat his words, and wrote them down accurately. +I give them in the original, with a translation. Let me first +state that my informant was not quite clear in his mind as to whether +the Boro Divvus, or Great Day, was Christmas or New Year’s, nor +was he by any means certain on which Christ was born. But he knew +very well that when it came, the Gipsies took great pains to burn an +ash-wood fire.</p> +<p>“Āvali—adusta cheirus I’ve had to jāl +dui or trin mees of a Boro Divvus sig’ in the sāla, to lel +ash-wood for the yāg. That was when I was a bitti chavo, +for my dádas always would keravit.</p> +<p>“An’ we kairs it because foki pens our Saviour, the tikno +Duvel was born apré the Boro Divvus, ’pré the puv, +avree in the temm, like we Rommanis, and he was brought ’pré +pash an ash yāg—(<i>Why you can dick dovo adrée the +Scriptures</i>!).</p> +<p>“The ivy and holly an’ pine rukks never pookered a lav +when our Saviour was gaverin’ of his kokero, an’ so they +tools their jivaben saw (sār) the wen, and dicks selno saw the +besh; but the ash, like the surrelo rukk, pukkered atut him, where he +was gaverin, so they have to hatch mullo adrée the wen. +And so we Rommany chāls always hatchers an ash yāg saw the +Boro Divvuses. For the tickno duvel was chivved à wadras +’pré the puvius like a Rommany chal, and kistered apré +a myla like a Rommany, an’ jālled pāle the tem a māngin +his moro like a Rom. An’ he was always a pauveri choro mush, +like we, till he was nashered by the Gorgios.</p> +<p>“An’ he kistered apré a myla? Āvali. +Yeckorus he putchered the pash-grai if he might kister her, but she +pookered him <i>kek</i>. So because the pash-grai wouldn’t +rikker him, she was sovahalled againsus never to be a dye or lel tiknos. +So she never lelled kek, nor any cross either.</p> +<p>“Then he putchered the myla to rikker him, and she penned: +‘Āvali!’ so he pet a cross apré lāki’s +dumo. And to the divvus the myla has a trin bongo drum and latchers +tiknos, but the pash-grai has kek. So the mylas ’longs of +the Rommanis.”</p> +<p>(TRANSLATION.)—“Yes—many a time I’ve had +to go two or three miles of a Great Day (Christmas), early in the morning, +to get ash-wood for the fire. That was when I was a small boy, +for my father always would do it.</p> +<p>“And we do it because people say our Saviour, the small God, +was born on the Great Day, in the field, out in the country, like we +Rommanis, and he was brought up by an ash-fire.”</p> +<p>Here a sudden sensation of doubt or astonishment at my ignorance +seemed to occur to my informant, for he said,—</p> +<p>“Why, you can see that in the Scriptures!”</p> +<p>To which I answered, “But the Gipsies have Scripture stories +different from those of the Gorgios, and different ideas about religion. +Go on with your story. Why do you burn ash-wood?”</p> +<p>“The ivy, and holly, and pine trees, never told a word where +our Saviour was hiding himself, and so they keep alive all the winter, +and look green all the year. But the ash, like the oak (<i>lit</i>. +strong tree), told of him (<i>lit</i>. across, against him), where he +was hiding, so they have to remain dead through the winter. And +so we Gipsies always burn an ash-fire every Great Day. For the +Saviour was born in the open field like a Gipsy, and rode on an ass +like one, and went round the land a begging his bread like a Rom. +And he was always a poor wretched man like us, till he was destroyed +by the Gentiles.</p> +<p>“And He rode on an ass? Yes. Once he asked the +mule if he might ride her, but she told him no. So because the +mule would not carry him, she was cursed never to be a mother or have +children. So she never had any, nor any cross either.</p> +<p>“Then he asked the ass to carry him, and she said ‘Yes;’ +so he put a cross upon her back. And to this day the ass has a +cross and bears young, but the mule has none. So the asses belong +to (are peculiar to) the Gipsies.”</p> +<p>There was a pause, when I remarked—</p> +<p>“That is a <i>fino gudlo</i>—a fine story; and all of +it about an ash tree. Can you tell me anything about the <i>súrrelo +rukk</i>—the strong tree—the oak?”</p> +<p>“Only what I’ve often heard our people say about its +life.”</p> +<p>“And what is that?”</p> +<p>“Dui hundred besh a hatchin, dui hundred besh nasherin his +chuckko, dui hundred besh ’pré he mullers, and then he +nashers sār his ratt and he’s kekoomi kushto.” <a name="citation30"></a><a href="#footnote30">{30}</a></p> +<p>“That is good, too. There are a great many men who would +like to live as long.”</p> +<p>“<i>Tacho</i>, true. But an old coat can hold out better +than a man. If a man gets a hole in him he dies, but his <i>chukko</i> +(coat) can be <i>toofered</i> and <i>sivved apré</i> (mended +and sewed up) for ever. So, unless a man could get a new life +every year, as they say the <i>hepputs</i>, the little lizards do, he +needn’t hope to live like an oak.”</p> +<p>“Do the lizards get a new life every year?”</p> +<p>“<i>Āvali</i>. A <i>hepput</i> only lives one year, +and then he begins life over again.”</p> +<p>“Do snails live as long as lizards?”</p> +<p>“Not when I find ’em rya—if I am hungry. +Snails are good eating. <a name="citation32"></a><a href="#footnote32">{32}</a> +You can find plenty on the hedges. When they’re going about +in the fields or (are found) under wood, they are not good eating. +The best are those which are kept, or live through (literally <i>sleep</i>) +the winter. Take ’em and wash ’em and throw ’em +into the kettle, with water and a little salt. The broth’s +good for the yellow jaundice.”</p> +<p>“So you call a snail”—</p> +<p>“A bawris,” said the old fortune-teller.</p> +<p>“Bawris! The Hungarian Gipsies call it a <i>bouro</i>. +But in Germany the Rommanis say stārgōli. I wonder why +a snail should be a stārgōli.”</p> +<p>“I know,” cried the brother, eagerly. “When +you put a snail on the fire it cries out and squeaks just like a little +child. Stārgōli means ‘four cries.’”</p> +<p>I had my doubts as to the accuracy of this startling derivation, +but said nothing. The same Gipsy on a subsequent occasion, being +asked what he would call a <i>roan</i> horse in Rommany, replied promptly—</p> +<p>“A matchno grai”—a fish-horse.</p> +<p>“Why a matchno grai?”</p> +<p>“Because a fish has a roan (<i>i.e</i>., roe), hasn’t +it? Leastways I can’t come no nearer to it, if it ain’t +that.”</p> +<p>But he did better when I was puzzling my brain, as the learned Pott +and Zippel had done before me, over the possible origin of churro or +tchurro, “a ball, or anything round,” when he suggested—</p> +<p>“Ryá—I should say that as a <i>churro</i> is round, +and a <i>curro</i> or cup is round, and they both sound alike and look +alike, it must be all werry much the same thing.” <a name="citation33"></a><a href="#footnote33">{33}</a></p> +<p>“Can you tell me anything more about snails?” I asked, +reverting to a topic which, by the way, I have observed is like that +of the hedgehog, a favourite one with Gipsies.</p> +<p>“Yes; you can cure warts with the big black kind that have +no shells.”</p> +<p>“You mean slugs. I never knew they were fit to cure anything.”</p> +<p>“Why, that’s one of the things that everybody knows. +When you get a wart on your hands, you go on to the road or into the +field till you find a slug, one of the large kind with no shell (literally, +with no house upon him), and stick it on the thorn of a blackthorn in +a hedge, and as the snail dies, one day after the other, for four or +five days, the wart will die away. Many a time I’ve told +that to Gorgios, and Gorgios have done it, and the warts have gone away +(literally, cleaned away) from their hands.” <a name="citation34"></a><a href="#footnote34">{34}</a></p> +<p>Here the Gipsy began to inquire very politely if smoking were offensive +to me; and as I assured him that it was not, he took out his pipe. +And knowing by experience that nothing is more conducive to sociability, +be it among Chippeways or Gipsies, than that smoking which is among +our Indians, literally a burnt-offering, <a name="citation35"></a><a href="#footnote35">{35}</a> +I produced a small clay pipe of the time of Charles the Second, given +to me by a gentleman who has the amiable taste to collect such curiosities, +and give them to his friends under the express condition that they shall +be smoked, and not laid away as relics of the past. If you move +in <i>etching</i> circles, dear readers, you will at once know to whom +I refer.</p> +<p>The quick eye of the Gipsy at once observed my pipe.</p> +<p>“That is a <i>crow-swägler</i>—a crow-pipe,” +he remarked.</p> +<p>“Why a crow-pipe?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know. Some Gipsies call ’em <i>mullos’ +swäglers</i>, or dead men’s pipes, because those who made +’em were dead long ago. There are places in England where +you can find ’em by dozens in the fields. I never dicked +(saw) one with so long a stem to it as yours. And they’re +old, very old. What is it you call it before everything” +(here he seemed puzzled for a word) “when the world was a-making?”</p> +<p>“The Creation.”</p> +<p>“Āvali—that’s it, the Creation. Well, +them crow-swäglers was kaired at the same time; they’re hundreds—ávali—thousands +of beshes (years) old. And sometimes we call the beng (devil) +a swägler, or we calls a swägler the beng.”</p> +<p>“Why?”</p> +<p>“Because the devil lives in smoke.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER III. THE GIPSY TINKER.</h2> +<p>Difficulty of coming to an Understanding with Gipsies.—The +Cabman.—Rommany for French.—”Wanderlust.”—Gipsy +Politeness.—The Tinker and the Painting.—Secrets of Bat-catching.—The +Piper of Hamelin, and the Tinker’s Opinion of the Story.—The +Walloon Tinker of Spa.—Argôt.</p> +<p>One summer day in London, in 1871, I was seated alone in an artist’s +studio. Suddenly I heard without, beneath the window, the murmur +of two voices, and the sleepy, hissing, grating sound of a scissors-grinder’s +wheel.</p> +<p>By me lay a few tools, one of which, a chisel, was broken. +I took it, went softly to the window, and looked down.</p> +<p>There was the wheel, including all the apparatus of a travelling +tinker. I looked to see if I could discover in the two men who +stood by it any trace of the Rommany. One, a fat, short, mind-his-own-business, +ragged son of the roads, who looked, however, as if a sturdy drinker +might be hidden in his shell, was evidently not my “affair.” +He seemed to be the “Co.” of the firm.</p> +<p>But by him, and officiating at the wheeling smithy, stood a taller +figure—the face to me invisible—which I scrutinised more +nearly. And the instant I observed his <i>hat</i> I said to myself, +“This looks like it.”</p> +<p>For dilapidated, worn, wretched as that hat was, there was in it +an attempt, though indescribably humble, to be something melo-dramatic, +foreign, Bohemian, and poetic. It was the mere blind, dull, dead +germ of an effort—not even <i>life</i>—only the ciliary +movement of an antecedent embryo—and yet it <i>had</i> got beyond +Anglo-Saxondom. No costermonger, or common cad, or true Englishman, +ever yet had that indefinable touch of the opera-supernumerary in the +streets. It <i>was</i> a sombrero.</p> +<p>“That’s the man for me,” I said. So I called +him, and gave him the chisel, and after a while went down. He +was grinding away, and touched his hat respectfully as I approached.</p> +<p>Now the reader is possibly aware that of all difficult tasks one +of the most difficult is to induce a disguised Gipsy, or even a professed +one, to utter a word of Rommany to a man not of the blood. Of +this all writers on the subject have much to say. For it is so +black-swanish, I may say so centenarian in unfrequency, for a gentleman +to speak Gipsy, that the Zingaro thus addressed is at once subjected +to morbid astonishment and nervous fears, which under his calm countenance +and infinite “cheek” are indeed concealed, but which speedily +reduce themselves to two categories.</p> +<p>1. That Rommany is the language of men at war with the law; +therefore you are either a detective who has acquired it for no healthy +purpose, or else you yourself are a scamp so high up in the profession +that it behooves all the little fish of outlawdom to beware of you.</p> +<p>2. Or else—what is quite as much to be dreaded—you +are indeed a gentleman, but one seeking to make fun of him, and possibly +able to do so. At any rate, your knowledge of Rommany is a most +alarming coin of vantage. Certainly, reader, you know that a regular +London streeter, say a cabman, would rather go to jail than be beaten +in a chaffing match. I nearly drove a hansom into sheer convulsions +one night, about the time this chapter happened, by a very light puzzler +indeed. I had hesitated between him and another.</p> +<p>“You don’t know <i>your own mind</i>,” said the +disappointed candidate to me.</p> +<p>“<i>Mind your own</i> business,” I replied. It +was a poor palindrome, <a name="citation38"></a><a href="#footnote38">{38}</a> +reader—hardly worth telling—yet it settled him. But +he swore—oh, of course he did—he swore beautifully.</p> +<p>Therefore, being moved to caution, I approached calmly and gazed +earnestly on the revolving wheel.</p> +<p>“Do you know,” I said, “I think a great deal of +your business, and take a great interest in it.”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“I can tell you all the names of your tools in French. +You’d like to hear them, wouldn’t you?”</p> +<p>“Wery much indeed, sir.”</p> +<p>So I took up the chisel. “This,” I said, “is +a <i>churi</i>, sometimes called a <i>chinomescro</i>.”</p> +<p>“That’s the French for it, is it, sir?” replied +the tinker, gravely. Not a muscle of his face moved.</p> +<p>“The <i>coals</i>,” I added, “are <i>hangars</i> +or <i>wongurs</i>, sometimes called <i>kaulos</i>.”</p> +<p>“Never heerd the words before in my life,” quoth the +sedate tinker.</p> +<p>“The bellows is a <i>pudemengro</i>. Some call it a <i>pishota</i>.”</p> +<p>“Wery fine language, sir, is French,” rejoined the tinker. +In every instance he repeated the words after me, and pronounced them +correctly, which I had not invariably done. “Wery fine language. +But it’s quite new to me.”</p> +<p>“You wouldn’t think now,” I said, affably, “that +<i>I</i> had ever been on the roads!”</p> +<p>The tinker looked at me from my hat to my boots, and solemnly replied—</p> +<p>“I should say it was wery likely. From your language, +sir, wery likely indeed.”</p> +<p>I gazed as gravely back as if I had not been at that instant the +worst sold man in London, and asked—</p> +<p>“Can you <i>rākher Rommanis</i>?” (<i>i.e</i>., +speak Gipsy.)</p> +<p>And <i>he</i> said he <i>could</i>.</p> +<p>Then we conversed. He spoke English intermingled with Gipsy, +stopping from time to time to explain to his assistant, or to teach +him a word. This portly person appeared to be about as well up +in the English Gipsy as myself—that is, he knew it quite as imperfectly. +I learned that the master had been in America, and made New York and +Brooklyn glad by his presence, while Philadelphia, my native city had +been benefited as to its scissors and morals by him.</p> +<p>“And as I suppose you made money there, why didn’t you +remain?” I inquired.</p> +<p>The Gipsy—for he was really a Gipsy, and not a half-scrag—looked +at me wistfully, and apparently a little surprised that I should ask +him such a question.</p> +<p>“Why, sir, <i>you</i> know that <i>we</i> can’t keep +still. Somethin’ kept telling me to move on, and keep a +movin’. Some day I’ll go back again.”</p> +<p>Suddenly—I suppose because a doubt of my perfect Freemasonry +had been aroused by my absurd question—he said, holding up a kettle—</p> +<p>“What do you call this here in Rommanis?”</p> +<p>“I call it a <i>kekávi</i> or a <i>kavi</i>,” +I said. “But it isn’t <i>right</i> Rommany. +It’s Greek, which the Rommanichals picked up on their way here.”</p> +<p>And here I would remark, by the way, that I have seldom spoken to +a Gipsy in England who did not try me on the word for kettle.</p> +<p>“And what do you call a face?” he added.</p> +<p>“I call a face a <i>mui</i>,” I said, “and a nose +a <i>nāk</i>; and as for <i>mui</i>, I call <i>rikker tiro mui</i>, +‘hold your jaw.’ That is German Rommany.”</p> +<p>The tinker gazed at me admiringly, and then said, “You’re +‘deep’ Gipsy, I see, sir—that’s what <i>you</i> +are.”</p> +<p>“<i>Mo rov a jaw</i>; <i>mo rākker so drován</i>?” +I answered. “Don’t talk so loud; do you think I want +all the Gorgios around here to know I talk Gipsy? Come in; <i>jāl +adrée the ker and pi a curro levinor</i>.”</p> +<p>The tinker entered. As with most Gipsies there was really, +despite the want of “education,” a real politeness—a +singular intuitive refinement pervading all his actions, which indicated, +through many centuries of brutalisation, that fountain-source of all +politeness—the Oriental. Many a time I have found among +Gipsies whose life, and food, and dress, and abject ignorance, and dreadful +poverty were far below that of most paupers and prisoners, a delicacy +in speaking to and acting before ladies, and a tact in little things, +utterly foreign to the great majority of poor Anglo-Saxons, and not +by any means too common in even higher classes.</p> +<p>For example, there was a basket of cakes on the table, which cakes +were made like soldiers in platoons. Now Mr Katzimengro, or Scissorman, +as I call him, not being familiar with the anatomy of such delicate +and winsome māro, or bread, was startled to find, when he picked +up one biscuit de Rheims, that he had taken a row. Instantly he +darted at me an astonished and piteous glance, which said—</p> +<p>“I cannot, with my black tinker fingers, break off and put +the cakes back again; I do not want to take all—it looks greedy.”</p> +<p>So I said, “Put them in your pocket.” And he did +so, quietly. I have never seen anything done with a better grace.</p> +<p>On the easel hung an unfinished picture, representing the Piper of +Hamelin surrounded by rats without number. The Gipsy appeared +to be much interested in it.</p> +<p>“I used to be a rat-catcher myself,” he said. “I +learned the business under old Lee, who was the greatest rat-catcher +in England. I suppose you know, of course, sir, how to <i>draw</i> +rats?”</p> +<p>“Certainly,” I replied. “Oil of rhodium. +I have known a house to be entirely cleared by it. There were +just thirty-six rats in the house, and they had a trap which held exactly +twelve. For three nights they caught a dozen, and that finished +the congregation.”</p> +<p>“Aniseed is better,” replied the Gipsy, solemnly. +(By the way, another and an older Gipsy afterwards told me that he used +caraway-oil and the heads of dried herrings.) “And if you’ve +got a rat, sir, anywhere in this here house, I’ll bring it to +you in five minutes.”</p> +<p>He did, in fact, subsequently bring the artist as models for the +picture two very pretty rats, which he had quite tamed while catching +them.</p> +<p>“But what does the picture mean, sir?” he inquired, with +curiosity.</p> +<p>“Once upon a time,” I replied, “there was a city +in Germany which was overrun with rats. They teased the dogs and +worried the cats, and bit the babies in the cradle, and licked the soup +from the cook’s own ladle.”</p> +<p>“There must have been an uncommon lot of them, sir,” +replied the tinker, gravely.</p> +<p>“There was. Millions of them. Now in those days +there were no Rommanichals, and consequently no rat-catchers.”</p> +<p>“’Taint so now-a-days,” replied the Gipsy, gloomily. +“The business is quite spiled, and not to get a livin’ by.”</p> +<p>“Āvo. And by the time the people had almost gone +crazy, one day there came a man—a Gipsy—the first Gipsy +who had ever been seen in <i>dovo tem</i> (or that country). And +he agreed for a thousand crowns to clear all the rats away. So +he blew on a pipe, and the rats all followed him out of town.”</p> +<p>“What did he blow on a pipe for?”</p> +<p>“Just for <i>hokkerben</i>, to humbug them. I suppose +he had oils rubbed on his heels. But when he had drawn the rats +away and asked for his money, they would not give it to him. So +then, what do you think he did?”</p> +<p>“I suppose—ah, I see,” said the Gipsy, with a shrewd +look. “He went and drew ’em all back again.”</p> +<p>“No; he went, and this time piped all the children away. +They all went after him—all except one little lame boy—and +that was the last of it.”</p> +<p>The Gipsy looked earnestly at me, and then, as if I puzzled, but +with an expression of perfect faith, he asked—</p> +<p>“And is that all <i>tácho</i>—all a fact—or +is it made up, you know?”</p> +<p>“Well, I think it is partly one and partly the other. +You see, that in those days Gipsies were very scarce, and people were +very much astonished at rat-drawing, and so they made a queer story +of it.”</p> +<p>“But how about the children?”</p> +<p>“Well,” I answered; “I suppose you have heard occasionally +that Gipsies used to chore Gorgios’ chavis—steal people’s +children?”</p> +<p>Very grave indeed was the assent yielded to this explanation. +He <i>had</i> heard it among other things.</p> +<p>My dear Mr Robert Browning, I little thought, when I suggested to +the artist your poem of the piper, that I should ever retail the story +in Rommany to a tinker. But who knows with whom he may associate +in this life, or whither he may drift on the great white rolling sea +of humanity? Did not Lord Lytton, unless the preface to Pelham +err, himself once tarry in the tents of the Egyptians? and did not Christopher +North also wander with them, and sing—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Oh, little did my mother think,<br /> + The day she cradled me,<br /> +The lands that I should travel in,<br /> + Or the death that I should dee;<br /> +Or gae rovin’ about wi’ tinkler loons,<br /> + And sic-like companie”?</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“You know, sir,” said the Gipsy, “that we have +two languages. For besides the Rummany, there’s the reg’lar +cant, which all tinkers talk.”</p> +<p>“<i>Kennick</i> you mean?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir; that’s the Rummany for it. A ‘dolly +mort’ is Kennick, but it’s <i>juva</i> or <i>rákli</i> +in Rummanis. It’s a girl, or a rom’s <i>chi</i>.”</p> +<p>“You say <i>rom</i> sometimes, and then <i>rum</i>.”</p> +<p>“There’s <i>rums</i> and <i>roms</i>, sir. The +<i>rum</i> is a Gipsy, and a <i>rom</i> is a husband.”</p> +<p>“That’s your English way of calling it. All the +rest of the world over there is only one word among Gipsies, and that +is <i>rom</i>.”</p> +<p>Now, the allusion to <i>Kennick</i> or cant by a tinker, recalls +an incident which, though not strictly Gipsy in its nature, I will nevertheless +narrate.</p> +<p>In the summer of 1870 I spent several weeks at Spa, in the Ardennes. +One day while walking I saw by the roadside a picturesque old tinker, +looking neither better nor worse than the grinder made immortal by Teniers.</p> +<p>I was anxious to know if all of his craft in Belgium could speak +Gipsy, and addressed him in that language, giving him at the same time +my knife to grind. He replied politely in French that he did not +speak Rommany, and only understood French and Walloon. Yet he +seemed to understand perfectly the drift of my question, and to know +what Gipsy was, and its nature, since after a pause he added, with a +significant smile—</p> +<p>“But to tell the truth, monsieur, though I cannot talk Rommany, +I know another secret language. I can speak <i>Argôt</i> +fluently.”</p> +<p>Now, I retain in my memory, from reading the Memoirs of Vidocq thirty +years ago, one or two phrases of this French thieves’ slang, and +I at once replied that I knew a few words of it myself, adding—</p> +<p>“<i>Tu sais jaspiner en bigorne</i>?”—you can talk +argôt?</p> +<p>“<i>Oui, monsieur</i>.”</p> +<p>“<i>Et tu vas roulant de vergne en vergne</i>?”—and +you go about from town to town?</p> +<p>Grave and keen, and with a queer smile, the tinker replied, very +slowly—</p> +<p>“Monsieur knows the Gipsies” (here he shook his head), +“and monsieur speaks <i>argôt</i> very well.” +(A shrug.) “Perhaps he knows more than he credits himself +with. Perhaps” (and here his wink was diabolical)—“<i>perhaps +monsieur knows the entire tongue</i>!”</p> +<p>Spa is full not only of gamblers, but of numbers of well-dressed +Parisian sharpers who certainly know “the entire tongue.” +I hastened to pay my tinker, and went my way homewards. Ross Browne +was accused in Syria of having “burgled” onions, and the +pursuit of philology has twice subjected me to be suspected by tinkers +as a flourishing member of the “dangerous classes.”</p> +<p>But to return to my rat-catcher. As I quoted a verse of German +Gipsy song, he manifested an interest in it, and put me several questions +with regard to the race in other lands.</p> +<p>“I wish I was a rich gentleman. I would like to travel +like you, sir, and have nothing to do but go about from land to land, +looking after our Rummany people as you do, and learnin’ everything +Rummany. Is it true, sir, we come from Egypt?”</p> +<p>“No. I think not. There are Gipsies in Egypt, but +there is less Rommany in their <i>jib</i> (language) than in any other +Gipsy tribe in the world. The Gipsies came from India.”</p> +<p>“And don’t you think, sir, that we’re of the children +of the lost Ten Tribes?”</p> +<p>“I am quite sure that you never had a drop of blood in common +with them. Tell me, do you know any Gipsy <i>gilis</i>—any +songs?”</p> +<p>“Only a bit of a one, sir; most of it isn’t fit to sing, +but it begins—”</p> +<p>And here he sang:</p> +<blockquote><p>“Jal ’drée the ker my honey,<br /> +And you shall be my rom.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And chanting this, after thanking me, he departed, gratified with +his gratuity, rejoiced at his reception, and most undoubtedly benefited +by the beer with which I had encouraged his palaver—a word, by +the way, which is not inappropriate, since it contains in itself the +very word of words, the <i>lav</i>, which means a word, and is most +antiquely and excellently Gipsy. Pehlevi is old Persian, and to +<i>pen lavi</i> is Rommany all the world over “to speak words.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER IV. GIPSY RESPECT FOR THE DEAD.</h2> +<p>Gipsies and Comteists identical as to “Religion”—Singular +Manner of Mourning for the Dead, as practised by Gipsies—Illustrations +from Life—Gipsy Job and the Cigars—Oaths by the Dead—Universal +Gipsy Custom of never Mentioning the Names of the Dead—Burying +valuable Objects with the Dead—Gipsies, Comteists, Hegelians, +and Jews—The Rev. James Crabbe.</p> +<p>Comte, the author of the Positivist philosophy, never felt the need +of a religion until he had fallen in love; and at the present day his +“faith” appears to consist in a worship of the great and +wise and good among the dead. I have already spoken of many Gipsies +reminding me, by their entirely unconscious ungodliness, of thorough +Hegelians. I may now add, that, like the Positivists, they seem +to correct their irreligion through the influence of love; and by a +strange custom, which is, in spirit and fact, nothing less than adoring +the departed and offering to the dead a singular sacrifice.</p> +<p>He who has no house finds a home in family and friends, whence it +results that the Gipsy, despite his ferocious quarrels in the clan, +and his sharp practice even with near relations, is—all things +considered—perhaps the most devoted to kith and kin of any one +in the world. His very name—rom, a husband—indicates +it. His children, as almost every writer on him, from Grellmann +down to the present day, has observed, are more thoroughly indulged +and spoiled than any non-gipsy can conceive; and despite all the apparent +contradictions caused by the selfishness born of poverty, irritable +Eastern blood, and the eccentricity of semi-civilisation, I doubt if +any man, on the whole, in the world, is more attached to his own.</p> +<p>It was only three or four hours ago, as I write, on the fifth day +of February 1872, that a Gipsy said to me, “It is nine years since +my wife died, and I would give all Anglaterra to have her again.”</p> +<p>That the real religion of the Gipsies, as I have already observed, +consists like that of the Comteists, in devotion to the dead, is indicated +by a very extraordinary custom, which, notwithstanding the very general +decay, of late years, of all their old habits, still prevails universally. +This is the refraining from some usage or indulgence in honour of the +departed—a sacrifice, as it were, to their <i>manes</i>—and +I believe that, by inquiring, it will be found to exist among all Gipsies +in all parts of the world. In England it is shown by observances +which are maintained at great personal inconvenience, sometime for years, +or during life. Thus, there are many Gipsies who, because a deceased +brother was fond of spirits, have refrained, after his departure, from +tasting them, or who have given up their favourite pursuits, for the +reason that they were last indulged in, in company with the lost and +loved one.</p> +<p>As a further illustration, I will give in the original Gipsy-language, +as I myself took it down rapidly, but literally, the comments of a full-blooded +Gipsy on this custom—the translation being annexed. I should +state that the narrative which precedes his comments was a reply to +my question, Why he invariably declined my offer of cigars?</p> +<p>“No; I never toovs cigaras, kek. I never toovs ’em +kennā since my pal’s chavo Job mullered. And I’ll +pooker tute how it welled.”</p> +<p>“It was at the boro wellgooro where the graias prasters. +I was kairin the paiass of the koshters, and mandy dicked a rye an’ +pookered him for a droppi levinor. ‘<i>Āvali</i>,’ +he penned, ‘I’ll del you levinor and a kushto tuvalo too.’ +‘Parraco,’ says I, ‘rya.’ So he del mandy +the levinor and a dozen cigaras. I pet em adrée my poachy +an’ jailed apré the purge and latched odói my pal’s +chavo, an’ he pook’d mandy, ‘Where you jāllin +to, kāko?’ And I penned: ‘Job, I’ve lelled +some covvas for tute.’ ‘Tácho,’ says +he—so I del him the cigaras. Penned he: ‘Where did +tute latcher ’em?’ ‘A rye del ’em a mandy.’ +So he pet em adrée his poachy, an’ pookered mandy, ‘What’ll +tu lel to pi?’ ‘A droppi levinor.’ So +he penned, ‘Pauli the grais prasters, I’ll jāl atut +the puvius and dick tute.’</p> +<p>“Eight or nine divvuses pauli, at the K’allis’s +Gav, his pal welled to mandy and pookered mi Job sus naflo. And +I penned, ‘Any thing dush?’ ‘Worse nor dovo.’ +‘What <i>is</i> the covvo?’ Says yuv, ‘Mandy +kaums tute to jāl to my pal—don’t spare the gry—mukk +her jāl!’ So he del mi a fino grai, and I kistered +eight mee so sig that I thought I’d mored her. An’ +I pet her drée the stanya, an’ I jālled a lay in the +pūv and’ odói I dicked Job. ‘Thank me +Duvel!’ penned he, ‘Kāko you’s welled acaï, +and if mandy gets opré this bugni (for ’twas the bugni +he’d lelled), I’ll del tute the kushtiest gry that you’ll +beat sār the Romni chuls.’ But he mullered.</p> +<p>“And he pens as he was mullerin. ‘Kāko, tute +jins the cigarras you del a mandy?’ ‘<i>Avali</i>,’ +I says he, ‘I’ve got ’em acaï in my poachy.’ +Mandy and my pens was by him, but his romni was avree, adrée +the boro tan, bikinin covvas, for she’d never lelled the bugni, +nor his chavos, so they couldn’t well a dickin, for we wouldn’t +mukk em. And so he mullered.</p> +<p>“And when yuv’s mullo I pet my wast adrée his +poachy and there mandy lastered the cigaras. And from dovo chairus, +ryá, mandy never tooved a cigar.</p> +<p>“Āvali—there’s adusta Romni chuls that kairs +dovo. And when my juvo mullered, mandy never lelled nokengro kekoomi. +Some chairuses in her jivaben, she’d lel a bitti nokengro avree +my mokto, and when I’d pen, ‘Deari juvo, what do you kair +dovo for?’ she pooker mandy, ‘It’s kushti for my sherro.’ +And so when she mullered mandy never lelled chichi sensus.</p> +<p>“Some mushis wont haw māss because the pal or pen that +mullered was kāmmaben to it,—some wont pi levinor for panj +or ten besh, some wont haw the kāmmaben matcho that the chavo hawed. +Some wont haw puvengroes or pi tood, or haw pabos, and saw (sār) +for the mullos.</p> +<p>“Some won’t kair wardos or kil the boshomengro—‘that’s +mandy’s pooro chavo’s gilli’—and some won’t +kel. ‘No, I can’t kel, the last time I kelled was +with mandy’s poor juvo that’s been mullo this shtor besh.’</p> +<p>“‘Come pal, let’s jāl an’ have a drappi +levinor—the boshomengri’s odói.’ ‘Kek, +pal, kekoomi—I never pi’d a drappi levinor since my bibi’s +jālled.’ ‘Kushto—lel some tuvalo pal?’ +‘Kek—kek—mandy never tooved since minno juvo pelled +a lay in the panni, and never jālled avree kekoomi a jivaben.’ +‘Well, let’s jāl and kair paiass with the koshters—we +dui’ll play you dui for a pint o’ levinor.’ +‘Kek—I never kaired the paiass of the koshters since my +dádas mullered—the last chairus I ever played was with +him.’</p> +<p>“And Léna, the juva of my pal’s chavo, Job, never +hawed plums a’ter her rom mullered.”</p> +<p>(TRANSLATION).—“No, I never smoke cigars. No; I +never smoke them now since my brother’s son Job died. And +I’ll tell you how it came.</p> +<p>“It was at the great fair where the horses run (<i>i.e</i>., +the races), I was keeping a cock-shy, and I saw a gentleman, and asked +him for a drop of ale. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’ll +give you ale, and a good smoke too.’ ‘Thank you,’ +says I, ‘Sir.’ So he gave me the ale, and a dozen +cigars. I put them in my pocket, and went on the road and found +there my brother’s son, and he asked me, ‘Where (are) you +going, uncle?’ And I said: ‘Job, I have something +for you.’ ‘Good,’ says he—so I gave him +the cigars. He said: ‘Where did you find them?’ +‘A gentleman gave them to me.’ So he put them in his +pocket, and asked me, ‘What’ll you take to drink?’ +‘A drop of ale.’ So he said, ‘After the horses +(have) run I’ll go across the field and see you.’</p> +<p>“Eight or nine days after, at Hampton Court, <a name="citation53"></a><a href="#footnote53">{53}</a> +his ‘pal’ came to me and told me that Job was ill. +And I said, ‘Anything wrong?’ ‘Worse nor that.’ +‘What <i>is</i> the affair?’ Said he, ‘I want +you to go to my pal,—don’t spare the horse—let her +go!’ So he gave me a fine horse, and I rode eight miles +so fast that I thought I’d killed her. And I put her in +the stable, and I went down into the field, and there I saw Job. +‘Thank God!’ said he; ‘Uncle, you’ve come here; +and if I get over this small-pox (for ’twas the smallpox he’d +caught), I’ll give you the best horse that you’ll beat all +the Gipsies.’ But he died.</p> +<p>“And he says as he was dying, ‘Uncle, you know the cigars +you gave me?’ ‘Yes.’ Says he, ‘I’ve +got ’em here in my pocket.’ I and my sisters were +by him, but his wife was outside in the great tent, selling things, +for she never had the smallpox, nor his children, so they couldn’t +come to see, for we wouldn’t let them. And so he died.</p> +<p>“And when he was dead, I put my hand in his pocket, and there +I found the cigars. And from that time, Sir, I never smoked a +cigar.</p> +<p>“Yes! there are plenty of Gipsies who do that. And when +my wife died, I never took snuff again. Sometimes in her life +she’d take a bit of snuff out (from) my box; and when I’d +say, ‘Dear wife, what do you do that for?’ she’d tell +me, ‘It’s good for my head.’ And so when she +died I never took any (none) since.</p> +<p>“Some men won’t eat meat because the brother or sister +that died was fond of (to) it; some won’t drink ale for five or +ten years; some won’t eat the favourite fish that the child ate. +Some won’t eat potatoes, or drink milk, or eat apples; and all +for the dead.</p> +<p>“Some won’t play cards or the fiddle—‘that’s +my poor boy’s tune’—and some won’t dance—‘No, +I can’t dance, the last time I danced was with my poor wife (or +girl) that’s been dead this four years.’</p> +<p>“‘Come, brother, let’s go and have a drop of ale; +the fiddler is there.’ ‘No, brother, I never drank +a drop of ale since my aunt went (died).’ ‘Well, take +some tobacco, brother?’ ‘No, no, I have not smoked +since my wife fell in the water and never came out again alive.’ +‘Well, let’s go and play at cock-shy, we two’ll play +you two for a pint o’ ale.’ ‘No, I never played +at cock-shy since my father died; the last time I played was with him.’</p> +<p>“And Lena, the wife of my nephew Job, never ate plums after +her husband died.”</p> +<p>This is a strange manner of mourning, but it is more effective than +the mere wearing of black, since it is often a long-sustained and trying +tribute to the dead. Its Oriental-Indian origin is apparent enough. +But among the German Gipsies, who, I am firmly convinced, represent +in language and customs their English brethren as the latter were three +centuries ago, this reverence for the departed assumes an even deeper +and more serious character. Mr Richard Liebich (<i>Die Zigeuner</i>, +<i>Leipzig</i>, 1863), tells us that in his country their most sacred +oath is <i>Ap i mulende</i>!—by the dead!—and with it may +be classed the equally patriarchal imprecation, “By my father’s +hand!”</p> +<p>Since writing the foregoing sentence a very remarkable confirmation +of the existence of this oath among English Gipsies, and the sacredness +with which it is observed, came under my own observation. An elderly +Gipsy, during the course of a family difficulty, declared to his sister +that he would leave the house. She did not believe he would until +he swore by his dead wife—by his “<i>mullo juvo</i>.” +And when he had said this, his sister promptly remarked: “Now +you have sworn by her, I know you will do it.” He narrated +this to me the next day, adding that he was going to put a tent up, +about a mile away, and live there. I asked him if he ever swore +by his dead father, to which he said: “Always, until my wife died.” +This poor man was almost entirely ignorant of what was in the Bible, +as I found by questioning him; but I doubt whether I know any Christian +on whom a Bible oath would be more binding than was to him his own by +the dead. To me there was something deeply moving in the simple +earnestness and strangeness of this adjuration.</p> +<p>The German, like the older English Gipsies, carefully burn the clothes +and bed of the deceased, and, indeed, most objects closely connected +with them, and what is more extraordinary, evince their respect by carefully +avoiding mentioning their names, even when they are borne by other persons +or are characteristic of certain things. So that when a Gipsy +maiden named Forella once died, her entire nation, among whom the trout +had always been known only by its German designation, Forelle, at once +changed the name, and, to this day it is called by them <i>mulo madscho</i>—the +dead fish,—or at times <i>lolo madscho</i>—the red fish.</p> +<p>This is also the case among the English Gipsies. Wishing to +have the exact words and views of a real Rommany on this subject, I +made inquiry, and noted down his reply, which was literally as follows:—</p> +<p>“Āvali; when Rommany chals or juvos are mullos, their +pals don’t kaum to shoon their navs pauli—it kairs ’em +too bongo—so they’re purabend to waver navs. Saw don’t +kair it—kek—but posh do, kennā. My chavo’s +nav was Horfer or Horferus, but the bitti chavis penned him Wacker. +Well, yeck divvus pré the wellgooro o’ the graias prasters, +my juvo dicked a boro <i>doll</i> adrée some hev of a buttika +and penned, ‘Dovo odöi dicks just like moro Wacker!’ +So we penned him <i>Wackerdoll</i>, but a’ter my juvo mullered +I rakkered him Wacker again, because Wackerdoll pet mandy in cāmmoben +o’ my poor juvo.”</p> +<p>In English: “Yes. When Gipsy men or women die, their +friends don’t care to hear their names again—it makes them +too sad, so they are changed to other names. All don’t do +it—no—but half of them do so still. My boy’s +name was Horfer or Horferus (Orpheus), but the children called him Wacker. +Well, one day at the great fair of the races, my wife saw a large doll +in some window of a shop, and said, ‘That looks just like our +Wacker!’ So we called him Wackerdoll, but after my wife +died I called him Wacker again, because Wacker<i>doll</i> put me in +mind of my poor wife.”</p> +<p>When further interrogated on the same subject, he said:</p> +<p>“A’ter my juva mullered, if I dicked a waver rakli with +lakis’nav, an’ mandy was a rākkerin lāki, mandy’d +pen ajaw a waver geeri’s nav, an rakker her by a waver nav:—dovo’s +to pen I’d lel some bongonav sar’s Polly or Sukey. +An’ it was the sār covva with my dādes nav—if +I dicked a mush with a nav that simmed leskers, mandy’d rākker +him by a waver nav. For ’twould kair any mush wafro to shoon +the navyas of the mullas a’t ’were cāmmoben to him.”</p> +<p>Or in English, “After my wife died, if I saw another girl with +her name, and I was talking to her, I’d <i>speak</i> another woman’s +name, and call her by another name; that’s to say, I’d take +some nick-name, such as Polly or Sukey. And it was the same thing +with my father’s name—if I saw a man with a name that was +the same as his (literally, ‘that <i>samed</i> his’), I’d +call him by another name. For ’twould make any man grieve +(lit. ‘bad’) to hear the names of the dead that were dear +to him.”</p> +<p>I suppose that there are very few persons, not of Gipsy blood, in +England, to whom the information will not be new, that there are to +be found everywhere among us, people who mourn for their lost friends +in this strange and touching manner.</p> +<p>Another form of respect for the departed among Gipsies, is shown +by their frequently burying some object of value with the corpse, as +is, however, done by most wild races. On questioning the same +Gipsy last alluded to, he spoke as follows on this subject, I taking +down his words:—</p> +<p>“When Job mullered and was chivved adrée the puv, there +was a nevvi kushto-dickin dui chākkas pakkered adrée the +mullo mokto. Dighton penned a mandy the waver divvus, that trin +thousand bars was gavvered posh yeck o’ the Chilcotts. An +I’ve shooned o’ some Stanleys were buried with sonnakai +wongashees apré langis wastos. ‘<i>Do sar the Rommany +chals kair adovo</i>?’ Kek. Some chivs covvas pāsh +the mullos adrée the puv, and boot adusta don’t.”</p> +<p>In English: “When Job died and was buried, there was a new +beautiful pair of shoes put in the coffin (<i>lit</i>. corpse-box). +Dighton told me the other day, that three thousand pounds were hidden +with one of the Chilcotts. And I have heard of some Stanleys who +were buried with gold rings on their fingers. ‘<i>Do all +the Gipsies do that</i>?’ No! some put things with the dead +in the earth, and many do not.”</p> +<p>Mr Liebich further declares, that while there is really nothing in +it to sustain the belief, this extraordinary reverence and regard for +the dead is the only fact at all indicating an idea of the immortality +of the soul which he has ever found among the Gipsies; but, as he admits, +it proves nothing. To me, however, it is grimly grotesque, when +I return to the disciples of Comte—the Positivists—the most +highly cultivated scholars of the most refined form of philosophy in +its latest stage, and find that their ultimate and practical manifestation +of <i>la religion</i>, is quite the same as that of those unaffected +and natural Positivists, the Gipsies. With these, as with the +others, our fathers find their immortality in our short-lived memories, +and if among either, some one moved by deep love—as Auguste was +by the eyes of Clotilda—has yearned for immortality with the dear +one, and cursed in agony Annihilation, he falls upon the faith founded +in ancient India, that only that soul lives for ever which has done +so much good on earth, as to leave behind it in humanity, ineffaceable +traces of its elevation.</p> +<p>Verily, the poor Gipsies would seem, to a humourist, to have been +created by the devil, whose name they almost use for God, a living parody +and satanic burlesque of all that human faith, doubt, or wisdom, have +ever accomplished in their highest forms. Even to the weakest +minded and most uninformed manufacturers of “Grellmann-diluted” +pamphlets, on the Gipsies, their parallel to the Jews is most apparent. +All over the world this black and God-wanting shadow dances behind the +solid Theism of “The People,” affording proof that if the +latter can be preserved, even in the wildest wanderings, to illustrate +Holy Writ—so can gipsydom—for no apparent purpose whatever. +How often have we heard that the preservation of the Jews is a phenomenon +without equal? And yet they both live—the sad and sober +Jew, the gay and tipsy Gipsy, Shemite and Aryan—the one so ridiculously +like and unlike the other, that we may almost wonder whether Humour +does not enter into the Divine purpose and have its place in the Destiny +of Man. For my own part, I shall always believe that the Heathen +Mythology shows a superiority to any other, in <i>one</i> conception—that +of Loki, who into the tremendous upturnings of the Universe always inspires +a grim grotesqueness; a laughter either diabolic or divine.</p> +<p>Judaism, which is pre-eminently the principle of religious belief:—the +metaphysical emancipation and enlightenment of Germany, and the materialistic +positivism of France, are then, as I have indicated, nowhere so practically +and yet laughably illustrated as by the Gipsy. Free from all the +trammels of faith, and, to the last degree, indifferent and rationalistic, +he satisfies the demands of Feuerbach; devoted to the positive and to +the memory of the dead, he is the ideal of the greatest French philosophy, +while as a wanderer on the face of the earth—not neglectful of +picking up things <i>en route</i>—he is the rather blurred <i>facsimile</i> +of the Hebrew, the main difference in the latter parallel being that +while the Jews are God’s chosen people, the poor Gipsies seem +to have been selected as favourites by that darker spirit, whose name +they have naïvely substituted for divinity:—<i>Nomen et omen</i>.</p> +<p>I may add, however, in due fairness, that there are in England some +true Gipsies of unmixed blood, who—it may be without much reflection—have +certainly adopted ideas consonant with a genial faith in immortality, +and certain phases of religion. The reader will find in another +chapter a curious and beautiful Gipsy custom recorded, that of burning +an ash fire on Christmas-day, in honour of our Saviour, because He was +born and lived like a Gipsy; and one day I was startled by bearing a +Rom say “Miduvel hatch for mandy an’ kair me kushto.”—My +God stand up for me and make me well. “That” he added, +in an explanatory tone, “is what you say when you’re sick.” +These instances, however, indicate no deep-seated conviction, though +they are certainly curious, and, in their extreme simplicity, affecting. +That truly good man, the Rev. James Crabb, in his touching little book, +“The Gipsies’ Advocate,” gave numbers of instances +of Gipsy conversions to religion and of real piety among them, which +occurred after their minds and feelings had been changed by his labours; +indeed, it would seem as if their lively imaginations and warm hearts +render them extremely susceptible to the sufferings of Jesus. +But this does not in the least affect the extraordinary truth that in +their nomadic and natural condition, the Gipsies, all the world over, +present the spectacle, almost without a parallel, of total indifference +to, and ignorance of, religion, and that I have found true old-fashioned +specimens of it in England.</p> +<p>I would say, in conclusion, that the Rev. James Crabb, whose unaffected +and earnest little book tells its own story, did much good in his own +time and way among the poor Gipsies; and the fact that he is mentioned +to the present day, by them, with respect and love, proves that missionaries +are not useless, nor Gipsies ungrateful—though it is almost the +fashion with too many people to assume both positions as rules without +exceptions.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER V. GIPSY LETTERS.</h2> +<p>A Gipsy’s Letter to his Sister.—Drabbing Horses.—Fortune +Telling.—Cock Shys.—“Hatch ’em pauli, or he’ll +lel sār the Covvas!”—Two German Gipsy Letters.</p> +<p>I shall give in this chapter a few curious illustrations of Gipsy +life and character, as shown in a letter, which is illustrated by two +specimens in the German Rommany dialect.</p> +<p>With regard to the first letter, I might prefix to it, as a motto, +old John Willett’s remark: “What’s a man without an +imagination?” Certainly it would not apply to the Gipsy, +who has an imagination so lively as to be at times almost ungovernable; +considering which I was much surprised that, so far as I know, the whole +race has as yet produced only one writer who has distinguished himself +in the department of fiction—albeit he who did so was a giant +therein—I mean John Bunyan.</p> +<p>And here I may well be allowed an unintended digression, as to whether +Bunyan were really a Gipsy. In a previous chapter of this work, +I, with little thought of Bunyan, narrated the fact that an intelligent +tinker, and a full Gipsy, asked me last summer in London, if I thought +that the Rommany were of the Ten Tribes of Israel? When John Bunyan +tells us explicitly that he once asked his father whether he and his +relatives were of the race of the Israelites—he having then never +seen a Jew—and when he carefully informs his readers that his +descent was of a low and inconsiderable generation, “my father’s +house being of that rank that is meanest and most despised of all the +families of the land,” there remains no rational doubt whatever +that Bunyan was indeed a Rom of the Rommany. “<i>Applico</i>” +of which, as my own special and particular Gipsy is wont to say—it +is worth noting that the magician Shakespeare, who knew everything, +showed himself superior to many modern dramatists in being aware that +the tinkers of England had, not a peculiar cant, but a special <i>language</i>.</p> +<p>And now for the letters. One day Ward’engro of the K’allis’s +Gav, asked me to write him a letter to his daughter, in Rommany. +So I began to write from his dictation. But being, like all his +race, unused to literary labour, his lively imagination continually +led him astray, and as I found amusement in his so doing, it proved +to be an easy matter to induce him to wander off into scenes of gipsy +life, which, however edifying they might be to my reader, would certainly +not have the charm of novelty to the black-eyed lady to whom they were +supposed to be addressed. However, as I read over from time to +time to my Rommany chal what I had written, his delight in actually +hearing his own words read from writing, partook of all the pride of +successful authorship—it was, my dear sir, like your delight over +your first proof sheet.</p> +<p>Well, this was the letter. A translation will be found following +it.</p> +<p>THE PANNI GAV, <i>Dec</i>. 16, 1871.</p> +<p>MY KĀMLI CHĀVI,—Kushti bāk! My cāmmoben +to turo mush an’ turo dādas an’ besto bāk. +We’ve had wafri bak, my pen’s been naflo this here cooricus, +we’re doin’ very wafro and couldn’t lel no wongur. +Your dui pals are kairin kúshto, pràsturin ’bout +the tem, bickinin covvas. <a name="citation65"></a><a href="#footnote65">{65}</a> +Your puro kāko welled acái to his pen, and hatched trin +divvus, and jawed avree like a puro jucko, and never del mandy a poshéro.</p> +<p>Kek adusta nevvi. A rakli acai lelled a hóra waver divvus +from a waver rakli, and the one who nashered it pens: “Del it +pauli a mandi and I wont dukker tute! Del it apré!” +But the waver rākli penned “kek,” and so they bitchered +for the prastramengro. He lelled the juva to the wardo, and just +before she welled odói, she hatched her wast in her poachy, an’ +chiv it avree, and the prastramengro hatched it apré. So +they bitchered her for shúrabun.</p> +<p>(Here my Gipsy suggested that <i>stárdo</i> or <i>staramangro</i> +might be used for greater elegance, in place of shúrabun.)</p> +<p>I’ve got kek gry and can’t lel no wongur to kin kek. +My kāmli chāvi, if you could bitch me a few bars it would +be cammoben. I rikkers my covvas apré mi dumo kennā. +I dicked my kāko, waver divvus adrée a lot o Rommany chals, +saw a pïin’. There was the juvas a koorin adói +and the mushis a koorin an’ there was a boro chingarée, +some with kāli yākkas an’ some with sherros chinned +so the ratt jālled alay ’pré the drum. There +was dui or trin bar to pessur in the sāla for the graias an’ +mylas that got in pandamam (<i>pandapenn</i>).</p> +<p>Your pal’s got a kushti gry that can jāl alangus the drum +kúshto. L--- too’s got a bāro kushto gry. +He jawed to the wellgooro, to the boro gav, with a poggobavescro gry +an’ a nokengro. You could a mored dovo gry an’ kek +penn’d a lav tute. I del it some ballovas to hatch his bavol +and I bikened it for 9 bar, to a rye that you jins kushto. Lotti +was at the wellgooro dukkerin the rānis. She lelled some +kushti habben, an’ her jellico was saw porder, when she dicked +her mush and shelled. “Hāvacäi! I’ve +got some fine habben!” She penned to a rakli, “Pet +your wonger adrée turo wast an I’ll dukker tute.” +An’ she lelled a pāsh bar from the rāni. She penned +her: “You kaums a rye a longo dūros. He’s a kaulo +and there’s a wáver rye, a pauno, that kaums you too, an’ +you’ll soon lel a chinamangree. Tute’ll rummorben +before dui besh, an’ be the dye of trin chavis.’</p> +<p>There was a gry jāllin with a wardo langus the drum, an’ +I dicked a raklo, an’ putsched (<i>pootched</i>) him. “How +much wongur?” an’ he pookered man’y “Desh bar;” +I penned: “Is dovo, noko gry?” “Āvali.” +Well, a Rommany chul del him desh bar for the gry an’ bikined +it for twelve bar to a boro rye. It was a fino kaulo gry with +a boro herree, but had a naflo piro; it was the <i>nearo</i> piro an’ +was a dellemescro. He del it some hopium drab to hatch adöi, +and tooled his solivengro upo the purgis.</p> +<p>At the paiass with the koshters a rye welled and Wantelo shelled +avree: “Trin kosters for a horra, eighteen for a shekóri!” +An’ the rye lelled a koshter an’ we had pange collos for +trin dozenos. The rye kaired paiass kushto and lelled pange cocoanuts, +and lelled us to his wardo, and dell’d mandy trin currus of tatty +panni, so that I was most mātto. He was a kushti rye and +his rāni was as good as the rye.</p> +<p>There was a waver mūsh a playin, an’ mandy penned: “Pen +the kosh paulier, hatch ’em odöi, don’t well adoorer +or he’ll lel saw the covvos! Chiv ’em pauli!” +A chi rakkered the ryes an’ got fifteen cullos from yeck. +And no moro the divvus from your kaum pal,</p> +<p>M.</p> +<h3>TRANSLATION.</h3> +<p>THE WATER VILLAGE, <i>Dec</i>. 16, 1871.</p> +<p>MY DEAR DAUGHTER,—Good luck! my love to your husband and your +father, and best luck! We’ve had bad fortune, my sister +has been sick this here week, we’re doing very badly and could +not get any money. Your two brothers are doing well, running about +the country selling things. Your old uncle came to his sister +and stayed three days, and went away like an old dog and never gave +me a penny.</p> +<p>Nothing much new. A girl here took a watch the other day from +another girl, and the one who lost it said: “Give it back to me +and I won’t hurt you.” But the other girl said “No,” +and so they sent for the constable. He took the girl to the station +(or carriage), and just before she got there she put her hand in her +pocket and threw it away, and the policeman picked it up. So they +sent her to prison.</p> +<p>I have no horse, and can’t get any money to buy <i>none</i>. +My dear daughter, if you could send me a few pounds it would be agreeable. +I carry my <i>traps</i> on my back now. I saw my uncle the other +day among a lot of Gipsies, all drinking. There were the women +fighting there, and the men fighting, and there was a great <i>shindy</i>, +some with black eyes, and some with heads cut so that the blood ran +down on the road. There were two or three pounds to pay in the +morning for the horses and asses that were in the pound.</p> +<p>Your brother has got a capital horse that can go along the road nicely. +L---, too, has a large fine horse. He went to the fair in --- +with a broken-winded horse and a glandered. You could have killed +that horse and nobody said a word to you. I gave it some lard +to stop his breathing, and I sold it for nine pound to a gentleman whom +you know well.</p> +<p>Lotty was at the fair telling fortunes to the ladies. She got +some excellent food, and her apron was quite full, when she saw her +husband and cried out: “Come here! I’ve got some nice +victuals!” She said to a girl: “Put you money in your +hand and I’ll tell you your fortune.” And she took +half a sovereign from the lady. She told her: “You love +a gentleman who is far away. He is dark, and there is another +gentleman, a fair-haired man that loves you, and you’ll soon get +a letter. You’ll marry before two years, and be the mother +of three children.”</p> +<p>There was a horse going with a waggon along the road; and I saw a +youth, and asked him, “How much money?” (for the horse), +and he replied to me, “Ten pounds.” I said, “Is +that your horse?” “Yes.” Well, a Gipsy +gave him ten pounds for the horse, and sold it for twelve pounds to +a great gentleman. It was a good black horse, with a (handsome) +strong leg (literally large), but it had a bad foot; it was the <i>near</i> +foot, and it was a kicker. He gave it some opium medicament to +keep quiet (literally to stop there), and held his rein (<i>i.e</i>., +trotted him so as to show his pace, and conceal his faults) on the road.</p> +<p>At the cock-shy a gentleman came, and Wantelo halloed out, “Three +sticks for a penny, eighteen for a sixpence!” And the gentleman +took a stick, and we had five shillings for three dozen throws! +The gentleman played well, and got five cocoanuts, and took us to his +carriage and gave me three glasses of brandy, so that I was almost drunk. +He was a good gentleman, and his lady was as good as her husband.</p> +<p>There was another man playing; and I said, “Set the sticks +more back, set ’em there; don’t go further or he’ll +get all the things! Set ’em back!” A Gipsy girl +talked to the gentlemen (<i>i.e</i>., persuaded them to play), and got +fifteen shillings from one. And no more to-day from your dear +brother,</p> +<p>M.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>One thing in the foregoing letter is worth noting. Every remark +or incident occurring in it is literally true—drawn from life—<i>pur +et simple</i>. It is, indeed, almost the <i>resumé</i> +of the entire life of many poor Gipsies during the summer. And +I may add that the language in which it is written, though not the “deep” +or grammatical Gipsy, in which no English words occur—as for instance +in the Lord’s Prayer, as given by Mr Borrow in his appendix to +the Gipsies in Spain <a name="citation70"></a><a href="#footnote70">{70}</a>—is +still really a fair specimen of the Rommany of the present day, which +is spoken at races by cock-shysters and fortune-tellers.</p> +<p>The “Water Village,” from which it is dated, is the generic +term among Gipsies for all towns by the sea-side. The phrase <i>kushto</i> +(or <i>kushti</i>), <i>bak</i>!—“good luck!” is after +“<i>Sarishan</i>!” or “how are you?” the common +greeting among Gipsies. The fight is from life and to the life; +and the “two or three pounds to pay in the morning for the horses +and asses that got impounded,” indicates its magnitude. +To have a beast in pound in consequence of a frolic, is a common disaster +in Gipsy life.</p> +<p>During the dictation of the foregoing letter, my Gipsy paused at +the word “broken-winded horse,” when I asked him how he +could stop the heavy breathing?</p> +<p>“With ballovas (or lard and starch)—long enough to sell +it.”</p> +<p>“But how would you sell a glandered horse?”</p> +<p>Here he described, with great ingenuity, the manner in which he would +<i>tool</i> or manage the horse—an art in which Gipsies excel +all the world over—and which, as Mr Borrow tells us, they call +in Spain “<i>de pacuaró</i>,” which is pure Persian.</p> +<p>“But that would not stop the running. How would you prevent +that?”</p> +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> +<p>“Then I am a better graiengro than you, for I know a powder, +and with a penny’s worth of it I could stop the glanders in the +worst case, long enough to sell the horse. I once knew an old +horse-dealer who paid sixty pounds for a <i>nokengro</i> (a glandered +horse) which had been powdered in this way.”</p> +<p>The Gipsy listened to me in great admiration. About a week +afterwards I heard he had spoken of me as follows:—</p> +<p>“Don’t talk about knowing. My rye knows more than +anybody. He can cheat any man in England selling him a glandered +horse.”</p> +<p>Had this letter been strictly confined to the limits originally intended, +it would have spoken only of the sufferings of the family, the want +of money, and possibly, the acquisition of a new horse by the brother. +In this case it bears a decided family-likeness to the following letter +in the German-Gipsy dialect, which originally appeared in a book entitled, +<i>Beytrag zur Rottwellischen Grammatik</i>, <i>oder Wörterbuch +von der Zigeuner Spracke</i>, Leipzig 1755, and which was republished +by Dr A. F. Pott in his stupendous work, <i>Die Zigeuner in Europa und +Asien</i>. Halle, 1844.</p> +<h3>GERMAN GIPSY.</h3> +<p>MIRI KOMLI ROMNI,—Ertiewium Francfurtter wium te gajum apro +Newoforo. Apro drum ne his mange mishdo. Mare manush tschingerwenes +ketteni. Tschiel his te midschach wettra. Tschawe wele naswele. +Dowa ker, kai me gaijam medre gazdias tele; mare ziga t’o terno +kalbo nähsle penge. O flachso te hanfa te wulla te schwigarizakri +te stifftshakri ho spinderde gotshias nina. Lopennawa, wium ke +tshorero te wiam hallauter nange Denkerdum tschingerwam mangi kasht +te mre wastiengri butin, oder hunte di kaw te kinnaw tschommoni pre +te bikkewaw pale, te de denkerwaw te ehrnährwaw man kiacke. +Me bium kiacke kuremangrender pene aper mande, buten tschingerde buten +trinen marde te man, tshimaster apri butin tshidde. O bolloben +te rackel tutt andre sawe kolester, kai me wium adre te me tshawa tiro +rum shin andro meraben.</p> +<h3>TRANSLATION.</h3> +<p>MY DEAR WIFE,—Before I came to Frankfort I went to Neustadt. +On the way it did not go well with me. Our men quarrelled together. +It was cold and wet weather. The children were ill. That +house into which we had gone burnt down; our kid and the young calf +run away. The flax and hemp and wool [which] the sister-in-law +and step-daughter spun are also burned. In short, I say I became +so poor that we all went naked. I thought of cutting wood and +working by hand, or I should go into business and sell something. +I think I will make my living so. I was so treated by the soldiers. +They fell on us, wounded many, three they killed, and I was taken to +prison to work for life. Heaven preserve you in all things from +that into which I have fallen, and I remain thy husband unto death.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>It is the same sad story in all, wretchedness, poverty, losses, and +hunger. In the English letter there was a <i>chingari</i>—a +shindy; in the German they have a <i>tshinger</i>, which is nearly the +same word, and means the same. It may be remarked as curious that +the word <i>meraben</i> at the end of the letter, meaning death, is +used by English Gipsies to signify life as well.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Dick at the gorgios,<br /> + The gorgios round mandy;<br /> +Trying to take my meripon,<br /> + My meripon away.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>The third letter is also in the German-Gipsy dialect, and requires +a little explanation. Once a man named Charles Augustus was arrested +as a beggar and suspected Gipsy, and brought before Mr Richard Liebich, +who appears to have been nothing less in the total than the <i>Fürstlich +Reuss-Plauenschem Criminalrathe und Vorstande des Fürstlichen Criminalgerichts +zu Lobenstein</i>—in fact, a rather lofty local magistrate. +Before this terrible title Charles appeared, and swore stoutly that +he was no more a Rommany chal than he was one of the Apostles—for +be it remembered, reader, that in Germany at the present day, the mere +fact of being a Gipsy is still treated as a crime. Suddenly the +judge attacked him with the words—“<i>Tu hal rom, me hom, +rakker tschatschopenn</i>!”—“Thou art a Gipsy, I am +a Gipsy, speak the truth.” And Charles, looking up in amazement +and seeing the black hair and brown face of the judge, verily believed +that he was of the blood of Dom. So crossing his arms on his breast +in true Oriental style, he salaamed deeply, and in a submissive voice +said—“<i>Me hom rom</i>”—“<i>I am a</i> +Gipsy.”</p> +<p>The judge did not abuse the confidence gained by his little trick, +since he appears to have taken Charles under his wing, employed him +in small jobs (in America we should say <i>chores</i>, but the word +would be frightfully significant, if applied to a Gipsy), <a name="citation75"></a><a href="#footnote75">{75}</a> +and finally dismissed him. And Charles replied Rommanesquely, +by asking for something. His application was as follows:—</p> +<h3>GERMAN GIPSY.</h3> +<p>“LICHTENBERG ANE DESCHE OCHDADO, <i>Januar</i> 1859.</p> +<p>“LADSCHO BARO RAI,—Me hunde dschinawe duge gole dui trin +Lawinser mire zelle gowe, har geas mange an demaro foro de demare Birengerenser. +Har weum me stildo gage lean demare Bírengere mr lowe dele, de +har weum biro gage lean jon man dran o stilibin bri, de mangum me mr +lowe lender, gai deum dele. Jon pendin len wellen geg mander. +Gai me deum miro lowe lende, naste pennene jon gar wawer. Brinscherdo +lowe hi an i Gissig, o baro godder lolo paro, trin Chairingere de jeg +dschildo gotter sinagro lowe. Man weas mr lowe gar gobe dschanel +o Baro Dewel ani Bolebin. Miro baaro bargerbin vaschge demare +Ladschebin bennawe. O baro Dewel de pleisserwel de maro ladscho +sii i pure sasde Tschiwaha demende demaro zelo Beero. De hadzin +e Birengere miro lowe, dale mangawa me len de bidschin jon mire lowe +gadder o foro Naile abbi Bidschebasger wurtum sikk. Gai me dschingerdum +ab demende, hi gar dschadscho, gai miri romni hass mando, gowe hi dschadscho. +Obaaro Dewel de bleiserwel de mange de menge demaro Ladscho Sii. +Miero Bargerbin. De me dschawe demaro gandelo Waleddo.</p> +<p>CHARLES AUGUSTIN.”</p> +<h3>TRANSLATION.</h3> +<p>“LICHTENBERG, <i>January</i> 18, 1859.</p> +<p>“GOOD GREAT SIR,—I must write to you with these two or +three words my whole business (<i>gowe</i>, English Gipsy <i>covvo</i>, +literally ‘thing,’) how it happened to me in your town, +by your servants (literally ‘footmen’). When I was +arrested, your servants took my money away, and when I was freed they +took me out of prison. I asked my money of them which I had given +up. They said they had got none from me. That I gave them +my money they cannot deny. The said (literally, known) money is +in a purse, a great piece, red (and) old, three kreutzers, and a yellow +piece of good-for-nothing money. I did not get my money, as the +great God in heaven knows. My great thanks for your goodness, +I say. The great God reward your good heart with long healthy +life, you and your whole family. And if your servants find my +money, I beg they will send it to the town Naila, by the post at once. +That I cursed you is not true; that my wife was drunk is true. +The great God reward your good heart. My thanks. And I remain, +your obedient servant,</p> +<p>CHARLES AUGUSTIN.”</p> +<p>Those who attempt to read this letter in the original, should be +informed that German Gipsy is, as compared to the English or Spanish +dialects, almost a perfect language; in fact, Pott has by incredible +industry, actually restored it to its primitive complete form; and its +orthography is now settled. Against this orthography poor Charles +Augustin sins sadly, and yet it may be doubted whether many English +tramps and beggars could write a better letter.</p> +<p>The especial Gipsy characteristic in this letter is the constant +use of the name of God, and the pious profusion of blessings. +“She’s the <i>blessing-est</i> old woman I ever came across,” +was very well said of an old Rommany dame in England. And yet +these well-wishings are not always insincere, and they are earnest enough +when uttered in Gipsy.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VI. GIPSY WORDS WHICH HAVE PASSED INTO ENGLISH SLANG.</h2> +<p>Jockey.—Tool.—Cove or Covey.—Hook, Hookey, and +Walker, Hocus, Hanky-Panky, and Hocus-Pocus.—Shindy.—Row.—Chivvy.—Bunged +Eye.—Shavers.—Clichy.—Caliban.—A Rum ’un.—Pal.—Trash.—Cadger.—Cad.—Bosh.—Bats.—Chee-chee.—The +Cheese.—Chiv Fencer.—Cooter.—Gorger.—Dick.—Dook.—Tanner.—Drum.—Gibberish.—Ken.—Lil.—Loure.—Loafer.—Maunder.—Moke.—Parny.—Posh.—Queer. +Raclan.—Bivvy.—Rigs.—Moll.—Distarabin.—Tiny.—Toffer.—Tool.—Punch.—Wardo.—Voker +(one of Mr Hotten’s Gipsy words).—Welcher.—Yack.—Lushy.—A +Mull.—Pross.—Toshers.—Up to Trap.—Barney.—Beebee.—Cull, +Culley.—Jomer.—Bloke.—Duffer.—Niggling.—Mug.—Bamboozle, +Slang, and Bite.—Rules to be observed in determining the Etymology +of Gipsy Words.</p> +<p>Though the language of the Gipsies has been kept a great secret for +centuries, still a few words have in England oozed out here and there +from some unguarded crevice, and become a portion of our tongue. +There is, it must be admitted, a great difficulty in tracing, with anything +like accuracy, the real origin or identity of such expressions. +Some of them came into English centuries ago, and during that time great +changes have taken place in Rommany. At least one-third of the +words now used by Scottish Gipsies are unintelligible to their English +brothers. To satisfy myself on this point, I have examined an +intelligent English Gipsy on the Scottish Gipsy vocabularies in Mr Simpson’s +work, and found it was as I anticipated; a statement which will not +appear incredible when it is remembered, that even the Rommany of Yetholm +have a dialect marked and distinct from that of other Scotch Gipsies. +As for England, numbers of the words collected by William Marsden, and +Jacob Bryant, in 1784-5, Dr Bright in 1817, and by Harriott in 1830, +are not known at the present day to any Gipsies whom I have met. +Again, it should be remembered that the pronunciation of Rommany differs +widely with individuals; thus the word which is given as <i>cumbo</i>, +a hill, by Bryant, I have heard very distinctly pronounced <i>choomure</i>.</p> +<p>I believe that to Mr Borrow is due the discovery that the word JOCKEY +is of Gipsy origin, and derived from <i>chuckni</i>, which means a whip. +For nothing is more clearly established than that the jockey-whip was +the original term in which this word first made its appearance on the +turf, and that the <i>chuckni</i> was a peculiar form of whip, very +long and heavy, first used by the Gipsies. “Jockeyism,” +says Mr Borrow, “properly means <i>the management of a whip</i>, +and the word jockey is neither more nor less than the term, slightly +modified, by which they designate the formidable whips which they usually +carry, and which are at present in general use among horse-traffickers, +under the title of jockey-whips.” In Hungary and Germany +the word occurs as <i>tschuckini</i> or <i>chookni</i>, and <i>tschupni</i>.</p> +<p>Many of my readers are doubtless familiar with the word to TOOL as +applied to dexterously managing the reins and driving horses. +‘To tool the horses down the road,’ is indeed rather a fine +word of its class, being as much used in certain clubs as in stables, +and often denotes stylish and gentlemanly driving. And the term +is without the slightest modification, either of pronunciation or meaning, +directly and simply Gipsy, and is used by Gipsies in the same way. +It has, however, in Rommany, as a primitive meaning—to hold, or +to take. Thus I have heard of a feeble old fellow that “he +could not tool himself togetherus”—for which last word, +by the way, <i>kettenus</i> might have been more correctly substituted.</p> +<p>COVE is not an elegant, though a very old, word, but it is well known, +and I have no doubt as to its having come from the Gipsy. In Rommany, +all the world over, <i>cova</i> means “a thing,” but it +is almost indefinite in its applicability. “It is,” +says Pott, “a general helper on all occasions; is used as substantive +and adjective, and has a far wider scope than the Latin <i>res</i>.” +Thus <i>covo</i> may mean “that man;” <i>covi</i>, “that +woman;” and <i>covo</i> or <i>cuvvo</i>, as it very often does +in English, “that, there.” It sometimes appears in +the word <i>acovat</i>, or <i>this</i>. There is no expression +more frequent in a Gipsy’s mouth, and it is precisely the one +which would be probably overheard by “Gorgios” and applied +to persons. I believe that it first made its appearance in English +slang as <i>covey</i>, and was then pronounced <i>cúvvy</i>, +being subsequently abbreviated into cove.</p> +<p>Quite a little family of words has come into English from the Rommany, +<i>Hocben</i>, <i>huckaben</i>, <i>hokkeny</i>, or <i>hooker</i>, all +meaning a lie, or to lie, deception and <i>humbug</i>. Mr Borrow +shows us that <i>hocus</i>, to “bewitch” liquor with an +opiate, and <i>hoax</i>, are probably Rommany from this root, and I +have no doubt that the expression, “Yes, with a <i>hook</i>,” +meaning “it is false,” comes from the same. The well-known +“Hookey” who corresponds so closely with his untruthful +and disreputable pal “Walker,” is decidedly of the streets—gipsy. +In German Gipsy we find <i>chochavav</i> and <i>hochewawa</i>, and in +Roumanian Gipsy <i>kokao</i>—a lie. Hanky-panky and Hocus-pocus +are each one half almost pure Hindustani. <a name="citation81"></a><a href="#footnote81">{81}</a></p> +<p>A SHINDY approaches so nearly in sound to the Gipsy word <i>chingaree</i>, +which means precisely the same thing, that the suggestion is at least +worth consideration. And it also greatly resembles <i>chindi</i>, +which may be translated as “cutting up,” and also quarrel. +“To cut up shindies” was the first form in which this extraordinary +word reached the public. In the original Gipsy tongue the word +to quarrel is <i>chinger-av</i>, meaning also (Pott, <i>Zigeuner</i>, +p. 209) to cut, hew, and fight, while to cut is <i>chinav</i>. +“Cutting up” is, if the reader reflects, a very unmeaning +word as applied to outrageous or noisy pranks; but in Gipsy, whether +English, German, or Oriental, it is perfectly sensible and logical, +involving the idea of quarrelling, separating, dividing, cutting, and +stabbing. What, indeed, could be more absurd than the expression +“cutting up shines,” unless we attribute to <i>shine</i> +its legitimate Gipsy meaning of <i>a piece cut off</i>, and its cognate +meaning, a noise?</p> +<p>I can see but little reason for saying that a man <i>cut away</i> +or that he <i>shinned</i> it, for run away, unless we have recourse +to Gipsy, though I only offer this as a mere suggestion.</p> +<p>“Applico” to shindy we have the word ROW, meaning nearly +the same thing and as nearly Gipsy in every respect as can be. +It is in Gipsy at the present day in England, correctly, <i>rov</i>, +or <i>roven</i>—to cry—but <i>v</i> and <i>w</i> are so +frequently transposed that we may consider them as the same letter. +<i>Rāw</i> or <i>me rauaw</i>, “I howl” or “cry,” +is German Gipsy. <i>Rowan</i> is given by Pott as equivalent to +the Latin <i>ululatus</i>, which constituted a very respectable <i>row</i> +as regards mere noise. “Rowdy” comes from “row” +and both are very good Gipsy in their origin. In Hindustani <i>Rao +mut</i> is “don’t cry!”</p> +<p>CHIVVY is a common English vulgar word, meaning to goad, drive, vex, +hunt, or throw as it were here and there. It is purely Gipsy, +and seems to have more than one root. <i>Chiv</i>, <i>chib</i>, +or <i>chipe</i>, in Rommany, mean a tongue, inferring scolding, and +<i>chiv</i> anything sharp-pointed, as for instance a dagger, or goad +or knife. But the old Gipsy word <i>chiv-av</i> among its numerous +meanings has exactly that of casting, throwing, pitching, and driving. +To <i>chiv</i> in English Gipsy means as much and more than to <i>fix</i> +in America, in fact, it is applied to almost any kind of action.</p> +<p>It may be remarked in this connection, that in German or continental +Gipsy, which represents the English in a great measure as it once was, +and which is far more perfect as to grammar, we find different words, +which in English have become blended into one. Thus, <i>chib</i> +or <i>chiv</i>, a tongue, and <i>tschiwawa</i> (or <i>chiv</i>-ava), +to lay, place, lean, sow, sink, set upright, move, harness, cover up, +are united in England into <i>chiv</i>, which embraces the whole. +“<i>Chiv it āpré</i>” may be applied to throwing +anything, to covering it up, to lifting it, to setting it, to pushing +it, to circulating, and in fact to a very great number of similar verbs.</p> +<p>There is, I think, no rational connection between the BUNG of a barrel +and an eye which has been closed by a blow. One might as well +get the simile from a knot in a tree or a cork in a flask. But +when we reflect on the constant mingling of Gipsies with prizefighters, +it is almost evident that the word BONGO may have been the origin of +it. A <i>bongo yakko</i> or <i>yak</i>, means a distorted, crooked, +or, in fact, a bunged eye. It also means lame, crooked, or sinister, +and by a very singular figure of speech, <i>Bongo Tem</i> or the Crooked +Land is the name for hell. <a name="citation83"></a><a href="#footnote83">{83}</a></p> +<p>SHAVERS, as a quaint nick-name for children, is possibly inexplicable, +unless we resort to Gipsy, where we find it used as directly as possible. +<i>Chavo</i> is the Rommany word for child all the world over, and the +English term <i>chavies</i>, in Scottish Gipsy <i>shavies</i>, or shavers, +leaves us but little room for doubt. I am not aware to what extent +the term “little shavers” is applied to children in England, +but in America it is as common as any cant word can be.</p> +<p>I do not know the origin of the French word CLICHY, as applied to +the noted prison of that name, but it is perhaps not undeserving the +comment that in Continental Gipsy it means a key and a bolt.</p> +<p>I have been struck with the fact that CALIBAN, the monster in “The +Tempest,” by Shakespeare, has an appellation which literally signifies +blackness in Gipsy. In fact, this very word, or Cauliban, is given +in one of the Gipsy vocabularies for “black.” Kaulopen +or Kauloben would, however, be more correct.</p> +<p>“A regular RUM ’un” was the form in which the application +of the word “rum” to strange, difficult, or distinguished, +was first introduced to the British public. This, I honestly believe +(as Mr Borrow indicates), came from <i>Rum</i> or <i>Rom</i>, a Gipsy. +It is a peculiar word, and all of its peculiarities might well be assumed +by the sporting Gipsy, who is always, in his way, a character, gifted +with an indescribable self-confidence, as are all “horsey” +men characters, “sports” and boxers, which enables them +to keep to perfection the German eleventh commandment, “Thou shall +not let thyself be <i>bluffed</i>!”—<i>i.e</i>., abashed.</p> +<p>PAL is a common cant word for brother or friend, and it is purely +Gipsy, having come directly from that language, without the slightest +change. On the Continent it is <i>prala</i>, or <i>pral</i>. +In England it sometimes takes the form “<i>pel</i>.”</p> +<p>TRASH is derived by Mr Wedgwood (Dictionary of English Etymology, +1872) from the old word <i>trousse</i>, signifying the clipping of trees. +But in old Gipsy or in the German Gipsy of the present day, as in the +Turkish Rommany, it means so directly “fear, mental weakness and +worthlessness,” that it may possibly have had a Rommany origin. +Terror in Gipsy is <i>trash</i>, while thirst is <i>trush</i>, and both +are to be found in the Hindustani. <i>Tras</i>, which means <i>thirst</i> +and <i>alarm</i> or <i>terror</i>.</p> +<p>It should be observed that in no instance can these Gipsy words have +been borrowed from English slang. They are all to be found in +German Gipsy, which is in its turn identical with the Rommany language +of India—of the Nāts, Bhazeghurs, Doms, Multanee or Banjoree, +as I find the primitive wandering Gipsies termed by different writers.</p> +<p>I am aware that the word CAD was applied to the conductor of an omnibus, +or to a non-student at Universities, before it became a synonym for +vulgar fellow, yet I believe that it was abbreviated from cadger, and +that this is simply the Gipsy word Gorgio, which often means a man in +the abstract. I have seen this word printed as gorger in English +slang. CODGER, which is common, is applied, as Gipsies use the +term Gorgio, contemptuously, and it sounds still more like it.</p> +<p>BOSH, signifying nothing, or in fact empty humbug, is generally credited +to the Turkish language, but I can see no reason for going to the Turks +for what the Gipsies at home already had, in all probability, from the +same Persian source, or else from the Sanskrit. With the Gipsies, +<i>bosh</i> is a fiddle, music, noise, barking, and very often an idle +sound or nonsense. “Stop your bosherin,” or “your +bosh,” is what they would term <i>flickin lav</i>, or current +phrase.</p> +<p>“BATS,” a low term for a pair of boots, especially bad +ones, is, I think, from the Gipsy and Hindustani <i>pat</i>, a foot, +generally called, however, by the Rommany in England, Tom Pats. +“To pad the hoof,” and “to stand pad “—the +latter phrase meaning to stand upright, or to stand and beg, are probably +derived from <i>pat</i>. It should be borne in mind that Gipsies, +in all countries, are in the habit of changing certain letters, so that +<i>p</i> and <i>b</i>, like <i>l</i> and <i>n</i>, or <i>k</i> and <i>g</i> +hard, may often be regarded as identical.</p> +<p>“CHEE-CHEE,” “be silent!” or “fie,” +is termed “Anglo-Indian,” by the author of the Slang Dictionary, +but we need not go to India of the present day for a term which is familiar +to every Gipsy and “traveller” in England, and which, as +Mr Simson discovered long ago, is an excellent “spell” to +discourage the advances of thimble-riggers and similar gentry, at fairs, +or in public places.</p> +<p>CHEESE, or “THE CHEESE,” meaning that anything is pre-eminent +or superior; in fact, “the thing,” is supposed by many to +be of gipsy origin because Gipsies use it, and it is to be found as +“chiz” in Hindustani, in which language it means a thing. +Gipsies do not, however, seem to regard it themselves, as <i>tacho</i> +or true Rommanis, despite this testimony, and I am inclined to think +that it partly originated in some wag’s perversion of the French +word <i>chose</i>.</p> +<p>In London, a man who sells cutlery in the streets is called a CHIVE +FENCER, a term evidently derived from the Gipsy <i>chiv</i>, a sharp-pointed +instrument or knife. A knife is also called a <i>chiv</i> by the +lowest class all over England.</p> +<p>COUTER or COOTER is a common English slang term for a guinea. +It was not necessary for the author of the Slang Dictionary to go to +the banks of the Danube for the origin of a word which is in the mouths +of all English Gipsies, and which was brought to England by their ancestors. +A sovereign, a pound, in Gipsy, is a <i>bar</i>.</p> +<p>A GORGER, meaning a gentleman, or well-dressed man, and in theatrical +parlance, a manager, is derived by the author of the Slang Dictionary—absurdly +enough, it must be confessed—from “gorgeous,”—a +word with which it has no more in common than with gouges or chisels. +A gorger or gorgio—the two are often confounded—is the common +Gipsy word for one who is not Gipsy, and very often means with them +a <i>rye</i> or gentleman, and indeed any man whatever. Actors +sometimes call a fellow-performer a <i>cully-gorger</i>.</p> +<p>DICK, an English slang word for sight, or seeing, is purely Gipsy +in its origin, and in common use by Rommanis over all the world.</p> +<p>DOOK, to tell fortunes, and DOOKING, fortune-telling, are derived +by the writer last cited, correctly enough, from the Gipsy <i>dukkerin</i>,—a +fact which I specify, since it is one of the very rare instances in +which he has not blundered when commenting on Rommany words, or other +persons’ works.</p> +<p>Mr Borrow has told us that a TANNER or sixpence, sometimes called +a Downer, owes its pseudonym to the Gipsy word <i>tawno</i> or <i>tano</i>, +meaning “little”—the sixpence being the little coin +as compared with a shilling.</p> +<p>DRUM or DROM, is the common English Gipsy word for a road. +In English slang it is applied, not only to highways, but also to houses.</p> +<p>If the word GIBBERISH was, as has been asserted, first applied to +the language of the Gipsies, it may have been derived either from “Gip,” +the nickname for Gipsy, with <i>ish</i> or <i>rish</i> appended as in +Engl-<i>ish</i>, I-<i>rish</i>, or from the Rommany word <i>Jib</i> +signifying a language.</p> +<p>KEN, a low term for a house, is possibly of Gipsy origin. The +common word in every Rommany dialect for a house is, however, neither +ken nor khan, but <i>Ker</i>.</p> +<p>LIL, a book, a letter, has passed from the Gipsies to the low “Gorgios,” +though it is not a very common word. In Rommany it can be <i>correctly</i> +applied only to a letter or a piece of paper, which is written on, though +English Gipsies call all books by this name, and often speak of a letter +as a <i>Chinamāngri</i>.</p> +<p>LOUR or LOWR, and LOAVER, are all vulgar terms for money, and combine +two Gipsy words, the one <i>lovo</i> or <i>lovey</i>, and the other +<i>loure</i>, to steal. The reason for the combination or confusion +is obvious. The author of the Slang Dictionary, in order to explain +this word, goes as usual to the Wallachian Gipsies, for what he might +have learned from the first tinker in the streets of London. I +should remark on the word loure, that Mr Borrow has shown its original +identity with <i>loot</i>, the Hindustani for plunder or booty.</p> +<p>I believe that the American word loafer owes something to this Gipsy +root, as well as to the German <i>laufer</i> (<i>landlaufer</i>), and +Mexican Spanish <i>galeofar</i>, and for this reason, that when the +term first began to be popular in 1834 or 1835, I can distinctly remember +that it meant to <i>pilfer</i>. Such, at least, is my earliest +recollection, and of hearing school boys ask one another in jest, of +their acquisitions or gifts, “Where did you loaf that from?” +A petty pilferer was a loafer, but in a very short time all of the tribe +of loungers in the sun, and disreputable pickers up of unconsidered +trifles, now known as bummers, were called loafers. On this point +my memory is positive, and I call attention to it, since the word in +question has been the subject of much conjecture in America.</p> +<p>It is a very curious fact, that while the word <i>loot</i> is unquestionably +Anglo-Indian, and only a recent importation into our English “slanguage,” +it has always been at the same time English-Gipsy, although it never +rose to the surface.</p> +<p>MAUNDER, to stroll about and beg, has been derived from <i>Mand</i>, +the Anglo-Saxon for a basket, but is quite as likely to have come from +Maunder, the Gipsy for “to beg.” Mumper, a beggar, +is also from the same source.</p> +<p>MOKE, a donkey, is <i>said</i> to be Gipsy, by Mr Hotten, but Gipsies +themselves do not use the word, nor does it belong to their usual language. +The proper Rommany word for an ass is <i>myla</i>.</p> +<p>PARNY, a vulgar word for rain, is supposed to have come into England +from the “Anglo-Indian” source, but it is more likely that +it was derived from the Gipsy <i>panni</i> or water. “Brandy +pawnee” is undoubtedly an Anglo-Indian word, but it is used by +a very different class of people from those who know the meaning of +<i>Parny</i>.</p> +<p>POSH, which has found its way into vulgar popularity, as a term for +small coins, and sometimes for money in general, is the diminutive of +the Gipsy word <i>pāshero</i> or <i>poshero</i>, a half-penny, +from <i>pāsh</i> a half, and <i>haura</i> or <i>hārra</i>, +a penny.</p> +<p>QUEER, meaning across, cross, contradictory, or bad, is “supposed” +to be the German word <i>quer</i>, introduced by the Gipsies. +In their own language <i>atut</i> means across or against, though to +<i>curry</i> (German and Turkish Gipsy <i>kurava</i>), has some of the +slang meaning attributed to <i>queer</i>. An English rogue will +say, “to shove the queer,” meaning to pass counterfeit money, +while the Gipsy term would be to <i>chiv wafri lovvo</i>, or <i>lovey</i>.</p> +<p>“RAGLAN, a married woman, originally <i>Gipsy</i>, but now +a term with English tramps” (<i>The Slang Dictionary</i>, <i>London</i> +1865). In Gipsy, <i>raklo</i> is a youth or boy, and <i>rakli</i>, +a girl; Arabic, <i>ragol</i>, a man. I am informed, on good authority, +that these words are known in India, though I cannot find them in dictionaries. +They are possibly transposed from <i>Lurka</i> a youth and <i>lurki</i> +a girl, such transpositions being common among the lowest classes in +India.</p> +<p>RUMMY or RUMY, as applied to women, is simply the Gipsy word <i>romi</i>, +a contraction of <i>romni</i>, a wife; the husband being her <i>rom</i>.</p> +<p>BIVVY for beer, has been derived from the Italian <i>bevere</i>, +but it is probably Gipsy, since in the old form of the latter language, +Biava or Piava, means to drink. To <i>pivit</i>, is still known +among English Gipsies.</p> +<p>RIGS—running one’s rigs is said to be Gipsy, but the +only meaning of <i>rig</i>, so far as I am able to ascertain in Rommany, +is <i>a side</i> or <i>an edge</i>. It is, however, possible that +one’s <i>side</i> may in earlier times have been equivalent to +“face, or encounter.” To <i>rikker</i> or <i>rigger</i> +in Gipsy, is to carry anything.</p> +<p>MOLL, a female companion, is probably merely the nickname for Mary, +but it is worth observing, that <i>Mal</i> in old Gipsy, or in German +Gipsy, means an associate, and Mahar a wife, in Hindustani.</p> +<p>STASH, to be quiet, to stop, is, I think, a variation of the common +Gipsy word hatch, which means precisely the same thing, and is derived +from the older word <i>atchava</i>.</p> +<p>STURABAN, a prison, is purely Gipsy. Mr Hotten says it is from +the Gipsy <i>distarabin</i>, but there is no such word beginning with +<i>dis</i>, in the English Rommany dialect. In German Gipsy a +prison is called <i>stillapenn</i>.</p> +<p>TINY or TEENY has been derived from the Gipsy <i>tāno</i>, meaning +“little.”</p> +<p>TOFFER, a woman who is well dressed in new clean clothes, probably +gets the name from the Gipsy <i>tove</i>, to wash (German Gipsy <i>Tovava</i>). +She is, so to speak, freshly washed. To this class belong Toff, +a dandy; <i>Tofficky</i>, dressy or gay, and <i>Toft</i>, a dandy or +swell.</p> +<p>TOOL as applied to stealing, picking pockets, and burglary, is, like +<i>tool</i>, to drive with the reins; derived beyond doubt from the +Gipsy word <i>tool</i>, to take or hold. In all the Continental +Rommany dialects it is <i>Tulliwawa</i>.</p> +<p>PUNCH, it is generally thought, is Anglo-Indian, derived directly +from the Hindustani <i>Pantch</i> or five, from the five ingredients +which enter into its composition, but it may have partially got its +name from some sporting Gipsy in whose language the word for <i>five</i> +is the same as in Sanskrit. There have been thousands of “swell” +Rommany chals who have moved in sporting circles of a higher class than +they are to be found in at the present day.</p> +<p>“VARDO formerly was <i>Old Cant</i> for a waggon” (<i>The +Slang Dictionary</i>). It may be added that it is pure Gipsy, +and is still known at the present day to every Rom in England. +In Turkish Gipsy, <i>Vordon</i> means a vehicle, in German Gipsy, <i>Wortin</i>.</p> +<p>“Can you VOKER Rommany?” is given by Mr Hotten as meaning +“Can you speak Gipsy,”—but there is no such word in +Rommany as <i>voker</i>. He probably meant “Can you <i>rākker</i>”—pronounced +very often <i>Roker</i>. Continental Gipsy <i>Rakkervava</i>. +Mr Hotten derives it from the Latin <i>Vocare</i>!</p> +<p>I do not know the origin of WELCHER, a betting cheat, but it is worthy +of remark that in old Gipsy a <i>Walshdo</i> or Welsher meant a Frenchman +(from the German Wälsch) or any foreigner of the Latin races.</p> +<p>YACK, a watch, probably received its name from the Gipsy <i>Yak</i> +an eye, in the old times when watches were called bull’s eyes.</p> +<p>LUSHY, to be tipsy, and LUSH, are attributed for their origin to +the name of Lushington, a once well-known London brewer, but when we +find <i>Losho</i> and <i>Loshano</i> in a Gipsy dialect, meaning jolly, +from such a Sanskrit root as <i>Lush</i>; as Paspati derives it, there +seems to be some ground for supposing the words to be purely Rommany. +Dr Johnson said of lush that it was “opposite to pale,” +and this curiously enough shows its first source, whether as a “slang” +word or as indicative of colour, since one of its early Sanskrit meanings +is <i>light</i> or <i>radiance</i>. This identity of the so regarded +vulgar and the refined, continually confronts us in studying Rommany.</p> +<p>“To make a MULL of anything,” meaning thereby to spoil +or confuse it, if it be derived, as is said, from the Gipsy, must have +come from <i>Mullo</i> meaning <i>dead</i>, and the Sanskrit <i>Mara</i>. +There is, however, no such Gipsy word as mull, in the sense of entangling +or spoiling.</p> +<p>PROSS is a theatrical slang word, meaning to instruct and train a +tyro. As there are several stage words of manifest Gipsy origin, +I am inclined to derive this from the old Gipsy <i>Priss</i>, to read. +In English Gipsy <i>Prasser</i> or <i>Pross</i> means to ridicule or +scorn. Something of this is implied in the slang word <i>Pross</i>, +since it also means “to sponge upon a comrade,” &c., +“for drink.”</p> +<p>TOSHERS are in English low language, “men who steal copper +from ship’s bottoms.” I cannot form any direct connection +between this word and any in English Gipsy, but it is curious that in +Turkish Gipsy <i>Tasi</i> is a cup, and in Turkish Persian it means, +according to Paspati, a copper basin used in the baths. It is +as characteristic of English Gipsy as of any of its cognate dialects, +that we often find lurking in it the most remarkable Oriental fragments, +which cannot be directly traced through the regular line of transmission.</p> +<p>UP TO TRAP means, in common slang, intelligent. It is worth +observing, that in Gipsy, <i>drab</i> or <i>trap</i> (which words were +pronounced alike by the first Gipsies who came from Germany to England), +is used for medicine or poison, and the employment of the latter is +regarded, even at the present, as the greatest Rommany secret. +Indeed, it is only a few days since a Gipsy said to me, “If you +know <i>drab</i>, you’re up to everything; for there’s nothing +goes above that.” With <i>drab</i> the Gipsy secures game, +fish, pigs, and poultry; he quiets kicking horses until they can be +sold; and last, not least, kills or catches rats and mice. As +with the Indians of North America, <i>medicine</i>—whether to +kill or cure—is to the Gipsy the art of arts, and those who affect +a knowledge of it are always regarded as the most intelligent. +It is, however, remarkable, that the Gipsy, though he lives in fields +and woods, is, all the world over, far inferior to the American Indian +as regards a knowledge of the properties of herbs or minerals. +One may pick the first fifty plants which he sees in the woods, and +show them to the first Indian whom he meets, with the absolute certainty +that the latter will give him a name for every one, and describe in +detail their qualities and their use as remedies. The Gipsy seldom +has a name for anything of the kind. The country people in America, +and even the farmers’ boys, have probably inherited by tradition +much of this knowledge from the aborigines.</p> +<p>BARNEY, a mob or crowd, may be derived from the Gipsy <i>baro</i>, +great or many, which sometimes takes the form of <i>barno</i> or <i>barni</i>, +and which suggests the Hindustani Bahrna “to increase, proceed, +to gain, to be promoted;” and Bharná, “to fill, to +satisfy, to be filled, &c.”—(Brice’s “Hindústání +and English Dictionary.” London, Trübner & Co., +1864).</p> +<p>BEEBEE, which the author of the Slang Dictionary declares means a +lady, and is “Anglo-Indian,” is in general use among English +Gipsies for aunt. It is also a respectful form of address to any +middle-aged woman, among friends.</p> +<p>CULL or CULLY, meaning a man or boy, in Old English cant, is certainly +of Gipsy origin. <i>Chulai</i> signifies man in Spanish Gipsy +(Borrow), and <i>Khulai</i> a gentleman, according to Paspati; in Turkish +Rommany—a distinction which the word <i>cully</i> often preserves +in England, even when used in a derogatory sense, as of a dupe.</p> +<p>JOMER, a sweetheart or female favourite, has probably some connection +in derivation with choomer, a kiss, in Gipsy.</p> +<p>BLOKE, a common coarse word for a man, may be of Gipsy origin; since, +as the author of the Slang Dictionary declares, it may be found in Hindustani, +as Loke. “<i>Lok</i>, people, a world, region.”—(“Brice’s +Hind. Dictionary.”) <i>Bala’ lok</i>, a gentleman.</p> +<p>A DUFFER, which is an old English cant term, expressive of contempt +for a man, may be derived from the Gipsy <i>Adovo</i>, “that,” +“that man,” or “that fellow there.” <i>Adovo</i> +is frequently pronounced almost like “a duffer,” or “<i>a +duvva</i>.”</p> +<p>NIGGLING, which means idling, wasting time, doing anything slowly, +may be derived from some other Indo-European source, but in English +Gipsy it means to go slowly, “to potter along,” and in fact +it is the same as the English word. That it is pure old Rommany +appears from the fact that it is to be found as <i>Niglavava</i> in +Turkish Gipsy, meaning “I go,” which is also found in <i>Nikliovava</i> +and <i>Nikaváva</i>, which are in turn probably derived from +the Hindustani <i>Nikalná</i>, “To issue, to go forth or +out,” &c. (Brice, Hind. Dic.) <i>Niggle</i> is +one of the English Gipsy words which are used in the East, but which +I have not been able to find in the German Rommany, proving that here, +as in other countries, certain old forms have been preserved, though +they have been lost where the vocabulary is far more copious, and the +grammar much more perfect.</p> +<p>MUG, a face, is derived by Mr Wedgwood from the Italian MOCCA, a +mocking or apish mouth (Dictionary of English Etymology), but in English +Gipsy we have not only <i>mui</i>, meaning the face, but the <i>older</i> +forms from which the English word was probably taken, such as Māk’h +(Paspati), and finally the Hindustani <i>Mook</i> and the Sanskrit <i>Mukha</i>, +mouth or face (Shakespeare, Hind. Dic., p. 745). In all cases +where a word is so “slangy” as mug, it seems more likely +that it should have been derived from Rommany than from Italian, since +it is only within a few years that any considerable number of the words +of the latter language was imparted to the lower classes of London.</p> +<p>BAMBOOZLE, BITE, and SLANG are all declared by the author of the +Slang Dictionary to be Gipsy, but, with the exception of the last word, +I am unable to verify their Rommany origin. Bambhorna does indeed +mean in Hindustani (Brice), “to bite or to worry,” and bamboo-bakshish +to deceive by paying with a whipping, while <i>swang</i>, as signifying +mimicking, acting, disguise and sham, whether of words or deeds, very +curiously conveys the spirit of the word slang. As for <i>bite</i> +I almost hesitate to suggest the possibility of a connection between +it and <i>Bidorna</i>, to laugh at. I offer not only these three +suggested derivations, but also most of the others, with every reservation. +For many of these words, as for instance <i>bite</i>, etymologists have +already suggested far more plausible and more probable derivations, +and if I have found a place for Rommany “roots,” it is simply +because what is the most plausible, and apparently the most probable, +is not always the true origin. But as I firmly believe that there +is much more Gipsy in English, especially in English slang and cant, +than the world is aware of, I think it advisable to suggest what I can, +leaving to abler philologists the task of testing its value.</p> +<p>Writers on such subjects err, almost without an exception, in insisting +on one accurately defined and singly derived source for every word, +when perhaps three or four have combined to form it. The habits +of thought and methods of study followed by philologists render them +especially open to this charge. They wish to establish every form +as symmetrical and mathematical, where nature has been freakish and +bizarre. Some years ago when I published certain poems in the +broken English spoken by Germans, an American philologist, named Haldemann, +demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the language which I had put +into Hans Breitmann’s mouth was inaccurate, because I had not +reduced it to an uniform dialect, making the same word the same in spelling +and pronunciation on all occasions, when the most accurate observation +had convinced me, as it must any one, that those who have only partially +learned a language continually vary their methods of uttering its words.</p> +<p>That some words have come from one source and been aided by another, +is continually apparent in English Gipsy, as for instance in the word +for reins, “guiders,” which, until the Rommany reached England, +was voidas. In this instance the resemblance in sound between +the words undoubtedly conduced to an union. Gibberish may have +come from the Gipsy, and at the same time owe something to <i>gabble</i>, +<i>jabber</i>, and the old Norse or Icelandic <i>gifra</i>. <i>Lush</i> +may owe something to Mr Lushington, something to the earlier English +<i>lush</i>, or rosy, and something to the Gipsy and Sanskrit. +It is not at all unlikely that the word <i>codger</i> owes, through +<i>cadger</i>, a part of its being to <i>kid</i>, a basket, as Mr Halliwell +suggests (Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1852), and yet +come quite as directly from <i>gorger</i> or <i>gorgio</i>. “The +cheese” probably has the Gipsy-Hidustani <i>chiz</i> for a father, +and the French <i>chose</i> for a mother, while both originally sprung +thousands of years ago in the great parting of the Aryan nations, to +be united after so long a separation in a distant island in the far +northern seas.</p> +<p>The etymologist who hesitates to adopt this principle of joint sources +of derivation, will find abundant instances of something very like it +in many English Gipsy words themselves, which, as belonging to a language +in extreme decay, have been formed directly from different, but somewhat +similarly sounding, words, in the parent German or Eastern Rommany. +Thus, <i>schukker</i>, pretty; <i>bi-shukker</i>, slow; <i>tschukko</i>, +dry, and <i>tschororanes</i>, secretly, have in England all united in +<i>shukár</i>, which expresses all of their meanings.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VII. PROVERBS AND CHANCE PHRASES.</h2> +<p>An Old Gipsy Proverb—Common Proverbs in Gipsy Dress—Quaint +Sayings—Characteristic Rommany Picture-Phrases.</p> +<p>Every race has not only its peculiar proverbs, sayings, and catch-words, +but also idiomatic phrases which constitute a characteristic chiaroscuro, +if not colour. The Gipsies in England have of course borrowed +much from the Gorgios, but now and then something of their own appears. +In illustration of all this, I give the following expressions noted +down from Gipsy conversation:—</p> +<p><i>Tacho like my dad</i>. True like my father.</p> +<p><i>Kushto like my dad</i>. Good like my father.</p> +<p>This is a true Gipsy proverb, used as a strongly marked indication +of approbation or belief.</p> +<p><i>Kushto bāk</i>. Good luck!</p> +<p>As the Genoese of old greeted their friends with the word <i>Guadagna</i>! +or “Gain!” indicating as Rabelais declares, their sordid +character, so the Gipsy, whose life is precarious, and who depends upon +chance for his daily bread, replies to “Sarishan!” (good +day!) with “Kushto bāk!” or “Good luck to you!” +The Arabic “Baksheesh” is from the same root as bak, <i>i.e</i>., +bacht.</p> +<p><i>When there’s a boro bavol</i>, <i>huller the tan parl the +waver rikk pauli the bor</i>. When the wind is high, move the +tent to the other side of the hedge behind it.</p> +<p>That is to say, change sides in an emergency.</p> +<p>“<i>Hatch apré! Hushti! The prastramengro’s +wellin! Jāl the graias avree! Prastee</i>!”</p> +<p>“Jump up! Wide awake there! The policeman’s +coming! Run the horses off! Scamper!”</p> +<p>This is an alarm in camp, and constitutes a sufficiently graphic +picture. The hint to run the horses off indicates a very doubtful +title to their possession.</p> +<p><i>The prastramengro pens me mustn’t hatch acai</i>.</p> +<p>The policeman says we mustn’t stop here.</p> +<p>No phrase is heard more frequently among Gipsies, who are continually +in trouble with the police as to their right to stop and pitch their +tents on commons.</p> +<p><i>I can hatch apré for pange</i> (<i>panj</i>) <i>divvuses</i>.</p> +<p>I can stop here for five days.</p> +<p>A common phrase indicating content, and equivalent to, “I would +like to sit here for a week.”</p> +<p><i>The graias have taddered at the kas-stoggus</i>—<i>we must +jāl an dūrer</i>—<i>the gorgio’s dicked us</i>!</p> +<p>The horses have been pulling at the hay-stack—we must hurry +away—the man has seen us!</p> +<p>When Gipsies have remained over night on a farm, it sometimes happens +that their horses and asses—inadvertently of course—find +their way to the haystacks or into a good field. <i>Humanum est +errare</i>!</p> +<p><i>Yeck mush can lel a grai ta panni</i>, <i>but twenty cant kair +him pi</i>.</p> +<p>One man can take a horse to water, but twenty can’t make him +drink.</p> +<p>A well-known proverb.</p> +<p><i>A chirrico ’drée the mast is worth dui</i> ’<i>drée +the bor</i>.</p> +<p>A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (hedge).</p> +<p><i>Never kin a pong dishler nor lel a romni by momeli dood</i>.</p> +<p>Never buy a handkerchief nor choose a wife by candle-light.</p> +<p><i>Always jāl by the divvus</i>.</p> +<p>Always go by the day.</p> +<p><i>Chin tutes chuckko by tute’s kaum</i>.</p> +<p>Cut your coat according to your fancy. This is a Gipsy variation +of an old proverb.</p> +<p><i>Fino ranyas kair fino trushnees</i>.</p> +<p>Nice reeds make nice baskets.</p> +<p><i>He can’t tool his kokerus togetherus</i> (<i>kettenus</i>).</p> +<p>He can’t hold himself together. Spoken of an infirm old +man.</p> +<p><i>Too boot of a mush for his kokero</i>.</p> +<p>Too much of a man for himself; <i>i.e</i>., he thinks too much of +himself.</p> +<p><i>He</i>’s <i>too boot of a mush to rākker a pauveri +chavo</i>.</p> +<p>He’s too proud too speak to a poor man. This was used, +not in depreciation of a certain nobleman, whom the Gipsy who gave it +to me had often seen, but admiringly, as if such <i>hauteur</i> were +a commendable quality.</p> +<p><i>More</i> (<i>koomi</i>) <i>covvas the well</i>.</p> +<p>There are more things to come. Spoken of food on a table, and +equivalent to “Don’t go yet.” <i>The</i> appears +to be used in this as in many other instances, instead of <i>to</i> +for the sake of euphony.</p> +<p><i>The jivaben has jawed avree out of his gad</i>.</p> +<p>The life has gone out of his shirt, <i>i.e</i>., body. This +intimates a long and close connection between the body and the under +garment. “Avree out of,” a phrase in which the Gipsy +word is immediately followed by its English equivalent, is a common +form of expression for the sake of clearness.</p> +<p><i>I toves my own gad</i>.</p> +<p>I wash my own shirt.</p> +<p>A saying indicating celibacy or independence.</p> +<p><i>Mo rākkerfor a pennis when tute can’t lel it</i>.</p> +<p>Don’t ask for a thing when you can’t get it.</p> +<p><i>The wongurs kairs the grasni jāl</i>.</p> +<p>Money makes the mare go.</p> +<p><i>It’s allers the boro matcho that pet-a-lay ’drée +the panni</i>.</p> +<p>It is always the largest fish that falls back into the water.</p> +<p><i>Bengis your see</i>! <i>Beng in tutes bukko</i>!</p> +<p>The devil in your heart. The devil in your body, or bowels.</p> +<p>This is a common form of imprecation among Gipsies all over the world.</p> +<p><i>Jawin sār a mush mullerin adrée the boro naflo-ker</i>.</p> +<p>Going like a man dying in the hospital.</p> +<p><i>Rikker it adrée tute’s kokero see an’ kek’ll +jin</i>.</p> +<p>Keep it a secret in your own heart, and nobody will know it.</p> +<p><i>Del sār mush a sigaben to hair his jivaben</i>. Give +every man a chance to make his living.</p> +<p><i>It’s sim to a choomer, kushti for kek till it’s pordered +atween dui</i>.</p> +<p>It’s like a kiss, good for nothing until it is divided between +two.</p> +<p><i>A cloudy sala often purabens to a fino divvus</i>.</p> +<p>A cloudy morning often changes to a fine day.</p> +<p><i>Iuzhiou panni never jalled avree from a chickli tan</i>.</p> +<p>Clean water never came out from a dirty place.</p> +<p><i>Sār mush must jāl to the cangry, yeck divvus or the +waver</i>.</p> +<p>Every man must go to the church (<i>i.e</i>., be buried) some day +or other.</p> +<p><i>Kek mush ever lelled adusta mongur</i>.</p> +<p>No man ever got money enough.</p> +<p><i>Pāle the wafri bāk jāls the kushti bāk</i>.</p> +<p>Behind bad luck comes good luck.</p> +<p><i>Saw mushis ain’t got the sim kammoben as wavers</i>.</p> +<p>All men have not the same tastes.</p> +<p><i>Lel the tacho pirro, an’ it’s pāsh kaired</i>.</p> +<p>Well begun is half done.</p> +<p><i>Whilst tute’s rākkerin the cheiruses jāl</i>.</p> +<p>While you are talking the <i>times</i> (hours) fly.</p> +<p><i>Wafri bāk in a boro ker</i>, <i>sim’s adrée +a bitti her</i>.</p> +<p>There may be adversity in a large house as well as in a small one.</p> +<p><i>The kushtiest covvas allers jāl avree siggest</i>.</p> +<p>The best is soonest gone.</p> +<p><i>To dick a puro pal is as cāmmoben as a kushti hābben</i>.</p> +<p>To see an old friend is as agreeable as a good meal.</p> +<p><i>When tuti’s pals chinger yeck with a waver</i>, <i>don’t +tute jāl adoi</i>.</p> +<p>When your brothers quarrel don’t you meddle.</p> +<p><i>Pet up with the rākkerin an’ mor pen chichi</i>.</p> +<p>Endure the chattering and say nothing.</p> +<p><i>When a mush dels tute a grai tute mān dick ’drée +lester’s mui</i>.</p> +<p>When a man gives you a horse you must not look in his mouth.</p> +<p><i>Mān jāl atut the puvius</i>.</p> +<p>Do not go across the field. Intimating that one should travel +in the proper road.</p> +<p><i>There’s a kushti sovaben at the kunsus of a dūro drum</i>.</p> +<p>There is a sweet sleep at the end of a long road.</p> +<p><i>Kair the cāmmodearer</i>.</p> +<p>Make the best of it.</p> +<p><i>Rikker dovo adrée tute’s see</i>.</p> +<p>Keep that a secret.</p> +<p><i>The koomi foki the tacho</i>.</p> +<p>The more the merrier.</p> +<p><i>The pishom kairs the gūdlo</i>.</p> +<p>The bee makes the honey. <i>Id est</i>, each does his own work.</p> +<p><i>The pishom lels the gūdlo avree the roozhers</i>.</p> +<p>The bee gets honey from flowers. <i>Id est</i>, seeks it in +the right place.</p> +<p><i>Hatch till the dood wells apré</i>.</p> +<p>Wait till the moon rises. A very characteristic Gipsy saying.</p> +<p><i>Can’t pen shukker atut lendy</i>.</p> +<p>You cannot say aught against them.</p> +<p><i>He’s boccalo ajaw to haw his chokkas</i>.</p> +<p>He’s hungry enough to eat his shoes.</p> +<p><i>The puro beng is a fino mush</i>!</p> +<p>The devil is a nice character.</p> +<p><i>Mansha tu pal</i>!</p> +<p>Cheer up, brother. Be a man! Spoken to any one who seems +dejected. This corresponds partially to the German Gipsy <i>Manuschwari</i>! +which is, however, rather an evil wish and a curse, meaning according +to Dr Liebich (<i>Die Zigeuner</i>) the gallows, dire need, and epilepsy. +Both in English and German it is, however, derived from Manusch, a man.</p> +<p><i>He’s a hunnalo nākin mush</i>.</p> +<p>He is an avaricious man. Literally, a spiteful nosed man.</p> +<p><i>Tute can hair a covva ferridearer if you jāl shukár</i>.</p> +<p>You can do a thing better if you go about it secretly.</p> +<p><i>We’re lullero adoi we don’t jin the jib</i>.</p> +<p>We are dumb where we do not understand the language.</p> +<p><i>Chucked</i> (<i>chivved</i>) <i>saw the habben avree</i>.</p> +<p>He threw all the victuals about. A melancholy proverb, meaning +that state of irritable intoxication when a man comes home and abuses +his family.</p> +<p><i>A myla that rikkers tute is kushtier to kistur than a grai that +chivs you apré</i>.</p> +<p>An ass that carries you is better than a horse that throws you off.</p> +<p><i>The juva</i>, <i>that sikkers her burk will sikker her bull</i>.</p> +<p>“Free of her lips, free of her hips.”</p> +<p><i>He sims mandy dree the mui</i>—<i>like a puvengro</i>.</p> +<p>He resembles me—like a potato.</p> +<p><i>Yeck hotchewitchi sims a waver as yeck bubby sims the waver</i>.</p> +<p>One hedgehog is as like another as two peas.</p> +<p><i>He mored men dui</i>.</p> +<p>He killed both of us. A sarcastic expression.</p> +<p><i>I dicked their stadees an langis sherros</i>.</p> +<p>I saw their hats on their heads. Apropos of amazement at some +very ordinary thing.</p> +<p><i>When you’ve tatti panni and rikker tutes kokero pāsh +mātto you can jal apré the wen sār a grai</i>.</p> +<p>When you have brandy (spirits), and keep yourself half drunk, you +can go through the winter like a horse.</p> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII. INDICATIONS OF THE INDIAN ORIGIN OF THE GIPSIES.</h2> +<p>Boro Duvel, or “Great God,” an Old Gipsy term for Water—Bishnoo +or Vishnu, the Rain-God—The Rain, called God’s Blood by +Gipsies—The Snow, “Angel’s Feathers.”—Mahadeva—Buddha—The +Simurgh—The Pintni or Mermaid—The Nag or Blind-Worm—Nagari +and Niggering—The Nile—Nats and Nautches, Naubat and Nobbet—A +Puncher—Pitch, Piller and Pivlibeebee—Quod—Kishmet +or Destiny—The Koran in England—“Sass”—Sherengro—Sarserin—Shali +or Rice—The Shaster in England—The Evil Eye—Sikhs—Stan, +Hindostan, Iranistan—The true origin of Slang—Tat, the Essence +of Being—Bahar and Bar—The Origin of the Words Rom and Romni.—Dom +and Domni—The Hindi tem—Gipsy and Hindustani points of the +Compass—Salaam and Shulam—Sarisham!—The Cups—Women’s +treading on objects—Horseflesh—English and Foreign Gipsies—Bohemian +and Rommany.</p> +<p>A learned Sclavonian—Michael von Kogalnitschan—has said +of Rommany, that he found it interesting to be able to study a Hindu +dialect in the heart of Europe. He is quite right; but as mythology +far surpasses any philology in interest, as regards its relations to +poetry, how much more wonderful is it to find—to-day in England—traces +of the tremendous avatars, whose souls were gods, long ago in India. +And though these traces be faint, it is still apparent enough that they +really exist.</p> +<p>One day an old Gipsy, who is said to be more than usually “deep” +in Rommany, and to have had unusual opportunity for acquiring such knowledge +from Gipsies older and deeper than himself, sent word to me, to know +if “the rye” was aware that Boro Duvel, or the Great God, +was an old Rommany expression for water? I thought that this was +a singular message to come from a tent at Battersea, and asked my special +Gipsy <i>factotum</i>, why God should be called water, or water, God? +And he replied in the following words:</p> +<p>“Panni is the Boro Duvel, and it is Bishnoo or Vishnoo, because +it pells alay from the Boro Duvel. ‘<i>Vishnu is the Boro +Duvel then</i>?’—Āvali. There can’t be +no stretch adoi—can there, rya? Duvel is Duvel all the world +over—but by the right <i>formation</i>, Vishnoo is the Duvel’s +ratt. I’ve shūned adovo būt dusta cheiruses. +An’ the snow is poris, that jāls from the angels’ winguses. +And what I penned, that Bishnoo is the Duvel’s ratt, is pūro +Rommanis, and jinned by saw our foki.” <a name="citation110"></a><a href="#footnote110">{110}</a></p> +<p>Now in India, Vishnu and Indra are the gods of the rain.</p> +<p>The learned, who insist that as there ought to be, so there must +be, but a single source of derivation for every word, ignoring the fact +that a dozen causes may aid in its formation, will at once declare that, +as Bishnoo or Vishnoo is derived from the old Gipsy Brishni or Brschindo, +and this from the Hindu Barish, and the Sanscrit Varish or Prish, there +can be “no rational ground” for connecting the English Gipsy +word with the Hindu god. But who can tell what secret undercurrents +of dim tradition and vague association may have come down to the present +day from the olden time. That rain should be often called God’s +blood, and water bearing the name of Vishnu be termed God, and that +this should be regarded as a specially curious bit of Gipsy lore, is +at any rate remarkable enough.</p> +<p>As for the Gipsies in question ever having heard of Vishnu and other +gods (as a friend suggests to me), save in this dim tradition, I can +only say, that I doubt whether either of them ever heard even of the +apostles; and I satisfied myself that the one who brought the secret +had never heard of Joseph, was pitiably ignorant of Potiphar’s +wife, and only knew of “Mozhus” or Moses, that he “once +heerd he was on the bulrushes.”</p> +<p>Mahadeva, or Mahadev, exists apparently in the mouth of every English +Gipsy in the phrase “Maduveleste!” or, God bless you. +This word Maduvel is often changed to Mi—duvel, and is generally +supposed to mean “My God;” but I was once assured, that +the <i>old</i> and correct form was Ma, meaning great, and that it only +meant great in connection with Duvel.</p> +<p>A curious illustration of a lost word returning by chance to its +original source was given one day, when I asked a Gipsy if he knew such +a word as Būddha? He promptly replied, “Yes; that a +booderi or boodha mush was an <i>old</i> man;” and pointing to +a Chinese image of Buddha, said: “That is a Boohda.” +He meant nothing more than that it represented an aged person, but the +coincidence was at least remarkable. Budha in Hindustani really +signifies an old man.</p> +<p>The same Gipsy, observing on the chimney-piece a quaint image of +a Chinese griffin—a hideous little goblin with wings—informed +me that the Gipsy name for it was a Seemór or Seemorus, and further +declared that the same word meant a dolphin. “But a dolphin +has no wings,” I remarked. “Oh, hasn’t it?” +rejoined the Gipsy; “its <i>fins</i> are its wings, if it hadn’t +wings it could not be a Seemór.” I think I recognise +in this Seemór, the Simurgh or Griffin of Persian fable. <a name="citation112"></a><a href="#footnote112">{112}</a> +I could learn nothing more than this, that the Gipsy had always regarded +a dolphin as resembling a large-headed winged monster, which he called +a Seemór.</p> +<p>NAG is a snake in Hindustani. The English Gipsies still retain +this primæval word, but apply it only to the blind-worm. +It is, however, remarkable that the Nag, or blind-worm, is, in the opinion +of the Rommany, the most mysterious of creatures. I have been +told that “when a nag mullers it’s hardus as a kosh, and +you can pogger it like a swägler’s toov,” “When +a blind-worm dies it is as hard as a stick, and you can break it like +a pipe-stem.” They also believe that the Nag is gifted, +so far as his will goes, with incredible malignity, and say of him—</p> +<blockquote><p>“If he could dick sim’s he can shoon,<br /> +He wouldn’t mukk mush or graī jāl ān the drum.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“If he could see as well as he can hear, he would not allow +man or horse to go on the road.”</p> +<p>The Hindi alphabet Deva Nagari, “the writing of the gods,” +is commonly called Nagari. A common English Gipsy word for writing +is “niggering.” “He niggered sār he could +pooker adrée a chinamangree.” The resemblance between +<i>nagari</i> and <i>nigger</i> may, it is true, be merely accidental, +but the reader, who will ascertain by examination of the vocabulary +the proportion of Rommany words unquestionably Indian, will admit that +the terms have probably a common origin.</p> +<p>From Sanskrit to English Gipsy may be regarded as a descent “from +the Nile to a street-gutter,” but it is amusing at least to find +a passable parallel for this simile. <i>Nill</i> in Gipsy is a +rivulet, a river, or a gutter. Nala is in Hindustani a brook; +nali, a kennel: and it has been conjectured that the Indian word indicates +that of the great river of Egypt.</p> +<p>All of my readers have heard of the Nautch girls, the so-called <i>bayadères</i> +or dancing-girls of India; but very few, I suppose, are aware that their +generic name is remotely preserved in several English Gipsy words. +Nāchna in Hindustani means to dance, while the Nāts, who are +a kind of Gipsies, are generally jugglers, dancers, and musicians. +A <i>natua</i> is one of these Nāts, and in English Gipsy <i>nautering</i> +means going about with music. Other attractions may be added, +but, as I have heard a Gipsy say, “it always takes music to go +<i>a-nauterin</i>’ or <i>nobbin</i>’.”</p> +<p><i>Naubat</i> in the language of the Hindu Nāts signifies “time, +turn, and instruments of music sounding at the gate of a great man, +at certain intervals.” “Nobbet,” which is a +Gipsy word well known to all itinerant negro minstrels, means to go +about with music to get money. “To nobbet round the tem, +bosherin’.” It also implies time or turn, as I inferred +from what I was told on inquiry. “You can shoon dovo at +the wellgooras when yeck rākkers the waver, You jāl and nobbet.” +“You can hear that at the fairs when one says to the other, You +go and nobbet,” meaning, “It is your turn to play now.”</p> +<p><i>Nāchna</i>, to dance (Hindustani), appears to be reflected +in the English Gipsy “nitchering,” moving restlessly, fidgeting +and dancing about. Nobbeting, I was told, “<i>is</i> nauterin’—it’s +all one, rya!”</p> +<p><i>Paejama</i> in India means very loose trousers; and it is worth +noting that Gipsies call loose leggings, trousers, or “overalls,” +peajamangris. This may be Anglo-Indian derived from the Gorgios. +Whether “pea-jacket” belongs in part to this family, I will +not attempt to decide.</p> +<p>Living constantly among the vulgar and uneducated, it is not to be +wondered at that the English Gipsies should have often given a vulgar +English and slangy term to many words originally Oriental. I have +found that, without exception, there is a disposition among most people +to promptly declare that all these words were taken, “of course,” +from English slang. Thus, when I heard a Gipsy speak of his fist +as a “puncher,” I naturally concluded that he did so because +he regarded its natural use to be to “punch” heads with. +But on asking him why he gave it that name, he promptly replied, “Because +it takes pānge (five) fingers to make a fist.” And +since <i>panja</i> means in Hindustani a hand with the five fingers +extended, it is no violent assumption to conclude that even <i>puncher</i> +may owe quite as much to Hindustani as to English, though I cheerfully +admit that it would perhaps never have existed had it not been for English +associations. Thus a Gipsy calls a pedlar a <i>packer</i> or <i>pack-mush</i>. +Now, how much of this word is due to the English word pack or packer, +and how much to <i>paikár</i>, meaning in Hindustani a pedlar? +I believe that there has been as much of the one as of the other, and +that this doubly-formative influence, or <i>influence of continuation</i>, +should be seriously considered as regards all Rommany words which resemble +in sound others of the same meaning, either in Hindustani or in English. +It should also be observed that the Gipsy, while he is to the last degree +inaccurate and a blunderer as regards <i>English</i> words (a fact pointed +out long ago by the Rev. Mr Crabb), has, however, retained with great +persistence hundreds of Hindu terms. Not being very familiar with +peasant English, I have generally found Gipsies more intelligible in +Rommany than in the language of their “stepfather-land,” +and have often asked my principal informant to tell me in Gipsy what +I could not comprehend in “Anglo-Saxon.”</p> +<p>“To pitch together” does not in English mean to stick +together, although <i>pitch</i> sticks, but it does in Gipsy; and in +Hindustani, <i>pichchi</i> means sticking or adhering. I find +in all cases of such resemblance that the Gipsy word has invariably +a closer affinity as regards meaning to the Hindu than to the English, +and that its tendencies are always rather Oriental than Anglo-Saxon. +As an illustration, I may point out <i>piller</i> (English Gipsy) to +attack, having an affinity in <i>pilna</i> (Hindustani), with the same +meaning. Many readers will at once revert to <i>pill</i>, <i>pillér</i>, +and <i>pillage</i>—all simply <i>implying</i> attack, but really +meaning to <i>rob</i>, or robbery. But <i>piller</i> in English +Gipsy also means, as in Hindustani, to assault indecently; and this +is almost conclusive as to its Eastern origin.</p> +<p>It is remarkable that the Gipsies in England, or all the world over, +have, like the Hindus, a distinctly descriptive expression for every +degree of relationship. Thus a <i>pivli beebee</i> in English +Gipsy, or <i>pupheri bahim</i> in Hindustani, is a father’s sister’s +daughter. This in English, as in French or German, is simply a +cousin.</p> +<p><i>Quod</i>, imprisonment, is an old English cant and Gipsy word +which Mr Hotten attempts to derive from a college quadrangle; but when +we find that the Hindu <i>quaid</i> also means confinement, the probability +is that it is to it we owe this singular term.</p> +<p>There are many words in which it is evident that the Hindu Gipsy +meaning has been shifted from a cognate subject. Thus <i>putti</i>, +the hub of a wheel in Gipsy, means the felly of a wheel in Hindustani. +<i>Kaizy</i>, to rub a horse down, or scrape him, in the original tongue +signifies “to tie up a horse’s head by passing the bridle +to his tail,” to prevent his kicking while being rubbed or ’scraped. +<i>Quasur</i>, or <i>kasur</i>, is in Hindustani flame: in English Gipsy +<i>kessur</i> signifies smoke; but I have heard a Gipsy more than once +apply the same term to flame and smoke, just as <i>miraben</i> stands +for both life and death.</p> +<p>Very Oriental is the word kismet, or destiny, as most of my readers +are probably aware. It is also English Gipsy, and was explained +to me as follows: “A man’s <i>kismut</i> is what he’s +bound to kair—it’s the kismut of his see. Some men’s +kismut is better’n wavers, ’cos they’ve got more better +chiv. Some men’s kismut’s to bikin grais, and some +to bikin kānis; but saw foki has their kismut, an’ they can’t +pen chichi elsus.” In English, “A man’s destiny +is what he is bound to do—it is the fate of his soul (life). +Some men’s destiny is better than others, because they have more +command of language. Some are fated to sell horses, and others +to sell hens; but all people have their mission, and can do nothing +else.”</p> +<p><i>Qurán</i> in the East means the Koran, and qurán +uthara to take an oath. In English Gipsy kurran, or kurraben, +is also an oath, and it seems strange that such a word from such a source +should exist in England. It is, however, more interesting as indicating +that the Gipsies did not leave India until familiarised with Mohammedan +rule. “He kaired his kurran pré the Duvel’s +Bavol that he would jāl ’vree the tem for a besh.” +“He swore his oath upon God’s Breath (the Bible) that he +would leave the country for a year.” Upon inquiring of the +Gipsy who uttered this phrase why he called the Bible “God’s +Breath,” he replied naïvely, “It’s sim to the +Duvel’s jivaben, just the same as His breathus.” “It +is like God’s life, just the same as His breath.”</p> +<p>It is to be observed that <i>nearly all the words which Gipsies claim +as Gipsy</i>, <i>notwithstanding their resemblance to English</i>, <i>are +to be found in Hindustani</i>. Thus <i>rutter</i>, to copulate, +certainly resembles the English <i>rut</i>, but it is quite as much +allied to <i>rutana</i> (Hindustani), meaning the same thing. +“Sass,” or sauce, meaning in Gipsy, bold, forward impudence, +is identical with the same English word, but it agrees very well with +the Hindu <i>sáhas</i>, bold, and was perhaps born of the latter +term, although it has been brought up by the former.</p> +<p>Dr A. F. Pott remarks of the German Gipsy word <i>schetra</i>, or +violin, that he could nowhere find in Rommany a similar instrument with +an Indian name. Surrhingee, or sarunghee, is the common Hindu +word for a violin; and the English Gipsies, on being asked if they knew +it, promptly replied that it was “an old word for the neck or +head of a fiddle.” It is true they also called it sarengro, +surhingro, and shorengro, the latter word indicating that it might have +been derived from sherro-engro—<i>i.e</i>., “head-thing.” +But after making proper allowance for the Gipsy tendency, or rather +passion, for perverting words towards possible derivations, it seems +very probable that the term is purely Hindu.</p> +<p>Zuhru, or Zohru, means in the East Venus, or the morning star; and +it is pleasant to find a reflection of the rosy goddess in the Gipsy +<i>soor</i>, signifying “early in the morning.” I +have been told that there is a Rommany word much resembling <i>soor</i>, +meaning the early star, but my informant could not give me its exact +sound. <i>Dood of the sala</i> is the common name for Venus. +Sunrise is indicated by the eccentric term of “<i>kam-left the +panni</i>” or sun-left the water. “It wells from the +waver tem you jin,” said my informant, in explanation. “The +sun comes from a foreign country, and first leaves that land, and then +leaves the sea, before it gets here.”</p> +<p>When a Gipsy is prowling for hens, or any other little waifs, and +wishes to leave a broken trail, so that his tracks may not be identified, +he will walk with the feet interlocked—one being placed outside +the other—making what in America is very naturally termed a snake-trail. +This he calls <i>sarserin</i>, and in Hindu <i>sarasáná</i> +means to creep along like a snake.</p> +<p>Supposing that the Hindu word for rice, <i>sháli</i>, could +hardly have been lost, I asked a Gipsy if he knew it, and he at once +replied, “<i>Shali giv</i> is small grain-corn, werry little grainuses +indeed.”</p> +<p><i>Shalita</i> in Hindustani is a canvas sack in which a tent is +carried. The English Gipsy has confused this word with <i>shelter</i>, +and yet calls a small or “shelter” tent a shelter <i>gunno</i>, +or bag. “For we rolls up the big tent in the shelter tent, +to carry it.” A tent cloth or canvas is in Gipsy a <i>shummy</i>, +evidently derived from the Hindu shumiyana, a canopy or awning.</p> +<p>It is a very curious fact that the English Gipsies call the Scripture +or Bible the <i>Shaster</i>, and I record this with the more pleasure, +since it fully establishes Mr Borrow as the first discoverer of the +word in Rommany, and vindicates him from the suspicion with which his +assertion was received by Dr Pott. On this subject the latter +speaks as follows:—</p> +<p>“Eschastra de Moyses, l. ii. 22; ο νομος, +M.; Sanskrit, çâstra; Hind., shāstr, m. Hindu +religious books, Hindu law, Scripture, institutes of science (Shakespeare). +In proportion to the importance of the real existence of this word among +the Gipsies must be the suspicion with which we regard it, when it depends, +as in this instance, only on Borrow’s assertion, who, in case +of need, to supply a non-existing word, may have easily taken one from +the Sanskrit.”—<i>Die Zigeuner</i>, vol. ii. p. 224.</p> +<p>The word <i>shaster</i> was given to me very distinctly by a Gipsy, +who further volunteered the information, that it not only meant the +Scriptures, but also any written book whatever, and somewhat marred +the dignity of the sublime association of the Bible and Shaster, by +adding that “any feller’s bettin’-book on the race-ground +was a <i>shasterni lil</i>, ’cos it’s written.”</p> +<p>I have never heard of the evil eye among the lower orders of English, +but among Gipsies a belief in it is as common as among Hindus, and both +indicate it by the same word, <i>seer</i> or <i>sihr</i>. In India +<i>sihr</i>, it is true, is applied to enchantment or magic in general, +but in this case the whole may very well stand for a part. I may +add that my own communications on the subject of the <i>jettatura</i>, +and the proper means of averting it by means of crab’s claws, +horns, and the usual sign of the fore and little finger, were received +by a Gipsy auditor with great faith and interest.</p> +<p>To show, teach, or learn, is expressed in Gipsy by the word <i>sikker</i>, +<i>sig</i>, or <i>seek</i>. The reader may not be aware that the +Sikhs of India derive their name from the same root, as appears from +the following extract from Dr Paspati’s <i>études</i>: +“<i>Sikava</i>, v. prim. 1 cl. 1 conj. part, siklo’, montrer, +apprendre. Sanskrit, s’iks’, to learn, to acquire +science; siksáka, adj., a learner, a teacher. Hindustani, +seek’hna, v.a., to learn, to acquire; seek’h, s.f., admonition.” +I next inquired why they were called Seeks, and they told me it was +a word borrowed from one of the commandments of their founder, which +signifies ‘learn thou,’ and that it was adopted to distinguish +the sect soon after he disappeared. The word, as is well known, +has the same import in the Hindoovee” (“Asiatic Researches,” +vol. i. p. 293, and vol. ii. p. 200). This was a noble word to +give a name to a body of followers supposed to be devoted to knowledge +and truth.</p> +<p>The English Gipsy calls a mermaid a <i>pintni</i>; in Hindu it is +<i>bint ool buhr</i>, a maid of the sea. Bero in Gipsy is the +sea or a ship, but the Rommany had reduced the term to the original +<i>bint</i>, by which a girl is known all over the East.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Ya bint’ Eeskenderéyeh.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p><i>Stan</i> is a word confounded by Gipsies with both <i>stand</i>, +a place at the races or a fair, and <i>tan</i>, a stopping-place, from +which it was probably derived. But it agrees in sound and meaning +with the Eastern <i>stan</i>, “a place, station,” and by +application “country,” so familiar to the reader in Hindustan, +Iranistan, Beloochistan, and many other names. It is curious to +find in the Gipsy tan not only the root-word of a tent, but also the +“Alabama,” or “here we rest,” applied by the +world’s early travellers to so many places in the Morning Land.</p> +<p><i>Slang</i> does <i>not</i> mean, as Mr Hotten asserts, the secret +language of the Gipsies, but is applied by them to acting; to speaking +theatrical language, as in a play; to being an acrobat, or taking part +in a show. It is a very old Gipsy word, and indicates plainly +enough the origin of the cant word “slang.” Using +other men’s words, and adopting a conventional language, strikes +a Gipsy as <i>artificial</i>; and many men not Gipsies express this +feeling by speaking of conventional stage language as “theatrical +slang.” Its antiquity and origin appear in the Hindu swángí, +an actor; swang, mockery, disguise, sham; and swang lena, to imitate. +As regards the sound of the words, most English Gipsies would call swang +“slang” as faithfully as a Cockney would exchange <i>hat</i> +with ’<i>at</i>.</p> +<p>Deepest among deep words in India is <i>tat</i>, an element, a principle, +the essence of being; but it is almost amusing to hear an English Gipsy +say “that’s the tátto (or tāt) of it,” +meaning thereby “the thing itself,” the whole of it. +And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite depth of all +transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, portable, and convenient +form, as a declaration that the real meaning of some mysterious transaction +was that it amounted to a sixpenny swindle at thimble-rig; for to such +base uses have the Shaster and the Vedas come in England.</p> +<p>It is, however, pleasant to find the Persian <i>bahar</i>, a garden, +recalling Bahar Danush, the garden of knowledge (Hindustani, bāgh), +reappearing in the English Gipsy <i>bar</i>. “She pirryed +adrée the bar lellin ruzhers.” “She walked +in the garden plucking flowers.” And it is also like old +times and the Arabian Nights at home, to know that bazaar is a Gipsy +word, though it be now quite obsolete, and signifies no longer a public +street for shops, but an open field.</p> +<p>But of all words which identify the Gipsies with the East, and which +prove their Hindu origin, those by which they call themselves Rom and +Romni are most conclusive. In India the Dom caste is one of the +lowest, whose business it is for the men to remove carcasses, while +the Domni, or female Dom, sings at weddings. Everything known +of the Dom identifies them with Gipsies. As for the sound of the +word, any one need only ask the first Gipsy whom he meets to pronounce +the Hindu <i>d</i> or the word Dom, and he will find it at once converted +into <i>l</i> or <i>r</i>. There are, it is true, other castes +and classes in India, such as Nāts, the roving Banjaree, Thugs, +&c., all of which have left unmistakable traces on the Gipsies, +from which I conclude that at some time when these pariahs became too +numerous and dangerous there was a general expulsion of them from India. +<a name="citation124"></a><a href="#footnote124">{124}</a></p> +<p>I would call particular attention to my suggestion that the Corn +of India is the true parent of the Rom, because all that is known of +the former caste indicates an affinity between them. The Dom pariahs +of India who carry out or touch dead bodies, also eat the bodies of +animals that have died a natural death, as do the Gipsies of England. +The occupation of the Domni and Romni, dancing and making music at festivals, +are strikingly allied. I was reminded of this at the last opera +which I witnessed at Covent Garden, on seeing stage Gipsies introduced +as part of the fête in “La Traviata.”</p> +<p>A curious indication of the Indian origin of the Gipsies may be found +in the fact that they speak of every foreign country beyond sea as the +Hindi tem, Hindi being in Hindustani their own word for Indian. +Nothing was more natural than that the Rommany on first coming to England +should speak of far-away regions as being the same as the land they +had left, and among such ignorant people the second generation could +hardly fail to extend the term and make it generic. At present +an Irishman is a <i>Hindi tem mush</i>, or Hindu; and it is rather curious, +by the way, that a few years ago in America everything that was <i>anti</i>-Irish +or native American received the same appellation, in allusion to the +exclusive system of castes.</p> +<p>Although the Gipsies have sadly confounded the Hindu terms for the +“cardinal points,” no one can deny that their own are of +Indian origin. Uttar is north in Hindustani, and Utar is west +in Rommany. As it was explained to me, I was told that “Utar +means west and wet too, because the west wind is wet.” <i>Shimal</i> +is also north in Hindu; and on asking a Gipsy what it meant, he promptly +replied, “It’s where the snow comes from.” <i>Poorub</i> +is the east in Hindustani; in Gipsy it is changed to porus, and means +the west.</p> +<p>This confusion of terms is incidental to every rude race, and it +must be constantly borne in mind that it is very common in Gipsy. +Night suggests day, or black white, to the most cultivated mind; but +the Gipsy confuses the name, and calls yesterday and to-morrow, or light +and shadow, by the same word. More than this, he is prone to confuse +almost all opposites on all occasions, and wonders that you do not promptly +accept and understand what his own people comprehend. This is +not the case among the Indians of North America, because oratory, involving +the accurate use of words, is among them the one great art; nor are +the negroes, despite their heedless ignorance, so deficient, since they +are at least very fond of elegant expressions and forcible preaching. +I am positive and confident that it would be ten times easier to learn +a language from the wildest Indian on the North American continent than +from any real English Gipsy, although the latter may be inclined with +all his heart and soul to teach, even to the extent of passing his leisure +days in “skirmishing” about among the tents picking up old +Rommany words. Now the Gipsy has passed his entire life in the +busiest scenes of civilisation, and is familiar with all its refined +rascalities; yet notwithstanding this, I have found by experience that +the most untutored Kaw or Chippewa, as ignorant of English as I was +ignorant of his language, and with no means of intelligence between +us save signs, was a genius as regards ability to teach language when +compared to most Gipsies.</p> +<p>Everybody has heard of the Oriental <i>salaam</i>! In English +Gipsy <i>shulam</i> means a greeting. “Shulam to your kokero!” +is another form of <i>sarishan</i>! the common form of salutation. +The Hindu <i>sar i sham</i> signifies “early in the evening,” +from which I infer that the Dom or Rom was a nocturnal character like +the Night-Cavalier of Quevedo, and who sang when night fell, “Arouse +ye, then, my merry men!” or who said “Good-evening!” +just as we say (or used to say) “Good-day!” <a name="citation127"></a><a href="#footnote127">{127}</a></p> +<p>A very curious point of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may +be found in a custom which was described to me by a Rom in the following +words:—</p> +<p>“When a mush mullers, an’ the juvas adrée his +ker can’t <i>kair habben</i> because they feel so naflo ’bout +the rom being gone, or the chavï or juvalo mush, or whoever it +may be, then their friends for trin divvuses kairs their habben an’ +bitchers it a lende. An’ that’s tacho Rommanis, an’ +they wouldn’t be dessen Rommany chuls that wouldn’t kair +dovo for mushis in sig an’ tukli.”</p> +<p>“When a man dies, and the women in his house cannot prepare +food (literally, make food) as they feel so badly because the man is +gone (or the girl, or young man, or whoever it may be), then their friends +for three days prepare their food and send it to them. And that +is real Rommany (custom), and they would not be decent Rommany fellows +who would not do that for people in sorrow and distress.”</p> +<p>Precisely the same custom prevails in India, where it is characterised +by a phrase strikingly identical with the English Gipsy term for it. +In England it is to <i>kair habben</i>, in Hindustani (Brice, Hin. Dict.) +“karwá khana is the food that is sent for three days from +relations to a family in which one of the members has died.” +The Hindu karwáná, to make or to cause to do, and kara, +to do, are the origin of the English Gipsy <i>kair</i> (to make or cook), +while from khana, or ’hāna, to eat, comes <i>haw</i> and +<i>habben</i>, or food.</p> +<p>The reader who is familiar with the religious observances of India +is probably aware of the extraordinary regard in which the cup is held +by many sects. In Germany, as Mr Liebich declares, drinking-cups +are kept by the Gipsies with superstitious regard, the utmost care being +taken that they never fall to the ground. “Should this happen, +the cup is <i>never</i> used again. By touching the ground it +becomes sacred, and should no more be used. When a Gipsy cares +for nothing else, he keeps his drinking-cup under every circumstance.” +I have not been able to ascertain whether this species of regard for +the cup ever existed in England, but I know of many who could not be +induced to drink from a white cup or bowl, the reason alleged being +the very frivolous and insufficient one, that it reminded them of a +blood-basin. It is almost needless to say that this could never +have been the origin of the antipathy. No such consideration deters +English peasants from using white crockery drinking-vessels.</p> +<p>In Germany, among the Gipsies, if a woman has trodden on any object, +or if the skirt of her dress has swept over or touched it, it is either +destroyed, or if of value, is disposed of or never used again. +I found on inquiry that the same custom still prevails among the old +Gipsy families in England, and that if the object be a crockery plate +or cup, it is at once broken. For this reason, even more than +for convenience, real Gipsies are accustomed to hang every cooking utensil, +and all that pertains to the table, high up in their waggons. +It is almost needless to point out how closely these ideas agree with +those of many Hindus. The Gipsy eats every and any thing except +horseflesh. Among themselves, while talking Rommany, they will +boast of having eaten <i>mullo baulors</i>, or pigs that have died a +natural death, and <i>hotchewitchi</i>, or hedgehog, as did the belle +of a Gipsy party to me at Walton-on-Thames in the summer of 1872. +They can give no reason whatever for this inconsistent abstinence. +But Mr Simson in his “History of the Gipsies” has adduced +a mass of curious facts, indicating a special superstitious regard for +the horse among the Rommany in Scotland, and identifying it with certain +customs in India. It would be a curious matter of research could +we learn whether the missionaries of the Middle Ages, who made abstinence +from horse-flesh a point of salvation (when preaching in Germany and +in Scandinavia), derived their superstition, in common with the Gipsies, +from India.</p> +<p>There can be no doubt that in seeking for the Indian origin of many +Gipsy words we are often bewildered, and that no field in philology +presents such opportunity for pugnacious critics to either attack or +defend the validity of the proofs alleged. The very word for “doubtful” +or “ambiguous,” <i>dubeni</i> or <i>dub’na</i>, is +of this description. Is it derived from the Hindu <i>dhoobd’ha</i>, +which every Gipsy would pronounce <i>doobna</i>, or from the English +<i>dubious</i>, which has been made to assume the Gipsy-Indian termination +<i>na</i>? Of this word I was naïvely told, “If a juva’s +bori (girl is big), that’s <i>dub’ni</i>; and if she’s +shuvalo (swelled up), <i>that’s</i> dubni: for it may pen (say) +she’s kaired a tikno (is <i>enceinte</i>), and it may pen she +hasn’t.” But when we find that the English Gipsy also +employs the word <i>dukkeni</i> for “doubtful,” and compare +it with the Hindustani <i>dhokna</i> or <i>dukna</i>, the true derivation +becomes apparent.</p> +<p>Had Dr Pott or Dr Paspati had recourse to the plan which I adopted +of reading a copious Hindustani dictionary entirely through, word by +word, to a patient Gipsy, noting down all which he recognised, and his +renderings of them, it is very possible that these learned men would +in Germany and Turkey have collected a mass of overwhelming proof as +to the Indian origin of Rommany. At present the dictionary which +I intend shall follow this work shows that, so far as the Rommany dialects +have been published, that of England contains a far greater number of +almost unchanged Hindu words than any other, a fact to which I would +especially call the attention of all who are interested in this curious +language. And what is more, I am certain that the supply is far +from being exhausted, and that by patient research among old Gipsies, +the Anglo-Rommany vocabulary might be increased to possibly five or +six thousand words.</p> +<p>It is very possible that when they first came from the East to Europe +the Gipsies had a very copious supply of words, for there were men among +them of superior intelligence. But in Turkey, as in Germany, they +have not been brought into such close contact with the <i>Gorgios</i> +as in England: they have not preserved their familiarity with so many +ideas, and consequently their vocabulary has diminished. Most +of the Continental Gipsies are still wild, black wanderers, unfamiliar +with many things for which the English Gipsy has at least a name, and +to which he has continued to apply old Indian words. Every one +familiar with the subject knows that the English Gipsies in America +are far more intelligent than their German Rommany cousins. A +few years ago a large party of the latter appeared at an English racecourse, +where they excited much attention, but greatly disgusted the English +Roms, not as rivals, but simply from their habits. “They +couldn’t do a thing but beg,” said my informant. “They +jinned (knew) nothing else: they were the dirtiest Gipsies I ever saw; +and when the juvas suckled the children, they sikkered their burks (showed +their breasts) as I never saw women do before foki.” Such +people would not, as a rule, know so many words as those who looked +down on them.</p> +<p>The conclusion which I have drawn from studying Anglo-Rommany, and +different works on India, is that the Gipsies are the descendants of +a vast number of Hindus, of the primitive tribes of Hindustan, who were +expelled or emigrated from that country early in the fourteenth century. +I believe they were chiefly of the primitive tribes, because evidence +which I have given indicates that they were identical with the two castes +of the Doms and Nāts—the latter being, in fact, at the present +day, the real Gipsies of India. Other low castes and outcasts +were probably included in the emigration, but I believe that future +research will prove that they were all of the old stock. The first +Pariahs of India may have consisted entirely of those who refused to +embrace the religion of their conquerors.</p> +<p>It has been coolly asserted by a recent writer that Gipsies are not +proved to be of Hindu origin because “a few” Hindu words +are to be found in their language. What the proportion of such +words really is may be ascertained from the dictionary which will follow +this work. But throwing aside all the evidence afforded by language, +traditions, manners, and customs, one irrefutable proof still remains +in the physical resemblance between Gipsies all the world over and the +natives of India. Even in Egypt, the country claimed by the Gipsies +themselves as their remote great-grandfather-land, the native Gipsy +is not Egyptian in his appearance but Hindu. The peculiar brilliancy +of the eye and its expression in the Indian is common to the Gipsy, +but not to the Egyptian or Arab; and every donkey-boy in Cairo knows +the difference between the <i>Rhagarin</i> and the native as to personal +appearance. I have seen both Hindus in Cairo and Gipsies, and +the resemblance to each other is as marked as their difference from +Egyptians.</p> +<p>A few years ago an article on the Rommany language appeared in the +“Atlantic Magazine” (Boston, U.S., America), in which the +writer declared that Gipsy has very little affinity with Hindustani, +but a great deal with Bohemian or Chech—in fact, he maintained, +if I remember right, that a Chech and a Rom could understand one another +in either of their respective tongues. I once devoted my time +for several months to unintermitted study of Chech, and consequently +do not speak in entire ignorance when I declare that true Rommany contains +scores of Hindu words to one of Bohemian. <a name="citation133"></a><a href="#footnote133">{133}</a></p> +<h2>CHAPTER IX. MISCELLANEA.</h2> +<p>Gipsies and Cats.—“Christians.”—Christians +not “Hanimals.”—Green, Red, and Yellow.—The +Evil Eye.—Models and Morals.—Punji and Sponge-cake.—Troubles +with a Gipsy Teacher.—Pilferin’ and Bilberin’.—Khapana +and Hopper.—Hoppera-glasses.—The little wooden Bear.—Huckeny +Ponkee, Hanky Panky, Hocus-pocus, and Hokkeny Bāro.—Burning +a Gipsy Witch alive in America.—Daniel in the Lions’ Den.—Gipsy +Life in Summer.—The Gavengroes.—The Gipsy’s Story +of Pitch-and-Toss.—“You didn’t fight your Stockings +off?”—The guileless and venerable Gipsy.—The Gipsy +Professor of Rommany and the Police.—His Delicacy of Feeling.—The +old Gipsy and the beautiful Italian Models.—The Admired of the +Police.—Honesty strangely illustrated.—Gipsies willing or +unwilling to communicate Rommany.—Romance and Eccentricity of +Gipsy Life and Manners.—The Gipsy Grandmother and her Family.—A +fine Frolic interrupted.—The Gipsy Gentleman from America.—No +such Language as Rommany.—Hedgehogs.—The Witch Element in +Gipsy Life.—Jackdaws and Dogs.—Their Uses.—Lurchers +and Poachers.—A Gipsy Camp.—The Ancient Henry.—I am +mistaken for a Magistrate or Policeman.—Gipsies of Three Grades.—The +Slangs.—Jim and the Twigs.—Beer rained from Heaven.—Fortune-telling.—A +golden Opportunity to live at my Ease.—Petulamengro.—I hear +of a New York Friend.—The Professor’s Legend of the Olive-leaf +and the Dove, “A wery tidy little Story.”—The Story +of Samson as given by a Gipsy.—The great Prize-fighter who was +hocussed by a Fancy Girl.—The Judgment Day.—Passing away +in Sleep or Dream to God.—A Gipsy on Ghosts.—Dogs which +can kill Ghosts.—Twisted-legged Stealing.—How to keep Dogs +away from a Place.—Gipsies avoid Unions.—A Gipsy Advertisement +in the “Times.”—A Gipsy Poetess and a Rommany Song.</p> +<p>It would be a difficult matter to decide whether the superstitions +and odd fancies entertained by the Gipsies in England are derived from +the English peasantry, were brought from India, or picked up on the +way. This must be left for ethnologists more industrious and better +informed than myself to decide. In any case, the possible common +Aryan source will tend to obscure the truth, just as it often does the +derivation of Rommany words. But nothing can detract from the +inexpressibly quaint spirit of Gipsy originality in which these odd +<i>credos</i> are expressed, or surpass the strangeness of the reasons +given for them. If the spirit of the goblin and elfin lingers +anywhere on earth, it is among the Rommany.</p> +<p>One day I questioned a Gipsy as to cats, and what his opinion was +of black ones, correctly surmising that he would have some peculiar +ideas on the subject, and he replied—</p> +<p>“Rommanys never lel kaulo matchers adrée the ker, ’cause +they’re mullos, and beng is covvas; and the puro beng, you jin, +is kaulo, an’ has shtor herros an’ dui mushis—an’ +a sherro. But pauno matchers san kushto, for they’re sim +to pauno ghosts of rānis.”</p> +<p>Which means in English, “Gipsies never have black cats in the +house, because they are unearthly creatures, and things of the devil; +and the old devil, you know, is black, and has four legs and two arms—and +a head. But white cats are good, for they are like the white ghosts +of ladies.”</p> +<p>It is in the extraordinary reason given for liking white cats that +the subtle Gipsyism of this cat-commentary consists. Most people +would consider a resemblance to a white ghost rather repulsive. +But the Gipsy lives by night a strange life, and the reader who peruses +carefully the stories which are given in this volume, will perceive +in them a familiarity with goblin-land and its denizens which has become +rare among “Christians.”</p> +<p>But it may be that I do this droll old Gipsy great wrong in thus +apparently classing him with the heathen, since he one day manifested +clearly enough that he considered he had a right to be regarded as a +true believer—the only drawback being this, that he was apparently +under the conviction that all human beings were “Christians.” +And the way in which he declared it was as follows: I had given him +the Hindustani word <i>janwur</i>, and asked him if he knew such a term, +and he answered—</p> +<p>“Do I jin sitch a lav (know such a word) as <i>janwur</i> for +a hanimal? Āvo (yes); it’s <i>jomper</i>—it’s +a toadus” (toad).</p> +<p>“But do you jin the lav (know the word) for an <i>animal</i>?”</p> +<p>“Didn’t I just pooker tute (tell you) it was a jomper? +for if a toad’s a hanimal, <i>jomper</i> must be the lav for hanimal.”</p> +<p>“But don’t you jin kek lav (know a word) for sar the +covvas that have jivaben (all living things)—for jompers, and +bitti matchers (mice), and gryas (horses)? You and I are animals.”</p> +<p>“Kek, rya, kek (no, sir, no), we aren’t hanimals. +<i>Hanimals</i> is critters that have something queer about ’em, +such as the lions an’ helephants at the well-gooroos (fairs), +or cows with five legs, or won’ful piebald grais—<i>them’s</i> +hanimals. But Christins aint hanimals. Them’s <i>mushis</i>” +(men).</p> +<p>To return to cats: it is remarkable that the colour which makes a +cat desirable should render a bowl or cup objectionable to a true Gipsy, +as I have elsewhere observed in commenting on the fact that no old-fashioned +Rommany will drink, if possible, from white crockery. But they +have peculiar fancies as to other colours. Till within a few years +in Great Britain, as at the present day in Germany, their fondness for +green coats amounted to a passion. In Germany a Gipsy who loses +caste for any offence is forbidden for a certain time to wear green, +so that <i>ver non semper viret</i> may be truly applied to those among +them who bloom too rankly.</p> +<p>The great love for red and yellow among the Gipsies was long ago +pointed out by a German writer as a proof of Indian origin, but the +truth is, I believe, that all dark people instinctively choose these +hues as agreeing with their complexion. A brunette is fond of +amber, as a blonde is of light blue; and all true <i>kaulo</i> or dark +Rommany <i>chāls</i> delight in a bright yellow <i>pongdishler</i>, +or neckerchief, and a red waistcoat. The long red cloak of the +old Gipsy fortune-teller is, however, truly dear to her heart; she feels +as if there were luck in it—that <i>bāk</i> which is ever +on Gipsy lips; for to the wanderers, whose home is the roads, and whose +living is precarious, Luck becomes a real deity. I have known +two old fortune-telling sisters to expend on new red cloaks a sum which +seemed to a lady friend very considerable.</p> +<p>I have spoken in another chapter of the deeply-seated faith of the +English Gipsies in the evil eye. Subsequent inquiry has convinced +me that they believe it to be peculiar to themselves. One said +in my presence, “There was a kauli juva that dicked the evil yack +ad mandy the sala—my chavo’s missis—an’ a’ter +dovo I shooned that my chavo was naflo. A bongo-yācki mush +kairs wafro-luckus. <i>Avali</i>, the Gorgios don’t jin +it—it’s saw Rommany.”</p> +<p><i>I.e</i>., “There was a dark woman that looked the evil eye +at me this morning—my son’s wife—and after that I +heard that my son was ill. A squint-eyed man makes bad-luck. +Yes, the Gorgios don’t know it—it’s all Rommany.”</p> +<p>The Gipsy is of an eminently social turn, always ready when occasion +occurs to take part in every conversation, and advance his views. +One day my old Rom hearing an artist speak of having rejected some uncalled-for +advice relative to the employment of a certain model, burst out in a +tone of hearty approbation with—</p> +<p>“That’s what <i>I</i> say. Every man his own juva +(every man his own girl), an’ every painter his own <i>morals</i>.”</p> +<p>If it was difficult in the beginning for me to accustom the Gipsy +mind to reply clearly and consistently to questions as to his language, +the trouble was tenfold increased when he began to see his way, as he +thought, to my object, and to take a real interest in aiding me. +For instance, I once asked—</p> +<p>“Puro! do you know such a word as <i>punji</i>? It’s +the Hindu for capital.”</p> +<p>(Calmly.) “Yes, rya; that’s a wery good word +for capital.”</p> +<p>“But is it Rommany?”</p> +<p>(Decidedly.) “It’ll go first-rateus into +Rommany.”</p> +<p>“But can you make it out? Prove it!”</p> +<p>(Fiercely.) “Of course I can make it out. +<i>Kushto</i>. Suppose a man sells ’punge-cake, would’nt +that be his capital? <i>Punje</i> must be capital.”</p> +<p>But this was nothing to what I endured after a vague fancy of the +meaning of seeking a derivation of words had dimly dawned on his mind, +and he vigorously attempted to aid me. Possessed with the crude +idea that it was a success whenever two words could be forced into a +resemblance of any kind, he constantly endeavoured to Anglicise Gipsy +words—often, alas! an only too easy process, and could never understand +why it was I then rejected them. By the former method I ran the +risk of obtaining false Hindustani Gipsy words, though I very much doubt +whether I was ever caught by it in a single instance; so strict were +the tests which I adopted, the commonest being that of submitting the +words to other Gipsies, or questioning him on them some days afterwards. +By the latter “aid” I risked the loss of Rommany words altogether, +and undoubtedly did lose a great many. Thus with the word <i>bilber</i> +(to entice or allure), he would say, in illustration, that the girls +<i>bilbered</i> the gentleman into the house to rob him, and then cast +me into doubt by suggesting that the word must be all right, “’cause +it looked all the same as <i>pilferin</i>’.”</p> +<p>One day I asked him if the Hindustani word khapana (pronounced almost +hopana) (to make away with) sounded naturally to his ears.</p> +<p>“Yes, rya; that must be <i>happer</i>, <i>habber</i>, or <i>huvver</i>. +To hopper covvas away from the tan (<i>i.e</i>., to <i>hopper</i> things +from the place), is when you rikker ’em awayus (carry them away, +steal them), and gaverit (hide <i>it</i>) tally your chuckko (under +your coat). An’ I can pen you a waver covva (I can tell +you another thing) that’s <i>hopper</i>—them’s the +glasses that you look through—<i>hoppera</i>-glasses.”</p> +<p>And here in bounding triumph he gave the little wooden bear a drink +of ale, as if it had uttered this chunk of solid wisdom, and then treated +himself to a good long pull. But the glance of triumph which shot +from his black-basilisk eyes, and the joyous smile which followed these +feats of philology, were absolutely irresistible. All that remained +for me to do was to yield in silence.</p> +<p>One day we spoke of <i>huckeny pokee</i>, or <i>huckeny ponkee</i>, +as it is sometimes called. It means in Rommany “sleight +of hand,” and also the adroit substitution of a bundle of lead +or stones for another containing money or valuables, as practised by +Gipsy women. The Gipsy woman goes to a house, and after telling +the simple-minded and credulous housewife that there is a treasure buried +in the cellar, persuades her that as “silver draws silver,” +she must deposit all her money or jewels in a bag near the place where +the treasure lies. This is done, and the Rommany <i>dye</i> adroitly +making up a parcel resembling the one laid down, steals the latter, +leaving the former.</p> +<p>Mr Barrow calls this <i>hokkeny bāro</i>, the great swindle. +I may remark, by the way, that among jugglers and “show-people” +sleight of hand is called <i>hanky panky</i>. “Hocus-pocus” +is attributed by several writers to the Gipsies, a derivation which +gains much force from the fact, which I have never before seen pointed +out, that <i>hoggu bazee</i>, which sounds very much like it, means +in Hindustani legerdemain. English Gipsies have an extraordinary +fancy for adding the termination <i>us</i> in a most irregular manner +to words both Rommany and English. Thus <i>kéttene</i> +(together) is often changed to <i>kettenus</i>, and <i>side</i> to <i>sidus</i>. +In like manner, <i>hoggu</i> (<i>hocku</i> or <i>honku</i>) <i>bazee</i> +could not fail to become <i>hocus bozus</i>, and the next change, for +the sake of rhyme, would be to hocus-po-cus.</p> +<p>I told my ancient rambler of an extraordinary case of “huckeny +pokee” which had recently occurred in the United States, somewhere +in the west, the details of which had been narrated to me by a lady +who lived at the time in the place where the event occurred.</p> +<p>“A Gipsy woman,” I said, “came to a farmhouse and +played huckeny pokee on a farmer’s wife, and got away all the +poor woman’s money.”</p> +<p>“Did she indeed, rya?” replied my good old friend, with +a smile of joy flashing from his eyes, the unearthly Rommany light just +glinting from their gloom.</p> +<p>“Yes,” I said impressively, as a mother might tell an +affecting story to a child. “All the money that that poor +woman had, that wicked Gipsy woman took away, and utterly ruined her.”</p> +<p>This was the culminating point; he burst into an irrepressible laugh; +he couldn’t help it—the thing had been done too well.</p> +<p>“But you haven’t heard all yet,” I added. +“There’s more covvas to well.”</p> +<p>“Oh, I suppose the Rummany chi prastered avree (ran away), +and got off with the swag?”</p> +<p>“No, she didn’t.”</p> +<p>“Then they caught her, and sent her to starabun” (prison).</p> +<p>“No,” I replied.</p> +<p>“And what did they do?”</p> +<p>“THEY BURNT HER ALIVE!”</p> +<p>His jaw fell; a glossy film came over his panther-eyes. For +a long time he had spoken to me, had this good and virtuous man, of +going to America. Suddenly he broke out with this vehement answer—</p> +<p>“I won’t go to that country—<i>s’up mi duvel</i>! +I’ll never go to America.”</p> +<p>It is told of a certain mother, that on showing her darling boy a +picture in the Bible representing Daniel in the lions’ den, she +said, “And there is good Daniel, and there are those naughty lions, +who are going to eat him all up.” Whereupon the dear boy +cried out, “O mother, look at that poor little lion in the corner—he +won’t get any.”</p> +<p>It is from this point of view that such affairs are naturally regarded +by the Rommany.</p> +<p>There is a strange goblinesque charm in Gipsydom—something +of nature, and green leaves, and silent nights—but it is ever +strangely commingled with the forbidden; and as among the Greeks of +old with Mercury amid the singing of leafy brooks, there is a tinkling +of, at least, petty larceny. Witness the following, which came +forth one day from a Gipsy, in my presence, as an entirely voluntary +utterance. He meant it for something like poetry—it certainly +was suggested by nothing, and as fast as he spoke I wrote it down:—</p> +<p>“It’s kushto in tattoben for the Rommany chals. +Then they can jāl langs the drum, and hatch their tan acai and +odoi pré the tem. We’ll lel moro habben acai, and +jāl andūrer by-an’-byus, an’ then jāl by +rātti, so’s the Gorgios won’t dick us. I jins +a kūshti puv for the graias; we’ll hatch ’pré +in the sala, before they latcher we’ve been odoi, an’ jāl +an the drum an’ lel moro habben.”</p> +<p>“It is pleasant for the Gipsies in the summer-time. Then +they can go along the road, and pitch their tent here and there in the +land. We’ll take our food here, and go further on by-and-by, +and then go by night, so that the Gorgios won’t see us. +I know a fine field for the horses; we’ll stop there in the morning, +before they find we have been there, and go on the road and eat our +food.”</p> +<p>“I suppose that you often have had trouble with the <i>gavengroes</i> +(police) when you wished to pitch your tent?”</p> +<p>Now it was characteristic of this Gipsy, as of many others, that +when interested by a remark or a question, he would reply by bursting +into some picture of travel, drawn from memory. So he answered +by saying—</p> +<p>“They hunnelo’d the choro puro mush by pennin’ +him he mustn’t hatch odoi. ‘What’s tute?’ +he pens to the prastramengro; ‘I’ll del you thrin bar to +lel your chuckko offus an’ koor mandy. You’re a ratfully +jucko an’ a huckaben.’”</p> +<p><i>English</i>—They angered the poor old man by telling him +he must not stop there. “What are you?” he said to +the policeman, “I’ll give you three pounds to take your +coat off and fight me. You’re a bloody dog and a lie” +(liar).</p> +<p>“I suppose you have often taken your coat off?”</p> +<p>“Once I lelled it avree an’ never chivved it apré +ajaw.”</p> +<p>(<i>I.e</i>., “Once I took it off and never put it on again.”)</p> +<p>“How was that?”</p> +<p>“Yeckorus when I was a tāno mush, thirty besh kennā—rummed +about pange besh, but with kek chavis—I jālled to the prasters +of the graias at Brighton. There was the paiass of wussin’ +the pāsheros apré for wongur, an’ I got to the pyass, +an’ first cheirus I lelled a boro bittus—twelve or thirteen +bar. Then I nashered my wongur, an’ penned I wouldn’t +pyass koomi, an’ I’d latch what I had in my poachy. +Adoi I jālled from the gudli ’dree the toss-ring for a pāshora, +when I dicked a waver mush, an’ he putched mandy, ‘What +bāk?’ and I penned pauli, ‘Kek bāk; but I’ve +got a bittus left.’ So I wussered with lester an’ +nashered saw my covvas—my chukko, my gad, an’ saw, barrin’ +my rokamyas. Then I jālled kerri with kek but my rokamyas +an—I borried a chukko off my pen’s chavo.</p> +<p>“And when my juva dickt’omandy pash-nāngo, she pens, +‘Dovo’s tute’s heesis?’ an’ I pookered +her I’d been a-koorin’. But she penned, ‘Why, +you haven’t got your hovalos an; you didn’t koor tute’s +hovalos avree?’ ‘No,’ I rakkered; ‘I taddered +em offus. (The mush played me with a dui-sherro poshéro.)</p> +<p>“But drée the sala, when the mush welled to lel avree +the jucko (for I’d nashered dovo ajaw), I felt wafrodearer than +when I’d nashered saw the waver covvas. An’ my poor +juvā ruvved ajaw, for she had no chāvo. I had in those +divvuses as kushti coppas an’ heesus as any young Gipsy in Anglatérra—good +chukkos, an’ gads, an’ pongdishlers.</p> +<p>“An’ that mush kurried many a geero a’ter mandy, +but he never lelled no bāk. He’d chore from his own +dadas; but he mullered wafro adrée East Kent.”</p> +<p>“Once when I was a young man, thirty years ago (now)—married +about five years, but with no children—I went to the races at +Brighton. There was tossing halfpence for money, and I took part +in the game, and at first (first time) I took a good bit—twelve +or thirteen pounds. Then I lost my money, and said I would play +no more, and would keep what I had in my pocket. Then I went from +the noise in the toss-ring for half an hour, when I saw another man, +and he asked me, ‘What luck?’ and I replied, ‘No luck; +but I’ve a little left yet.’ So I tossed with him +and lost all my things—my coat, my shirt, and all, except my breeches. +Then I went home with nothing but my breeches on—I borrowed a +coat of my sister’s boy.</p> +<p>“And when my wife saw me half-naked, she <i>says</i>, ‘Where +are your clothes?’ and I told her I had been fighting. But +she said, ‘Why, you have not your stockings on; you didn’t +fight your stockings off!’ ‘No,’ I said; ‘I +drew them off.’ (The man played me with a two-headed halfpenny.)</p> +<p>“But in the morning when the man came to take away the dog +(for I had lost that too), I felt worse than when I lost all the other +things. And my poor wife cried again, for she had no child. +I had in those days as fine clothes as any young Gipsy in England—good +coats, and shirts, and handkerchiefs.</p> +<p>“And that man hurt many a man after me, but he never had any +luck. He’d steal from his own father; but he died miserably +in East Kent.”</p> +<p>It was characteristic of the venerable wanderer who had installed +himself as my permanent professor of Rommany, that although almost every +phrase which he employed to illustrate words expressed some act at variance +with law or the rights of property, he was never weary of descanting +on the spotlessness, beauty, and integrity of his own life and character. +These little essays on his moral perfection were expressed with a touching +artlessness and child-like simplicity which would carry conviction to +any one whose heart had not been utterly hardened, or whose eye-teeth +had not been remarkably well cut, by contact with the world. In +his delightful <i>naïveté</i> and simple earnestness, in +his ready confidence in strangers and freedom from all suspicion—in +fact, in his whole deportment, this Rommany elder reminded me continually +of one—and of one man only—whom I had known of old in America. +Need I say that I refer to the excellent --- ---?</p> +<p>It happened for many days that the professor, being a man of early +habits, arrived at our rendezvous an hour in advance of the time appointed. +As he resolutely resisted all invitation to occupy the room alone until +my arrival, declaring that he had never been guilty of such a breach +of etiquette, and as he was, moreover, according to his word, the most +courteous man of the world in it, and I did not wish to “contrary” +him, he was obliged to pass the time in the street, which he did by +planting himself on the front steps or expanding himself on the railings +of an elderly and lonely dame, who could not endure that even a mechanic +should linger at her door, and was in agony until the milkman and baker +had removed their feet from her steps. Now, the appearance of +the professor (who always affected the old Gipsy style), in striped +corduroy coat, leather breeches and gaiters, red waistcoat, yellow neck-handkerchief, +and a frightfully-dilapidated old white hat, was not, it must be admitted, +entirely adapted to the exterior of a highly respectable mansion. +“And he had such a vile way of looking, as if he were a-waitin’ +for some friend to come out o’ the ’ouse.” It +is almost needless to say that this apparition attracted the police +from afar off and all about, or that they gathered around him like buzzards +near a departed lamb. I was told by a highly intelligent gentleman +who witnessed the interviews, that the professor’s kindly reception +of these public characters—the infantile smile with which he courted +their acquaintance, and the good old grandfatherly air with which he +listened to their little tales—was indescribably delightful. +“In a quarter of an hour any one of them would have lent him a +shilling;” and it was soon apparent that the entire force found +a charm in his society. The lone lady herself made a sortie against +him once; but one glance at the amiable smile, “which was child-like +and bland,” disarmed her, and it was reported that she subsequently +sent him out half-a-pint of beer.</p> +<p>It is needless to point out to the reader accustomed to good society +that the professor’s declining to sit in a room where valuable +and small objects abounded, in the absence of the owner, was dictated +by the most delicate feeling. Not less remarkable than his strict +politeness was the mysterious charm which this antique nomad unquestionably +exercised on the entire female sex. Ladies of the highest respectability +and culture, old or young, who had once seen him, invariably referred +to him as “that charming old Gipsy.”</p> +<p>Nor was his sorcery less potent on those of low degree. Never +shall I forget one morning when the two prettiest young Italian model-girls +in all London were poséeing to an artist friend while the professor +sat and imparted to me the lore of the Rommany. The girls behaved +like moral statues till he appeared, and like quicksilver imps and devilettes +for the rest of the sitting. Something of the wild and weird in +the mountain Italian life of these ex-contadine seemed to wake like +unholy fire, and answer sympathetically to the Gipsy wizard-spell. +Over mountain and sea, and through dark forests with legends of <i>streghe</i> +and Zingari, these semi-outlaws of society, the Neapolitan and Rommany, +recognised each other intuitively. The handsomest young gentleman +in England could not have interested these handsome young sinners as +the dark-brown, grey-haired old vagabond did. Their eyes stole +to him. Heaven knows what they talked, for the girls knew no English, +but they whispered; they could not write little notes, so they kept +passing different objects, to which Gipsy and Italian promptly attached +a meaning. Scolding them helped not. It was “a pensive +sight.”</p> +<p>To impress me with a due sense of his honesty and high character, +the professor informed me one day that he was personally acquainted, +as he verily believed, with every policeman in England. “You +see, rya,” he remarked, “any man as is so well known couldn’t +never do nothing wrong now,—could he?”</p> +<p>Innocent, unconscious, guileless air—and smile! I shall +never see its equal. I replied—</p> +<p>“Yes; I think I can see you, Puro, walking down between two +lines of hundreds of policemen—every one pointing after you and +saying, ‘There goes that good honest --- the honestest man in +England!’”</p> +<p>“Āvo, rya,” he cried, eagerly turning to me, as +if delighted and astonished that I had found out the truth. “That’s +just what they all pens of me, an’ just what I seen ’em +a-doin’ every time.”</p> +<p>“You know all the police,” I remarked. “Do +you know any turnkeys?”</p> +<p>He reflected an instant, and then replied, artlessly—</p> +<p>“I don’t jin many o’ them. But I can jist +tell you a story. Once at Wimbledown, when the <i>kooroo-mengroes</i> +were <i>odoi</i> (when the troopers were there), I used to get a pound +a week carryin’ things. One day, when I had well on to two +stun on my <i>dumo</i> (back), the chief of police sees me an’ +says, ‘There’s that old scoundrel again! that villain gives +the police more trouble than any other man in the country!’ +‘Thank you, sir,’ says I, wery respectable to him. +‘I’m glad to see you’re earnin’ a ’onest +livin’ for once,’ says he. ‘How much do you +get for carryin’ that there bundle?’ ‘A sixpence, +rya!’ says I. ‘It’s twice as much as you ought +to have,’ says he; ‘an’ I’d be glad to carry +it myself for the money.’ ‘All right, sir,’ +says I, touchin’ my hat and goin’ off, for he was a wery +nice gentleman. Rya,” he exclaimed, with an air of placid +triumph, “do you think the head-police his selfus would a spoke +in them wery words to me if he hadn’t a thought I was a good man?”</p> +<p>“Well, let’s get to work, old Honesty. What is +the Rommanis for to hide?”</p> +<p>“To <i>gaverit</i> is to hide anything, rya. <i>Gaverit</i>.” +And to illustrate its application he continued—</p> +<p>“They penned mandy to gaver the gry, but I nashered to keravit, +an’ the mush who lelled the gry welled alangus an’ dicked +it.”</p> +<p>(“They told me to hide the horse, but I forgot to do it, and +the man who <i>owned</i> the horse came by and saw it.”)</p> +<p>It is only a few hours since I heard of a gentleman who took incredible +pains to induce the Gipsies to teach him their language, but never succeeded. +I must confess that I do not understand this. When I have met +strange Gipsies, it has often greatly grieved me to find that they spoke +their ancient tongue very imperfectly, and were ignorant of certain +Rommany words which I myself, albeit a stranger, knew very well, and +would fain teach them. But instead of accepting my instructions +in a docile spirit of ignorant humility, I have invariably found that +they were eagerly anxious to prove that they were not so ignorant as +I assumed, and in vindication of their intelligence proceeded to pour +forth dozens of words, of which I must admit many were really new to +me, and which I did not fail to remember.</p> +<p>The scouting, slippery night-life of the Gipsy; his familiarity with +deep ravine and lonely wood-path, moonlight and field-lairs; his use +of a secret language, and his constant habit of concealing everything +from everybody; his private superstitions, and his inordinate love of +humbugging and selling friend and foe, tend to produce in him that goblin, +elfin, boyish-mischievous, out-of-the-age state of mind which is utterly +indescribable to a prosaic modern-souled man, but which is delightfully +piquant to others. Many a time among Gipsies I have felt, I confess +with pleasure, all the subtlest spirit of fun combined with picture-memories +of Hayraddin Maugrabin—witch-legends and the “Egyptians;” +for in their ignorance they are still an unconscious race, and do not +know what the world writes about them. They are not attractive +from the outside to those who have no love for quaint scholarship, odd +humours, and rare fancies. A lady who had been in a camp had nothing +to say of them to me save that they were “dirty—dirty, and +begged.” But I ever think, when I see them, of Tieck’s +Elves, and of the Strange Valley, which was so grim and repulsive from +without, but which, once entered, was the gay forecourt of goblin-land.</p> +<p>The very fact that they hide as much as they can of their Gipsy life +and nature from the Gorgios would of itself indicate the depths of singularity +concealed beneath their apparent life—and this reminds me of incidents +in a Sunday which I once passed beneath a Gipsy roof. I was, <i>en +voyage</i>, at a little cathedral town, when learning that some Gipsies +lived in a village eight miles distant, I hired a carriage and rode +over to see them. I found my way to a neat cottage, and on entering +it discovered that I was truly enough among the Rommany. By the +fire sat a well-dressed young man; near him was a handsome, very dark +young woman, and there presently entered a very old woman,—all +gifted with the unmistakable and peculiar expression of real Gipsies.</p> +<p>The old woman overwhelmed me with compliments and greetings. +She is a local celebrity, and is constantly visited by the most respectable +ladies and gentlemen. This much I had learned from my coachman. +But I kept a steady silence, and sat as serious as Odin when he visited +the Vala, until the address ceased. Then I said in Rommany—</p> +<p>“Mother, you don’t know me. I did not come here +to listen to fortune-telling.”</p> +<p>To which came the prompt reply, “I don’t know what the +gentleman is saying.” I answered always in Rommany.</p> +<p>“You know well enough what I am saying. You needn’t +be afraid of me—I’m the nicest gentleman you ever saw in +all your life, and I can talk Rommany as fast as ever you ran away from +a policeman.”</p> +<p>“What language is the gentleman talking?” cried the old +dame, but laughing heartily as she spoke.</p> +<blockquote><p>“Oh dye—miri dye,<br /> +Don’t tute jin a Rommany rye?<br /> +Can’t tu rakker Rommany jib,<br /> +Tachipen and kek fib?”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“Āvo, my rye; I can understand you well enough, but I +never saw a Gipsy gentleman before.”</p> +<p>[Since I wrote that last line I went out for a walk, and on the other +side of Walton Bridge, which legend says marks the spot where Julius +Cæsar crossed, I saw a tent and a waggon by the hedge, and knew +by the curling blue smoke that a Gipsy was near. So I went over +the bridge, and sure enough there on the ground lay a full-grown Petulamengro, +while his brown <i>juva</i> tended the pot. And when I spoke to +her in Rommany she could only burst out into amazed laughter as each +new sentence struck her ear, and exclaim, “Well! well! that ever +I should live to hear this! Why, the gentleman talks just like +one of <i>us</i>! ‘<i>Bien apropos</i>,’ sayde ye +ladye.”]</p> +<p>“Dye,” quoth I to the old Gipsy dame, “don’t +be afraid. I’m <i>tácho</i>. And shut that +door if there are any Gorgios about, for I don’t want them to +hear our <i>rakkerben</i>. Let us take a drop of brandy—life +is short, and here’s my bottle. I’m not English—I’m +a <i>waver temmeny mush</i> (a foreigner). But I’m all right, +and you can leave your spoons out. Tácho.”</p> +<blockquote><p> “The boshno an’ kāni<br /> + The rye an’ the rāni;<br /> +Welled acai ’pré the boro lun pani.<br /> + Rinkeni juva hav acai!<br /> + Del a choomer to the rye!”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>“<i>Duveleste</i>!” said the old fortune-teller, “that +ever I should live to see a rye like you! A boro rye rakkerin’ +Rommanis! But you must have some tea now, my son—good tea.”</p> +<p>“I don’t pi muttermengri dye (‘drink tea,’ +but an equivoque). It’s muttermengri with you and with us +of the German jib.”</p> +<p>“Ha! ha! but you must have food. You won’t go away +like a Gorgio without tasting anything?”</p> +<p>“I’ll eat bread with you, but tea I haven’t tasted +this five-and-twenty years.”</p> +<p>“Bread you shall have, rya.” And saying this, the +daughter spread out a clean white napkin, and placed on it excellent +bread and butter, with plate and knife. I never tasted better, +even in Philadelphia. Everything in the cottage was scrupulously +neat—there was even an approach to style. The furniture +and ornaments were superior to those found in common peasant houses. +There was a large and beautifully-bound photograph album. I found +that the family could read and write—the daughter received and +read a note, and one of the sons knew who and what Mr Robert Browning +was.</p> +<p>But behind it all, when the inner life came out, was the wild Rommany +and the witch-<i>aura</i>—the fierce spirit of social exile from +the world in which they lived (the true secret of all the witch-life +of old), and the joyous consciousness of a secret tongue and hidden +ways. To those who walk in the darkness of the dream, let them +go as deep and as windingly as they will, and into the grimmest gloom +of goblin-land, there will never be wanting flashes of light, though +they be gleams diavoline, corpse-candlelights, elfin sparkles, and the +unearthly blue lume of the eyes of silent night-hags wandering slow. +In the forgotten grave of the sorcerer burns steadily through long centuries +the Rosicrucian lamp, and even to him whose eyes are closed, sparkle, +on pressure, phosphorescent rings. So there was Gipsy laughter; +and the ancient <i>wicca</i> and Vala flashed out into that sky-rocketty +joyousness and Catherine-wheel gaiety, which at eighty or ninety, in +a woman, vividly reminds one of the Sabbat on the Brocken, of the ointment, +and all things terrible and unearthly and forbidden.</p> +<p>I do not suppose that there are many people who can feel or understand +that among the fearfully dirty dwellers in tents and caravans, cock-shysters +and dealers in dogs of doubtful character, there can be anything strange, +and quaint, and deeply tinged with the spirit of which I have spoken. +As well might one attempt to persuade the twenty-stone half-illiterate +and wholly old-fashioned rural magistrate of the last century that the +poor devil of a hen-stealing Gipsy dragged before him knew that which +would send thrills of joy through the most learned philologist in Europe, +and cause the great band of scholars to sing for joy. Life, to +most of us, is nothing without its humour; and to me a whilome German +student illustrating his military marauding by phrases from Fichte, +or my friend Pauno the Rommany urging me with words to be found in the +Mahabahrata and Hāfiz to buy a terrier, is a charming experience.</p> +<p>I believe that my imagination has neither been led nor driven, when +it has so invariably, in my conversing with Gipsy women, recalled Faust, +and all I have ever read in Wierus, Bodinus, Bekker, Mather, or Glanvil, +of the sorceress and <i>sortilega</i>. And certainly on this earth +I never met with such a perfect <i>replica</i> of Old Mother Baubo, +the mother of all the witches, as I once encountered at a certain race. +Swarthy, black-eyed, stout, half-centuried, fiercely cunning, and immoderately +sensual, her first salutation was expressed in a phrase such as a Corinthian +soul might be greeted with on entering that portion of the after-world +devoted to the fastest of the fair. With her came a tall, lithe, +younger sorceress; and verily the giant fat sow for her majesty, and +the broom for the attendant, were all that was wanting.</p> +<p>To return to the cottage. Our mirth and fun grew fast and furious; +the family were delighted with my anecdotes of the Rommany in other +lands—German, Bohemian, and Spanish,—not to mention the +<i>gili</i>. And we were just in the gayest centre of it all, +“whin,—och, what a pity!—this fine tay-party was suddenly +broken up,” as Patrick O’Flanegan remarked when he was dancing +with the chairs to the devil’s fiddling, and his wife entered. +For in rushed a Gipsy boy announcing that Gorgios (or, as I may say, +“wite trash”) were near at hand, and evidently bent on entering. +That this irruption of the enemy gave a taci-turn to our riotry and +revelling will be believed. I tossed the brandy in the cup into +the fire; it flashed up, and with it a quick memory of the spilt and +blazing witch-brew in “Faust.” I put the tourist-flask +in my pocket, and in a trice had changed my seat and assumed the air +of a chance intruder. In they came, two ladies—one decidedly +pretty—and three gentlemen, all of the higher class, as they indicated +by their manner and language. They were almost immediately followed +by a Gipsy, the son of my hostess, who had sent for him that he might +see me.</p> +<p>He was a man of thirty, firmly set, and had a stern hard countenance, +in which shone two glittering black eyes, which were serpent-like even +among the Rommany. Nor have I ever seen among his people a face +so expressive of self-control allied to wary suspicion. He was +neatly dressed, but in a subdued Gipsy style, the principal indication +being that of a pair of “cords,” which, however, any gentleman +might have worn—in the field. His English was excellent—in +fact, that of an educated man; his sum total that of a very decided +“character,” and one who, if you wronged him, might be a +dangerous one.</p> +<p>We entered into conversation, and the Rommany rollicking seemed all +at once a vapoury thing of the dim past; it was the scene in a witch-revel +suddenly shifted to a drawing-room in May Fair. We were all, and +all at once, so polite and gentle, and so readily acquainted and cosmo-polite—quite +beyond the average English standard; and not the least charming part +of the whole performance was the skill with which the minor parts were +filled up by the Gipsies, who with exquisite tact followed our lead, +seeming to be at once hosts and guests. I have been at many a +play, but never saw anything better acted.</p> +<p>But under it all burnt a lurid though hidden flame; and there was +a delightful <i>diablerie</i> of concealment kept up among the Rommany, +which was the more exquisite because I shared in it. Reader, do +you remember the scene in George Borrow’s “Gipsies in Spain,” +in which the woman blesses the child in Spanish, and mutters curses +on it meanwhile in Zincali? So it was that my dear old hostess +blessed the sweet young lady, and “prodigalled” compliments +on her; but there was one instant when her eye met mine, and a soft, +quick-whispered, wicked Rommany phrase, unheard by the ladies, came +to my ear, and in the glance and word there was a concentrated anathema.</p> +<p>The stern-eyed Gipsy conversed well, entertaining his guests with +ease. After he had spoken of the excellent behaviour and morals +of his tribe—and I believe that they have a very high character +in these respects—I put him a question.</p> +<p>“Can you tell me if there is really such a thing as a Gipsy +language? one hears such differing accounts, you know.”</p> +<p>With the amiable smile of one who pitied my credulity, but who was +himself superior to all petty deception or vulgar mystery, he replied—</p> +<p>“That is another of the absurd tales which people have invented +about Gipsies. As if we could have kept such a thing a secret!”</p> +<p>“It does, indeed, seem to me,” I replied, “that +if you <i>had</i>, some people who were not Gipsies <i>must</i> have +learned it.”</p> +<p>“Of course,” resumed the Gipsy, philosophically, “all +people who keep together get to using a few peculiar terms. Tailors +and shoemakers have their own words. And there are common vagabonds +who go up and down talking thieves’ slang, and imposing it on +people for Gipsy. But as for any Gipsy tongue, I ought to know +it” (“So I should think,” I mentally ejaculated, as +I contemplated his brazen calmness); “and I don’t know three +words of it.”</p> +<p>And we, the Gorgios, all smiled approval. At least that humbug +was settled; and the Rommany tongue was done for—dead and buried—if, +indeed, it ever existed. Indeed, as I looked in the Gipsy’s +face, I began to realise that a man might be talked out of a belief +in his own name, and felt a rudimentary sensation to the effect that +the language of the Black Wanderers was all a dream, and Pott’s +Zigeuner the mere tinkling of a pot of brass, Paspati a jingling Turkish +symbol, and all Rommany a <i>præterea nihil</i> without the <i>vox</i>. +To dissipate the delusion, I inquired of the Gipsy—</p> +<p>“You have been in America. Did you ever hunt game in +the west?”</p> +<p>“Yes; many a time. On the plains.”</p> +<p>“Of course—buffalo—antelope—jack rabbits. +And once” (I said this as if forgetfully)—“I once +ate a hedgehog—no, I don’t mean a hedgehog, but a porcupine.”</p> +<p>A meaning glance shot from the Gipsy’s eye. I uttered +a first-class password, and if he had any doubt before as to who the +Rommany rye might be, there was none now. But with a courteous +smile he replied—</p> +<p>“It’s quite the same, sir—porcupine or hedgehog. +I know perfectly well what you mean.”</p> +<p>“Porcupines,” I resumed, “are very common in America. +The Chippeways call them <i>hotchewitchi</i>.”</p> +<p>This Rommany word was a plumper for the Gipsy, and the twinkle of +his eye—the smallest star of mirth in the darkest night of gravity +I ever beheld in my life—was lovely. I had trumped his card +at any rate with as solemn gravity as his own; and the Gorgios thought +our reminiscences of America were very entertaining.</p> +<blockquote><p>“He had more tow upon his distaffé<br /> +Than Gervais wot of.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>But there was one in the party—and I think only one—who +had her own private share in the play. That one was the pretty +young lady. Through all the conversation, I observed from time +to time her eyes fixed on my face, as if surmising some unaccountable +mystery. I understood it at once. The bread and butter on +the table, partly eaten, and the snow-white napkin indicated to a feminine +eye that some one not of the household had been entertained, and that +I was the guest. Perhaps she had seen the old woman’s quick +glance at me, but it was evident that she felt a secret. What +she divined I do not know. Should this work ever fall into her +hands, she will learn it all, and with it the fact that Gipsies can +talk double about as well as any human beings on the face of the earth, +and enjoy fun with as grave a face as any Ojib’wa of them all.</p> +<p>The habits of the Gipsy are pleasantly illustrated by the fact that +the collection of “animated books,” which no Rommany gentleman’s +library should be without, generally includes a jackdaw. When +the foot of the Gorgio is heard near the tent, a loud “<i>wā-āwk</i>” +from the wary bird (sounding very much like an alarm) at once proclaims +the fact; and on approaching, the stranger finds the entire party in +all probability asleep. Sometimes a dog acts as sentinel, but +it comes to the same thing. It is said you cannot catch a weasel +asleep: I am tempted to add that you can never find a Gipsy awake—but +it means precisely the same thing.</p> +<p>Gipsies are very much attached to their dogs, and in return the dogs +are very much attached to their masters—so much so that there +are numerous instances, perfectly authenticated, of the faithful animals +having been in the habit of ranging the country alone, at great distances +from the tent, and obtaining hares, rabbits, or other game, which they +carefully and secretly brought by night to their owners as a slight +testimonial of their regard and gratitude. As the dogs have no +moral appreciation of the Game Laws, save as manifested in gamekeepers, +no one can blame them. Gipsies almost invariably prefer, as canine +manifesters of devotion, lurchers, a kind of dog which of all others +can be most easily taught to steal. It is not long since a friend +of mine, early one morning between dark and dawn, saw a lurcher crossing +the Thames with a rabbit in his mouth. Landing very quietly, the +dog went to a Gipsy <i>tan</i>, deposited his burden, and at once returned +over the river.</p> +<p>Dogs once trained to such secret hunting become passionately fond +of it, and pursue it unweariedly with incredible secrecy and sagacity. +Even cats learn it, and I have heard of one which is “good for +three rabbits a week.” Dogs, however, bring everything home, +while puss feeds herself luxuriously before thinking of her owner. +But whether dog or cat, cock or jackdaw, all animals bred among Gipsies +do unquestionably become themselves Rommanised, and grow sharp, and +shrewd, and mysterious. A writer in the <i>Daily News</i> of October +19, 1872, speaks of having seen parrots which spoke Rommany among the +Gipsies of Epping Forest. A Gipsy dog is, if we study him, a true +character. Approach a camp: a black hound, with sleepy eyes, lies +by a tent; he does not bark at you or act uncivilly, for that forms +no part of his master’s life or plans, but wherever you go those +eyes are fixed on you. By-and-by he disappears—he is sure +to do so if there are no people about the <i>tan</i>—and then +reappears with some dark descendant of the Dom and Domni. I have +always been under the impression that these dogs step out and mutter +a few words in Rommany—their deportment is, at any rate, Rommanesque +to the highest degree, indicating a transition from the barbarous silence +of doghood to Christianly intelligence. You may persuade yourself +that the Gipsies do not mind your presence, but rest assured that though +he may lie on his side with his back turned, the cunning <i>jucko</i> +is carefully noting all you do. The abject and humble behaviour +of a poor negro’s dog in America was once proverbial: the quaint +shrewdness, the droll roguery, the demure devilry of a real Gipsy dog +are beyond all praise.</p> +<p>The most valuable dogs to the Gipsies are by no means remarkable +for size or beauty, or any of the properties which strike the eye; on +the contrary, an ugly, shirking, humble-looking, two-and-sixpenny-countenanced +cur, if he have but intellect, is much more their <i>affaire</i>. +Yesterday morning, while sitting among the tents of “ye Egypcians,” +I overheard a knot of men discussing the merits of a degraded-looking +doglet, who seemed as if he must have committed suicide, were he only +gifted with sense enough to know how idiotic he looked. “Would +you take seven pounds for him?” asked one. “Āvo, +I would take seven bar; but I wouldn’t take six, nor six an’ +a half neither.”</p> +<p>The stranger who casts an inquisitive eye, though from afar off, +into a Gipsy camp, is at once noted; and if he can do this before the +wolf—I mean the Rom—sees him, he must possess the gift of +fern-seed and walk invisible, as was illustrated by the above-mentioned +yesterday visit. Passing over the bridge, I paused to admire the +scene. It was a fresh sunny morning in October, the autumnal tints +were beautiful in golden brown or oak red, while here and there the +horse-chestnuts spread their saffron robes, waving in the embraces of +the breeze like hetairæ of the forest. Below me ran the +silver Thames, and above a few silver clouds—the belles of the +air—were following its course, as if to watch themselves in the +watery winding mirror. And near the reedy island, at the shadowy +point always haunted by three swans, whom I suspect of having been there +ever since the days of Odin-faith, was the usual punt, with its elderly +gentlemanly gudgeon-fishers. But far below me, along the dark +line of the hedge, was a sight which completed the English character +of the scene—a real Gipsy camp. Caravans, tents, waggons, +asses, smouldering fires; while among them the small forms of dark children +could be seen frolicking about. One Gipsy youth was fishing in +the stream from the bank, and beyond him a knot of busy basketmakers +were visible.</p> +<p>I turned the bridge, adown the bank, and found myself near two young +men mending chairs. They greeted me civilly; and when I spoke +Rommany, they answered me in the same language; but they did not speak +it well, nor did they, indeed, claim to be “Gipsies” at +all, though their complexions had the peculiar hue which indicates some +other than Saxon admixture of blood. Half Rommany in their knowledge, +and yet not regarded as such, these “travellers” represented +a very large class in England, which is as yet but little understood +by our writers, whether of fact or fiction. They laughed while +telling me anecdotes of gentlemen who had mistaken them for real Rommany +chals, and finally referred me to “Old Henry,” further down, +who “could talk with me.” This ancient I found a hundred +yards beyond, basketing in the sun at the door of his tent. He +greeted me civilly enough, but worked away with his osiers most industriously, +while his comrades, less busy, employed themselves vigorously in looking +virtuous. One nursed his infant with tender embraces, another +began to examine green sticks with a view to converting them into clothes-pegs—in +fact I was in a model community of wandering Shakers.</p> +<p>I regret to say that the instant I uttered a Rommany word, and was +recognised, this discipline of decorum was immediately relaxed. +It was not complimentary to my moral character, but it at least showed +confidence. The Ancient Henry, who bore, as I found, in several +respects a strong likeness to the Old Harry, had heard of me, and after +a short conversation confided the little fact, that from the moment +in which I had been seen watching them, they were sure I was a <i>gav-mush</i>, +or police or village authority, come to spy into their ways, and to +at least order them to move on. But when they found that I was +not as one having authority, but, on the contrary, came talking Rommany +with the firm intention of imparting to them three pots of beer just +at the thirstiest hour of a warm day, a great change came over their +faces. A chair was brought to me from a caravan at some distance, +and I was told the latest news of the road.</p> +<p>“Matty’s got his slangs,” observed Henry, as he +inserted a <i>ranya</i> or osier-withy into his basket, and deftly twined +it like a serpent to right and left, and almost as rapidly. Now +a <i>slang</i> means, among divers things, a hawker’s licence.</p> +<p>“I’m glad to hear it,” I remarked. There +was deep sincerity in this reply, as I had more than once contributed +to the fees for the aforesaid <i>slangs</i>, which somehow or other +were invariably refused to the applicant. At last, however, the +slangs came; and his two boys, provided with them (at ten shillings +per head), were now, in their sphere of life, in the position of young +men who had received an education or been amply established in business, +and were gifted with all that could be expected from a doting father. +In its way this bit of intelligence meant as much to the basketmaker +as, “Have you heard that young Fitz-Grubber has just got the double-first +at Oxford?” or, “Do you know that old Cheshire has managed +that appointment in India for his boy?—splendid independence, +isn’t it?” And I was shrewdly suspected by my audience, +as the question implied, that I had had a hand in expanding this magnificent +opening for the two fortunate young men.</p> +<p>“<i>Dick adoi</i>!” cried one, pointing up the river. +“Look there at Jim!”</p> +<p>I looked and saw a young man far off, shirking along the path by +the river, close to the hedge.</p> +<p>“He thinks you’re a <i>gav-mush</i>,” observed +Henry; “and he’s got some sticks, an’ is tryin’ +to hide them ’cause he daren’t throw ’em away. +Oh, aint he scared?”</p> +<p>It was a pleasing spectacle to see the demi-Gipsy coming in with +his poor little green sticks, worth perhaps a halfpenny, and such as +no living farmer in all North America would have grudged a cartload +of to anybody. Droll as it really seemed, the sight touched me +while I laughed. Oh, if charity covereth a multitude of sins, +what should not poverty do? I care not through which door it comes—nay, +be it by the very portal of Vice herself—when sad and shivering +poverty stands before me in humble form, I can only forgive and forget. +And this child-theft was to obtain the means of work after all. +And if you ask me why I did not at once proceed to the next magistrate +and denounce the criminal, I can only throw myself for excuse on the +illustrious example of George the Fourth, head of Church and State, +who once in society saw a pickpocket remove from a gentleman’s +fob his gold watch, winking at the king as he did so. “Of +course I couldn’t say anything,” remarked the good-natured +monarch, “for the rascal took me into his confidence.”</p> +<p>Jim walked into camp amid mild chaff, to be greeted in Rommany by +the suspected policeman, and to accept a glass of the ale, which had +rained as it were from heaven into this happy family. These basketmakers +were not real Gipsies, but <i>churdi</i> or half-bloods, though they +spoke with scorn of the two chair-menders, who, working by themselves +at the extremity of the tented town (and excluded from a share in the +beer), seemed to be a sort of pariahs unto these higher casters.</p> +<p>I should mention, <i>en passant</i>, that when the beer-bearer of +the camp was sent for the three pots, he was told to “go over +to Bill and borrow his two-gallon jug—and be very careful not +to let him find out what it was for.” I must confess that +I thought this was deeply unjust to the imposed-upon and beerless William; +but it was another case of confidence, and he who sits among Gipsies +by hedgerows green must not be over-particular. <i>Il faut heurler +avec les loups</i>. “Ain’t it wrong to steal dese +here chickens?” asked a negro who was seized with scruples while +helping to rob a hen-roost. “Dat, Cuff, am a great moral +question, an’ we haint got time to discuss it—so jist hand +down anoder pullet.”</p> +<p>I found that Henry had much curious knowledge as to old Rommany ways, +though he spoke with little respect of the Gipsy of the olden time, +who, as he declared, thought all he needed in life was to get a row +of silver buttons on his coat, a pair of high boots on his feet, and +therewith—<i>basta</i>! He had evidently met at one time +with Mr George Borrow, as appeared by his accurate description of that +gentleman’s appearance, though he did not know his name. +“Ah! he could talk the jib first-rateus,” remarked my informant; +“and he says to me, ‘Bless you! you’ve all of you +forgotten the real Gipsy language, and don’t know anything about +it at all.’ Do you know Old Frank?” he suddenly inquired.</p> +<p>“Āvo,” I replied. “He’s the man +who has been twice in America.”</p> +<p>“But d’ye know how rich he is? He’s got money +in bank. And when a man gets money in bank, <i>I</i> say there +is somethin’ in it. An’ how do you suppose he made +that money?” he inquired, with the air of one who is about to +“come down with a stunner.” “He did it <i>a-dukkerin</i>’.” +<a name="citation171"></a><a href="#footnote171">{171}</a> But +he pronounced the word <i>durkerin</i>’; and I, detecting at once, +as I thought, an affinity with the German “turkewava,” paused +and stared, lost in thought. My pause was set down to amazement, +and the Ancient Henry repeated—</p> +<p>“Fact. By <i>durkerin</i>’. I don’t +wonder you’re astonished. Tellin’ fortunes just like +a woman. It isn’t every man who could do that. But +I suppose you could,” he continued, looking at me admiringly. +“You know all the ways of the Gorgios, an’ could talk to +ladies, an’ are up to high life; ah, you could make no end of +money. Why don’t you do it?”</p> +<p>Innocent Gipsy! was this thy idea of qualification for a seer and +a reader of dark lore? What wouldst thou say could I pour into +thy brain the contents of the scores of works on “occult nonsense,” +from Agrippa to Zadkiel, devoured with keen hunger in the days of my +youth? Yes, in solemn sadness, out of the whole I have brought +no powers of divination; and in it all found nothing so strange as the +wondrous tongue in which we spoke. In this mystery called Life +many ways have been proposed to me of alleviating its expenses; as, +for instance, when the old professor earnestly commended that we two +should obtain (I trust honestly) a donkey and a <i>rinkni juva</i>, +who by telling fortunes should entirely contribute to our maintenance, +and so wander cost-free, and <i>kost-frei</i> over merrie England. +But I threw away the golden opportunity—ruthlessly rejected it—thereby +incurring the scorn of all scientific philologists (none of whom, I +trow, would have lost such a chance). It was for doing the same +thing that Matthew Arnold immortalised a clerke of Oxenforde: though +it may be that “since Elizabeth” such exploits have lost +their prestige, as I knew of two students at the same university who +a few years ago went off on a six weeks’ lark with two Gipsy girls; +but who, far from desiring to have the fact chronicled in immortal rhyme, +were even much afraid lest it should get into the county newspaper!</p> +<p>Leaving the basketmakers (among whom I subsequently found a grand-daughter +of the celebrated Gipsy Queen, Charlotte Stanley), I went up the river, +and there, above the bridge, found, as if withdrawn in pride, two other +tents, by one of which stood a very pretty little girl of seven or eight +years with a younger brother. While talking to the children, their +father approached leading a horse. I had never seen him before, +but he welcomed me politely in Rommany, saying that I had been pointed +out to him as the Rommany rye, and that his mother, who was proficient +in their language, was very desirous of meeting me. He was one +of the smiths—a Petulengro or Petulamengro, or master of the horse-shoe, +a name familiar to all readers of Lavengro.</p> +<p>This man was a full Gipsy, but he spoke better English, as well as +better Rommany, than his neighbours, and had far more refinement of +manner. And singularly enough, he appeared to be simpler hearted +and more unaffected, with less Gipsy trickery, and more of a disposition +for honest labour. His brother and uncle were, indeed, hard at +work among the masons in a new building not far off, though they lived +like true Gipsies in a tent. Petulamengro, as the name is commonly +given at the present day, was evidently very proud of his Rommany, and +talked little else: but he could not speak it nearly so well nor so +fluently as his mother, who was of “the old sort,” and who +was, I believe, sincerely delighted that her skill was appreciated by +me. All Gipsies are quite aware that their language is very old +and curious, but they very seldom meet with Gorgios who are familiar +with the fact, and manifest an interest in it.</p> +<p>While engaged in conversation with this family, Petulamengro asked +me if I had ever met in America with Mr ---, adding, “He is a +brother-in-law of mine.”</p> +<p>I confess that I was startled, for I had known the gentleman in question +very well for many years. He is a man of considerable fortune, +and nothing in his appearance indicates in the slightest degree any +affinity with the Rommany. He is not the only real or partial +Gipsy whom I know among the wealthy and highly cultivated, and it is +with pleasure I declare that I have found them all eminently kind-hearted +and hospitable.</p> +<p>It may be worth while to state, in this connection, that Gipsy blood +intermingled with Anglo-Saxon when educated, generally results in intellectual +and physical vigour. The English Gipsy has greatly changed from +the Hindoo in becoming courageous, in fact, his pugnacity and pluck +are too frequently carried to a fault.</p> +<p>My morning’s call had brought me into contact with the three +types of the Gipsy of the roads. Of the half-breeds, and especially +of those who have only a very slight trace of the dark blood or <i>kālo +ratt</i>, there are in Great Britain many thousands. Of the true +stock there are now only a few hundreds. But all are “Rommany,” +and all have among themselves an “understanding” which separates +them from the “Gorgios.”</p> +<p>It is difficult to define what this understanding is—suffice +it to say, that it keeps them all in many respects “peculiar,” +and gives them a feeling of free-masonry, and of guarding a social secret, +long after they leave the roads and become highly reputable members +of society. But they have a secret, and no one can know them who +has not penetrated it.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>One day I mentioned to my old Rommany, what Mr Borrow has said, that +no English Gipsy knows the word for a leaf, or <i>patrin</i>. +He admitted that it was true; but after considering the subject deeply, +and dividing the deliberations between his pipe and a little wooden +bear on the table—his regular oracle and friend—he suddenly +burst forth in the following beautiful illustration of philology by +theology:—</p> +<p>“Rya, I pens you the purodirus lav for a leaf—an’ +that’s a <i>holluf</i>. (Don’t you jin that the holluf +was the firstus leaf? so holluf must be the Rommany lav, sense Rommanis +is the purodirest jib o’ saw.) For when the first mush was +kaired an’ created in the tem adrée—and that was +the boro Duvel himself, I expect—an’ annered the tem apré, +he was in the bero, an’ didn’t jin if there was any puvius +about, so he bitchered the chillico avree. An’ the chillico +was a dove, ’cause dove-us is like Duvel, an’ pāsh +o’ the Duvel an’ Duvel’s chillico. So the dove +mukkered avree an’ jalled round the tem till he latchered the +puvius; for when he dickered a tan an’ lelled a holluf-leaf, he +jinned there was a tem, an’ hatched the holluf apopli to his Duvel. +An’ when yuv’s Duvel jinned there was a tem, he kaired bitti +tiknos an’ foki for the tem—an’ I don’t jin +no more of it. Kekoomi. An’ that is a wery tidy little +story of the leaf, and it sikkers that the holluf was the first leaf. +Tācho.”</p> +<p>“Sir, I will tell you the oldest word for a leaf—and +that is an olive. (Don’t you know that the olive was the +first leaf? so olive must be the Rommany word, since Rommanis is the +oldest language of all.) For when the first man was made and created +in the world—and that was the great God himself, I expect—and +brought the land out, he was in the ship, and didn’t know if there +was any earth about him, so he sent the bird out. And the bird +was a dove, because <i>dove</i> is like <i>Duvel</i> (God), and half +God and God’s bird. So the dove flew away and went around +the world till he found the earth; for when he saw a place and took +an olive-leaf, he knew there was a country (land), and took the olive-leaf +back to his Lord. And when his Lord knew there was land, he made +little children and people for it—and I don’t know anything +more about it. And that is a very tidy little story of the leaf, +and it shows that the olive was the first leaf.”</p> +<p>Being gratified at my noting down this original narrative from his +own lips, my excellent old friend informed me, with cheerfulness not +unmingled with the dignified pride characteristic of erudition, and +of the possession of deep and darksome lore, that he also knew the story +of Samson. And thus spake he:—</p> +<p>“Samson was a boro mush, wery hunnalo an’ tatto at koorin’, +so that he nashered saw the mushis avree, an’ they were atrash +o’ lester. He was so surrelo that yeckorus when he poggered +avree a ker, an’ it had a boro sasterni wuder, he just pet it +apré his dumo, an’ hookered it avree, an’ jalled +kerri an’ bikin’d it.</p> +<p>“Yeck divvus he lelled some weshni juckals, an’ pandered +yāgni-trushnees to their poris and mukked ’em jāl. +And they nashered avree like puro bengis, sig in the sala, when sār +the mushis were sūtto, ’ūnsa parl the giv puvius, and +hotchered sār the giv.</p> +<p>“Then the krallis bitchered his mushis to lel Samson, but he +koshered ’em, an’ pāsh mored the tāt of ’em; +they couldn’t kurry him, and he sillered ’em to praster +for their miraben. An’ ’cause they couldn’t +serber him a koorin’, they kaired it sidd pré the chingerben +drum. Now Samson was a seehiatty mush, wery cāmmoben to the +juvas, so they got a wery rinkeni chi to kutter an’ kuzzer him. +So yuv welled a lāki to a worretty tan, an’ she hocussed +him with drab till yuv was pilfry o’ sutto, an his sherro hungered +hooper side a lācker; an’ when yuv was selvered, the mushis +welled and chinned his ballos apré an’ chivved him adrée +the sturaben.</p> +<p>“An’ yeck divvus the foki hitchered him avree the sturaben +to kair pyass for ’em. And as they were gillerin’ +and huljerin’ him, Samson chivved his wasters kettenus the boro +chongurs of the sturaben, and bongered his kokerus adrée, an +sār the ker pet a lay with a boro gudli, an’ sār the +pooro mushis were mullered an’ the ker poggered to bitti cutters.”</p> +<p>“Samson was a great man, very fierce and expert at fighting, +so that he drove all men away, and they were afraid of him. He +was so strong that once when he broke into a house, and it had a great +iron door, he just put it on his back, and carried it away and went +home and sold it.</p> +<p>“One day he caught some foxes, and tied firebrands to their +tails and let them go. And they ran away like old devils, early +in the morning, when all the people were asleep, across the field, and +burned all the wheat.</p> +<p>“Then the king sent his men to take Samson, but he hurt them, +and half killed the whole of them; they could not injure him, and he +compelled them to run for life. And because they could not capture +him by fighting, they did it otherwise by an opposite way. Now +Samson was a man full of life, very fond of the girls, so they got a +very pretty woman to cajole and coax him. And he went with her +to a lonely house, and she ‘hocussed’ him with poison till +he was heavy with sleep, and his head drooped by her side; and when +he was poisoned, the people came and cut his hair off and threw him +into prison.</p> +<p>“And one day the people dragged him out of prison to make sport +for them. And as they were making fun of him and teasing him, +Samson threw his hands around the great pillars of the prison, and bowed +himself in, and all the house fell down with a great noise, and all +the poor men were killed and the house broken to small pieces.</p> +<p>“And so he died.”</p> +<p>“Do you know what the judgment day is, Puro?”</p> +<p>“Āvo, rya. The judgment day is when you <i>soves +alay</i> (go in sleep, or dream away) to the boro Duvel.”</p> +<p>I reflected long on this reply of the untutored Rommany. I +had often thought that the deepest and most beautiful phrase in all +Tennyson’s poems was that in which the impassioned lover promised +his mistress to love her after death, ever on “into the dream +beyond.” And here I had the same thought as beautifully +expressed by an old Gipsy, who, he declared, for two months hadn’t +seen three nights when he wasn’t as drunk as four fiddlers. +And the same might have been said of Carolan, the Irish bard, who lived +in poetry and died in whisky.</p> +<p>The soul sleeping or dreaming away to God suggested an inquiry into +the Gipsy idea of the nature of spirits.</p> +<p>“You believe in <i>mullos</i> (ghosts), Puro. Can everybody +see them, I wonder?”</p> +<p>“Āvo, rya, āvo. Every mush can dick mullos +if it’s their cāmmoben to be dickdus. But ’dusta +critters can dick mullos whether the mullos kaum it or kek. There’s +grais an’ mylas can dick mullos by the rātti; an’ yeckorus +I had a grai that was trasher ’drée a tem langs the rikkorus +of a drum, pāsh a boro park where a mush had been mullered. +He prastered a mee pauli, but pāsh a cheirus he welled apopli to +the wardos. A chinned jucko or a wixen can hunt mullos. +Āvali, they chase sperits just the sim as anything ’drée +the world—dan’r ’em, koor ’em, chinger ’em—’cause +the dogs can’t be dukkered by mullos.”</p> +<p>In English: “Yes, sir, yes. Every man can see ghosts +if it is their will to be seen. But many creatures can see ghosts +whether the ghosts wish it or not. There are horses and asses +(which) can see ghosts by the night; and once I had a horse that was +frightened in a place by the side of a road, near a great park where +a man had been murdered. He ran a mile behind, but after a while +came back to the waggons. A cut (castrated) dog or a vixen can +hunt ghosts. Yes, they chase spirits just the same as anything +in the world—bite ’em, fight ’em, tear ’em—because +dogs cannot be hurt by ghosts.”</p> +<p>“Dogs,” I replied, “sometimes hunt men as well +as ghosts.”</p> +<p>“Āvo; but men can fool the juckals avree, and men too, +and mullos can’t.”</p> +<p>“How do they kair it?”</p> +<p>“If a choramengro kaums to chore a covva when the snow is apré +the puvius, he jāls yeck piro, pālewavescro. If you +chiv tutes pīros pal-o-the-waver—your kusto pīro kaired +bongo, jallin’ with it a rikkorus, an’ the waver pīro +straightus—your patteran’ll dick as if a bongo-herroed mush +had been apré the puvius. (I jinned a mush yeckorus that +had a dui chokkas kaired with the dui tāchabens kaired bongo, to +jāl a-chorin’ with.) But if you’re pallered by +juckals, and pet lully dantymengro adrée the chokkas, it’ll +dukker the sunaben of the juckos.</p> +<p>“An’ if you chiv lully dantymengro where juckos kair +panny, a’ter they soom it they won’t jāl adoi chichi +no moreus, an’ won’t mutter in dovo tan, and you can keep +it cleanus.”</p> +<p>That is, “If a thief wants to steal a thing when the snow is +on the ground, he goes with one foot behind the other. If you +put your feet one behind the other—your right foot twisted, going +with it to one side, and the other foot straight—your trail will +look as if a crooked-legged man had been on the ground. (I knew +a man once that had a pair of shoes made with the two heels reversed, +to go a-thieving with.) But if you are followed by dogs, and put +red pepper in your shoes, it will spoil the scent of the dogs.</p> +<p>“And if you throw red pepper where dogs make water, they will +not go there any more after they smell it, and you can keep it clean.”</p> +<p>“Well,” I replied, “I see that a great many things +can be learned from the Gipsies. Tell me, now, when you wanted +a night’s lodging did you ever go to a union?”</p> +<p>“Kek, rya; the tramps that jāl langs the drum an’ +māng at the unions are kek Rommany chals. The Rommany never +kair dovo—they’d sooner besh in the bāvol puv firstus. +We’d putch the farming rye for mukkaben to hatch the rātti +adrée the granja,but we’d sooner suv under the bor in the +bishnoo than jāl adrée the chuvveny-ker. The Rommany +chals aint sim to tramps, for they’ve got a different drum into +’em.”</p> +<p>In English: “No, sir; the tramps that go along the road and +beg at the unions are not Gipsies. The Rommany never do that—they’d +sooner stay in the open field (literally, air-field). We would +ask the farmer for leave to stop the night in the barn, but we’d +sooner sleep under the hedge in the rain than go in the poorhouse. +Gipsies are not like tramps, for they have a different <i>way</i>.”</p> +<p>The reader who will reflect on the extreme misery and suffering incident +upon sleeping in the open air, or in a very scanty tent, during the +winter in England, and in cold rains, will appreciate the amount of +manly pride necessary to sustain the Gipsies in thus avoiding the union. +That the wandering Rommany can live at all is indeed wonderful, since +not only are all other human beings less exposed to suffering than many +of them, but even foxes and rabbits are better protected in their holes +from storms and frost. The Indians of North America have, without +exception, better tents; in fact, one of the last Gipsy <i>tans</i> +which I visited was merely a bit of ragged canvas, so small that it +could only cover the upper portion of the bodies of the man and his +wife who slept in it. Where and how they packed their two children +I cannot understand.</p> +<p>The impunity with which any fact might be published in English Rommany, +with the certainty that hardly a soul in England not of the blood could +understand it, is curiously illustrated by an incident which came within +my knowledge. The reader is probably aware that there appear occasionally +in the “Agony” column of the <i>Times</i> (or in that devoted +to “personal” advertisements) certain sentences apparently +written in some very strange foreign tongue, but which the better informed +are aware are made by transposing letters according to the rules of +cryptography or secret writing. Now it is estimated that there +are in Great Britain at least one thousand lovers of occult lore and +quaint curiosa, decipherers of rebuses and adorers of anagrams, who, +when one of these delightful puzzles appears in the <i>Times</i>, set +themselves down and know no rest until it is unpuzzled and made clear, +being stimulated in the pursuit by the delightful consciousness that +they are exploring the path of somebody’s secret, which somebody +would be very sorry to have made known.</p> +<p>Such an advertisement appeared one day, and a friend of mine, who +had a genius for that sort of thing, sat himself down early one Saturday +morning to decipher it.</p> +<p>First of all he ascertained which letter occurred most frequently +in the advertisement, for this must be the letter <i>e</i> according +to rules made and provided by the great Edgar A. Poe, the American poet-cryptographer. +But to reveal the secret in full, I may as well say, dear reader, that +you must take printers’ type in their cases, <i>and follow the +proportions according to the size of the boxes</i>. By doing this +you cannot fail to unrip the seam of any of these transmutations.</p> +<p>But, alas! this cock would not fight—it was a dead bird in +the pit. My friend at once apprehended that he had to deal with +an old hand—one of those aggravating fellows who are up to cryp—a +man who can write a sentence, and be capable of leaving the letter <i>e</i> +entirely out. For there <i>are</i> people who will do this.</p> +<p>So he went to work afresh upon now hypotheses, and pleasantly the +hours fled by. Quires of paper were exhausted; he worked all day +and all the evening with no result. That it was not in a foreign +language my friend was well assured.</p> +<blockquote><p>“For well hee knows the Latine and the Dutche;<br /> +Of Fraunce and Toscanie he hath a touche.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Russian is familiar to him, and Arabic would not have been an unknown +quantity. So he began again with the next day, and had been breaking +the Sabbath until four o’clock in the afternoon, when I entered, +and the mystic advertisement was submitted to me. I glanced at +it, and at once read it into English, though as I read the smile at +my friend’s lost labour vanished in a sense of sympathy for what +the writer must have suffered. It was as follows, omitting names:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“MANDY jins of --- ---. Patsa mandy, te bitcha +lav ki tu shan. Opray minno lav, mandy’l kek pukka til tute +muks a mandi. Tute’s di’s see se welni poggado. +Shom atrash tuti dad’l jal divio. Yov’l fordel sor. +For miduvel’s kom, muk lesti shoon choomani.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>In English: “I know of ---. Trust me, and send word where +you are. On my word, I will not tell till you give me leave. +Your mother’s heart is wellnigh broken. I am afraid your +father will go mad. He will forgive all. For God’s +sake, let him know something.”</p> +<p>This was sad enough, and the language in which it was written is +good English Rommany. I would only state in addition, that I found +that in the very house in which I was living, and at the same time, +a lady had spent three days in vainly endeavouring to ascertain the +meaning of these sentences.</p> +<p>It is possible that many Gipsies, be they of high or low degree, +in society or out of it, may not be pleased at my publishing a book +of their language, and revealing so much of what they fondly cherish +as a secret. They need be under no apprehension, since I doubt +very much whether, even with its aid, a dozen persons living will seriously +undertake to study it—and of this dozen there is not one who will +not be a philologist; and such students are generally aware that there +are copious vocabularies of all the other Gipsy dialects of Europe easy +to obtain from any bookseller. Had my friend used the works of +Pott or Paspati, Ascoli or Grellman, he would have found it an easy +thing to translate this advertisement. The truth simply is, that +for <i>scholars</i> there is not a single secret or hidden word in English +Gipsy or in any other Rommany dialect, and none except scholars will +take pains to acquire it. Any man who wished to learn sufficient +Gipsy to maintain a conversation, and thereby learn all the language, +could easily have done so half a century ago from the vocabularies published +by Bright and other writers. A secret which has been for fifty +years published in very practical detail in fifty books, is indeed a +<i>secrét de Ponchinelle</i>.</p> +<p>I have been asked scores of times, “Have the Gipsies an alphabet +of their own? have they grammars of their language, dictionaries, or +books?” Of course my answer was in the negative. I +have heard of vocabularies in use among crypto-Rommanies, or those who +having risen from the roads live a secret life, so to speak, but I have +never seen one. But they have songs; and one day I was told that +in my neighbourhood there lived a young Gipsy woman who was a poetess +and made Rommany ballads. “She can’t write,” +said my informant; “but her husband’s a <i>Gorgio</i>, and +he can. If you want them, I’ll get you some.” +The offer was of course accepted, and the Gipsy dame, flattered by the +request, sent me the following. The lyric is without rhyme, but, +as sung, not without rhythm.</p> +<h3>“GILLI OF A RUMMANY JUVA.</h3> +<blockquote><p>“Die at the gargers (Gorgios),<br /> +The gargers round mandy!<br /> +Trying to lel my meripon,<br /> +My meripon (meripen) away.</p> +<p>I will care (kair) up to my chungs (chongs),<br /> +Up to my chungs in Rat,<br /> +All for my happy Racler (raklo).</p> +<p>My mush is lelled to sturribon (staripen),<br /> +To sturribon, to sturribon;<br /> +Mymush is lelled to sturribon,<br /> +To the Tan where mandy gins (jins).”</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>TRANSLATION.</h3> +<p>“Look at the Gorgios, the Gorgios around me! trying to take +my life away.</p> +<p>“I will wade up to my knees in blood, all for my happy boy.</p> +<p>“My husband is taken to prison, to prison, to prison; my husband +is taken to prison, to the place of which I know.”</p> +<h2>CHAPTER X. GIPSIES IN EGYPT.</h2> +<p>Difficulty of obtaining Information.—The Khedivé on +the Gipsies.—Mr Edward Elias.—Mahomet introduces me to the +Gipsies.—They call themselves Tatâren.—The Rhagarin +or Gipsies at Boulac.—Cophts.—Herr Seetzen on Egyptian Gipsies.—The +Gipsy with the Monkey in Cairo.—Street-cries of the Gipsy Women +in Egypt. Captain Newbold on the Egyptian Gipsies.</p> +<p>Since writing the foregoing pages, and only a day or two after one +of the incidents therein described, I went to Egypt, passing the winter +in Cairo and on the Nile. While waiting in the city for the friend +with whom I was to ascend the mysterious river, it naturally occurred +to me, that as I was in the country which many people still believe +is the original land of the Gipsies, it would be well worth my while +to try to meet with some, if any were to be found.</p> +<p>It is remarkable, that notwithstanding my inquiries from many gentlemen, +both native and foreign, including savans and beys, the only educated +person I ever met in Egypt who was able to give me any information on +the subject of its Gipsies was the Khedivé or Viceroy himself, +a fact which will not seem strange to those who are aware of the really +wonderful extent of his knowledge of the country which he rules. +I had been but a few days in Cairo when, at an interview with the Khedivé, +Mr Beardsley, the American Consul, by whom I was presented, mentioned +to his Highness that I was interested in the subject of the Gipsies, +upon which the Khedivé said that there were in Egypt many people +known as “<i>Rhagarin</i>” (Ghagarin), who were probably +the same as the “Bohémiens” or Gipsies of Europe. +His words were, as nearly as I can remember, as follows:—</p> +<p>“They are wanderers who live in tents, and are regarded with +contempt even by the peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, +<a name="citation189"></a><a href="#footnote189">{189}</a> and sell +small-wares; the men work in iron (<i>quincaillerie</i>). They +are all adroit thieves, and noted as such. The men may sometimes +be seen going around the country with monkeys; in fact, they appear +to be in all respects the same people as the Gipsies of Europe.”</p> +<p>This was all that I could learn for several days; for though there +were Gipsies—or “Egypcians”—in Egypt, I had +almost as much trouble to find them as Eilert Sundt had to discover +their brethren in Norway. In speaking of the subject to Mr Edward +Elias, a gentleman well known in Egypt, he most kindly undertook to +secure the aid of the chief of police, who in turn had recourse to the +Shekh of the Gipsies. But the Shekh I was told was not himself +a Gipsy, and there were none of his subjects in Cairo. After a +few days, three wanderers, supposed to be Rommany, were arrested; but +on examination they proved to be ignorant of any language except Arabic. +Their occupation was music and dancing “with a stick;” in +fact, they were performers in those curious and extremely ancient Fescennine +farces, or <i>Atellanæ</i>, which are depicted on ancient vases, +and are still acted on the roads in Egypt as they were in Greece before +the days of Thespis. Then I was informed that Gipsies were often +encamped near the Pyramids, but research in this direction was equally +fruitless.</p> +<p>Remembering what his Highness had told me, that Gipsies went about +exhibiting monkeys, I one day, on meeting a man bearing an ape, endeavoured +to enter into conversation with him. Those who know Cairo can +imagine with what result! In an instant we were surrounded by +fifty natives of the lower class, jabbering, jeering, screaming, and +begging—all intent, as it verily seemed, on defeating my object. +I gave the monkey-bearer money; instead of thanking me, he simply clamoured +for more, while the mob became intolerable, so that I was glad to make +my escape.</p> +<p>At last I was successful. I had frequently employed as donkey-driver +an intelligent and well-behaved man named Mahomet, who spoke English +well, and who was familiar with the byways of Cairo. On asking +him if he could show me any Rhagarin, he replied that every Saturday +there was a fair or market held at Boulac, where I would be sure to +meet with women of the tribe. The men, I was told, seldom ventured +into the city, because they were subject to much insult and ill-treatment +from the common people. On the day appointed I rode to the market, +which was extremely interesting. There were thousands of blue-shirted +and red-tarbouched or white-turbaned Egyptians, buying or selling, or +else merely amusing themselves; dealers in sugar-cane, pipe-pedlars, +and vendors of rosaries; jugglers and minstrels. At last we came +to a middle-aged woman seated on the ground behind a basket containing +beads, glass armlets, and similar trinkets. She was dressed like +any Arab woman of the lower class, but was not veiled, and on her chin +blue lines were tattooed. Her features and whole expression were, +however, evidently Gipsy.</p> +<p>I spoke to her in Rommany, using such words as would have been intelligible +to any of the race in England, Germany, or Turkey; but she did not understand +me, and declared that she could speak nothing but Arabic. At my +request Mahomet explained to her that I had travelled from a distant +country in “Orobba,” where there were many Rhagarin who +declared that their fathers came from Egypt, and that I wished to know +if any in the latter country could speak the old language. She +replied that the Rhagarin of “Montesinos” could still speak +it, but that her people in Egypt had lost the tongue. Mahomet +declared that Montesinos meant Mount Sinai or Syria. I then asked +her if the Rhagarin had no peculiar name for themselves, and she replied, +“Yes, we call ourselves Tatâren.”</p> +<p>This was at least satisfactory. All over Southern Germany and +in Norway the Rommany are sailed Tatâren; and though the word +means Tartars, and is simply a misapplied term, it indicates a common +race. The woman seemed to be very much gratified at the interest +I manifested in her people. I gave her a double piastre, and asked +for its value in blue-glass armlets. She gave me two pair, and +as I turned to depart called me back, and with a good-natured smile +handed me four more as a present. This generosity was very Gipsy-like, +and very unlike the usual behaviour of any common Egyptian.</p> +<p>While on the Nile, I inquired of people in different towns if they +had ever seen Gipsies where they lived, and was invariably answered +in the negative. Remembering to have read in some book a statement +that the Ghawâzi or dancing-girls formed a tribe by themselves, +and spoke a peculiar language, I asked an American who has lived for +many years in Egypt if he thought they could be Gipsies. He replied +that an English lady of title, who had also been for a long time in +the country, had formed this opinion. But when I questioned dancing-girls +myself, I found them quite ignorant of any language except Arabic, and +knowing nothing relating to the Rommany. Two Ghawâzi whom +I saw had, indeed, the peculiarly brilliant eyes and general expression +of Gipsies. The rest appeared to be Egyptian-Arab; and I found +on inquiry that one of the latter had really been a peasant girl who +till within seven months had worked in the fields, while two others +were occupied alternately with field-work and dancing.</p> +<p>At the market in Boulac, Mahomet took me to a number of <i>Rhagarin</i>. +They all resembled the one whom I have described, and were all occupied +in selling exactly the same class of articles. They all differed +slightly, as I thought, from the ordinary Egyptians in their appearance, +and were decidedly unlike them, in being neither importunate for money +nor disagreeable in their manners. But though they were certainly +Gipsies, none of them would speak Rommany, and I doubt very much if +they could have done so.</p> +<p>Bonaventura Vulcanius, who in 1597 first gave the world a specimen +of Rommany in his curious book “De Literis et Lingua Getarum” +(which specimen, by the way, on account of its rarity, I propose to +republish in another work), believed that the Gipsies were Nubians; +and others, following in his track, supposed they were really Cophtic +Christians (Pott, “Die Zigeuner,” &c., Halle, 1844, +p. 5). And I must confess that this recurred forcibly to my memory +when, at Minieh, in Egypt, I asked a Copht scribe if he were Muslim, +and he replied, “<i>La</i>, <i>ana Gipti</i>” (“No, +I am a Copht”), pronouncing the word <i>Gipti</i>, or Copht, so +that it might readily be taken for “Gipsy.” And learning +that <i>romi</i> is the Cophtic for a man, I was again startled; and +when I found <i>tema</i> (tem, land) and other Rommany words in ancient +Egyptian (<i>vide</i> Brugsch, “Grammaire,” &c.), it +seemed as if there were still many mysteries to solve in this strange +language.</p> +<p>Other writers long before me attempted to investigate Egyptian Gipsy, +but with no satisfactory result. A German named Seetzen ascertained +that there were Gipsies both in Egypt and Syria, and wrote (1806) on +the subject a MS., which Pott (“Die Zigeuner,” &c.) +cites largely. Of these Roms he speaks as follows: “Gipsies +are to be found in the entire Osmanli realm, from the limits of Hungary +into Egypt. The Turks call them Tschinganih; but the Syrians and +Egyptians, as well as themselves, <i>Nury</i>, in the plural <i>El Naúar</i>. +It was on the 24th November 1806 when I visited a troop of them, encamped +with their black tents in an olive grove, to the west side of Naplos. +They were for the greater part of a dirty yellow complexion, with black +hair, which hung down on the side from where it was parted in a short +plait, and their lips are mulatto-like.” (Seetzen subsequently +remarks that their physiognomy is precisely like that of the modern +Egyptians.) “The women had their under lips coloured dark +blue, like female Bedouins, and a few eaten-in points around the mouth +of like colour. They, and the boys also, wore earrings. +They made sieves of horse-hair or of leather, iron nails, and similar +small ironware, or mended kettles. They appear to be very poor, +and the men go almost naked, unless the cold compels them to put on +warmer clothing. The little boys ran about naked. Although +both Christians and Mahometans declared that they buried their dead +in remote hill corners, or burned them, they denied it, and declared +they were good Mahometans, and as such buried their dead in Mahometan +cemeteries.” (This corresponds to their custom in Great +Britain in the past generation, and the earnestness which they display +at present to secure regular burial like Christians.) “But +as their instruction is even more neglected than that of the Bedouins, +their religious information is so limited that one may say of them, +they have either no religion at all, or the simplest of all. As +to wine, they are less strict than most Mahometans. They assured +me that in Egypt there were many <i>Nury</i>.”</p> +<p>The same writer obtained from one of these Syrian-Egyptian Gipsies +a not inconsiderable vocabulary of their language, and says: “I +find many Arabic, Turkish, and some Greek words in it; it appears to +me, however, that they have borrowed from a fourth language, which was +perhaps their mother-tongue, but which I cannot name, wanting dictionaries.” +The words which he gives appear to me to consist of Egyptian-Arabic, +with its usual admixture from other sources, simply made into a gibberish, +and sometimes with one word substituted for another to hide the meaning—the +whole probably obtained through a dragoman, as is seen, for instance, +when he gives the word <i>nisnaszehá</i>, a fox, and states that +it is of unknown origin. The truth is, <i>nisnas</i> means a monkey, +and, like most of Seetzen’s “Nuri” words, is inflected +with an <i>á</i> final, as if one should say “monkeyó.” +I have no doubt the Nauár may talk such a jargon; but I should +not be astonished, either, if the Shekh who for a small pecuniary consideration +eagerly aided Seetzen to note it down, had “sold” him with +what certainly would appear to any Egyptian to be the real babble of +the nursery. There are a very few Rommany words in this vocabulary, +but then it should be remembered that there are some Arabic words in +Rommany.</p> +<p>The street-cry of the Gipsy women in Cairo is [ARABIC TEXT which +cannot be reproduced] “<i>Neduqq wanetahir</i>!” “We +tattoo and circumcise!” a phrase which sufficiently indicates +their calling. In the “Deutscher Dragoman” of Dr Philip +Wolff, Leipzig, 1867, I find the following under the word Zigeuner:—</p> +<p>“Gipsy—in Egypt, Gagrî” (pronounced more +nearly ’Rh’agri), “plural <i>Gagar</i>; in Syria, +<i>Newarî</i>, plural <i>Nawar</i>. When they go about with +monkeys, they are called <i>Kurudâti</i>, from <i>kird</i>, ape. +The Gipsies of Upper Egypt call themselves Saâideh—<i>i.e</i>., +people from Said, or Upper Egypt (<i>vide</i> Kremer, i. 138-148). +According to Von Gobineau, they are called in Syria Kurbati, [ARABIC +TEXT which cannot be reproduced] (<i>vide</i> ‘Zeitschrift der +D. M. G.,’ xi. 690).”</p> +<p>More than this of the Gipsies in Egypt the deponent sayeth not. +He has interrogated the oracles, and they were dumb. That there +are Roms in the land of Mizr his eyes have shown, but whether any of +them can talk Rommany is to him as yet unknown.</p> +<p>* * * * *</p> +<p>Since the foregoing was printed, I have found in the <i>Journal of +the Royal Asiatic Society</i> (Vol. XVI., Part 2, 1856, p. 285), an +article on The Gipsies in Egypt, by the late Captain Newbold, F.R.S., +which gives much information on this mysterious subject. The Egyptian +Gipsies, as Captain Newbold found, are extremely jealous and suspicious +of any inquiry into their habits and mode of life, so that he had great +difficulty in tracing them to their haunts, and inducing them to unreserved +communication.</p> +<p>These Gipsies are divided into three kinds, the Helebis, Ghagars +(Rhagarin), and Núris or Náwer. Of the Rhagars there +are sixteen thousand. The Helebi are most prosperous of all these, +and their women, who are called Fehemis, are the only ones who practice +fortune-telling and sorcery. The male Helebis are chiefly ostensible +dealers in horses and cattle, but have a bad character for honesty. +Some of them are to be found in every official department in Egypt, +though not known to be Gipsies—(a statement which casts much light +on the circumstance that neither the chief of police himself nor the +Shekh of the Rhagarin, with all their alleged efforts, could find a +single Gipsy for me). The Helebis look down on the Rhagarin, and +do not suffer their daughters to intermarry with them, though they themselves +marry Rhagarin girls. The Fehemi, or Helebi women, are noted for +their chastity; the Rhagarin are not. The men of the Rhagarin +are tinkers and blacksmiths, and sell cheap jewellery or instruments +of iron and brass. Many of them are athletes, mountebanks, and +monkey-exhibitors; the women are rope-dancers and musicians. They +are divided into classes, bearing the names of Romani, Meddahin, Ghurradin, +Barmeki (Barmecides), Waled Abu Tenna, Beit er Rafái, Hemmeli, +&c. The Helebis and Rhagarin are distinctly different in their +personal appearance from the other inhabitants of Egypt, having the +eyes and expression peculiar to all Gipsies. Captain Newbold, +in fact, assumes that any person “who remains in Egypt longer +than the ordinary run of travellers, and roams about the streets and +environs of the large towns, can hardly fail to notice the strange appearance +of certain females, whose features at once distinguish them from the +ordinary Fellah Arabs and Cophts of the country.”</p> +<p>“The Nuris or Náwers are hereditary thieves, but are +now (1856) employed as police and watchmen in the Pacha’s country +estates. In Egypt they intermarry with the Fellahin or Arabs of +the soil, from whom, in physical appearance and dress, they can hardly +be distinguished. Outwardly they profess Mohammedanism, and have +little intercourse with the Helebis and Ghagars (or Rhagarin).”</p> +<p>Each of these tribes or classes speak a separate and distinct dialect +or jargon. That of the Rhagarin most resembles the language spoken +by the Kurbáts, or Gipsies of Syria. “It seems to +me probable,” says Captain Newbold, “that the whole of these +tribes had one common origin in India, or the adjacent countries on +its Western frontier, and that the difference in the jargons they now +speak is owing to their sojourn in the various countries through which +they have passed. <i>This is certain</i>, <i>that the Gipsies +are strangers in the land of Egypt</i>.”</p> +<p>I am not astonished, on examining the specimens of these three dialects +given by Captain Newbold, with the important addition made by Mr W. +Burckhardt Barker, that I could not converse with the Rhagarin. +That of the Náwers does not contain a single word which would +be recognised as Rommany, while those which occur in the other two jargons +are, if not positively either few and far between, strangely distorted +from the original. A great number are ordinary vulgar Arabic. +It is very curious that while in England such a remarkably large proportion +of Hindustani words have been preserved, they have been lost in the +East, in countries comparatively near the fatherland—India.</p> +<p>I would, in conclusion to this work, remark that numbers of Rommany +words, which are set down by philologists as belonging to Greek, Slavonian, +and other languages, were originally Hindu, and have only changed their +form a little because the wanderers found a resemblance to the old word +in a new one. I am also satisfied that much may be learned as +to the origin of these words from a familiar acquaintance with the vulgar +dialects of Persia, and such words as are not put down in dictionaries, +owing to their provincial character. I have found, on questioning +a Persian gentleman, that he knew the meaning of many Rommany words +from their resemblance to vulgar Persian, though they were not in the +Persian dictionary which I used.</p> +<h2>ROMMANI GUDLI; OR, GIPSY STORIES AND FABLES.</h2> +<p>The Gipsy to whom I was chiefly indebted for the material of this +book frequently narrated to me the <i>Gudli</i> or small stories current +among his people, and being a man of active, though child-like imagination, +often invented others of a similar character. Sometimes an incident +or saying would suggest to me the outline of a narrative, upon which +he would eagerly take it up, and readily complete the tale. But +if I helped him sometimes to evolve from a hint, a phrase, or a fact, +something like a picture, it was always the Gipsy who gave it Rommany +characteristics and conferred colour. It was often very difficult +for him to distinctly recall an old story or clearly develop anything +of the kind, whether it involved an effort of memory or of the imagination, +and here he required aid. I have never in my life met with any +man whose mind combined so much simplicity, cunning, and grotesque fancy, +with such an entire incapacity to appreciate either humour or “poetry” +as expressed in the ordinary language of culture. The metre and +rhyme of the simplest ballad made it unintelligible to him, and I was +obliged to repeat such poetry several times before he could comprehend +it. Yet he would, while I was otherwise occupied than with him, +address to his favourite wooden image of a little bear on the chimneypiece, +grotesque soliloquies which would have delighted a Hoffman, or conduct +with it dialogues which often startled me. With more education, +he would have become a Rommany Bid-pai; and since India is the fatherland +of the fable, he may have derived his peculiar faculty for turning morals +and adorning tales legitimately from that source.</p> +<p>I may state that those stories, which were made entirely; as a few +were; or in part, by my assistant and myself, were afterwards received +with approbation by ordinary Gipsies as being thoroughly Rommany. +As to the <i>language</i> of the stories, it is all literally and faithfully +that of a Gipsy, word by word, written down as he uttered it, when, +after we had got a <i>gudlo</i> into shape, he told it finally over, +which he invariably did with great eagerness, ending with an improvised +moral.</p> +<h3>GUDLO I. HOW A GIPSY SAVED A CHILD’S LIFE BY BREAKING +A WINDOW.</h3> +<p>‘Pré yeck dívvus (or yéckorus) a Rommany +chal was kairin’ pýass with the koshters, an’ he +wussered a kosh ’pré the hev of a boro ker an’ poggered +it. Welled the prastramengro and penned, “Tu must póoker +(or péssur) for the glass.” But when they jawed adrée +the ker, they lastered the kosh had mullered a divio júckal that +was jawán’ to dant the chavo. So the rāni del +the Rommany chal a sónnakai óra an’ a fíno +gry.</p> +<p>But yeck koshter that poggers a hev doesn’t muller a juckal.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>On a day (or once) a Gipsy was playing at cockshy, and he threw a +stick through the window of a great house and broke the glass. +Came the policeman and said, “You must answer (or pay) for the +glass.” But when they went into the house, they found the +stick had killed a mad dog that was going to bite the child (boy). +So the lady gave the Gipsy a gold watch and a good horse.</p> +<p>But every stick that breaks a window does not kill a dog.</p> +<h3>GUDLO II. THE GIPSY STORY OF THE BIRD AND THE HEDGEHOG.</h3> +<p>’Pré yeck divvus a hótchewítchi dicked +a chillico adrée the puv, and the chillico pūkkered lesco, +“Mor jāl paūli by the kúshto wástus, or +the hunters’ graias will chiv tute adrée the chick, mullo; +an’ if you jāl the waver rikk by the bongo wast, dovo’s +a Rommany tan adoi, and the Rommany chals will haw tute.” +Penned the hótchewítchi, “I’d rather jāl +with the Rommany chals, an’ be hawed by foki that kaum mandy, +than be pirraben apré by chals that dick kaulo apré mandy.”</p> +<p>It’s kushtier for a tácho Rom to be mullered by a Rommany +pal than to be náshered by the Gorgios.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>On a day a hedgehog met a bird in the field, and the bird told him, +“Do not go around by the right hand, or the hunters’ horses +will trample you dead in the dirt; and if you go around by the left +hand, there’s a Gipsy tent, and the Gipsies will eat you.” +Said the hedgehog, “I’d rather go with the Gipsies, and +be eaten by folk that like me, than be trampled on by people that despise +(literally, look black upon) me.”</p> +<p>It is better for a real Gipsy to be killed by a Gipsy brother than +to be hung by Gorgios.</p> +<h3>GUDLO III. A STORY OF A FORTUNE-TELLER.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a tāno Gorgio chivved apré a shubo an’ +jālled to a puri Rommany dye to get dúkkered. And +she póokered lester, “Tute’ll rummorben a Fair Man +with kauli yākkas.” Then the raklo delled lāki +yeck shukkori an’ penned, “If this shukkori was as boro +as the hockaben tute pukkered mandy, tute might porder sār the +bongo tem with rupp.” But, hatch a wongish!—maybe +in a dívvus, maybe in a cúrricus, maybe a dood, maybe +a besh, maybe wāver dívvus, he rúmmorbend a rākli +by the nav of Fair Man, and her yākkas were as kaulo as miri júva’s.</p> +<p>There’s always dui rikk to a dúkkerben.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a little Gorgio put on a woman’s gown and went to an old +Gipsy mother to have his fortune told. And she told him, “You’ll +marry a Fair Man with black eyes.” Then the young man gave +her a sixpence and said, “If this sixpence were as big as the +lie you told me, you could fill all hell with silver.” But, +stop a bit! after a while—maybe in a week, maybe a month, maybe +in a year, maybe the other day—he married a girl by the name of +Fair Man, and her eyes were as black as my sweetheart’s.</p> +<p>There are always two sides to a prediction.</p> +<h3>GUDLO IV. HOW THE ROYSTON ROOK DECEIVED THE ROOKS AND PIGEONS.</h3> +<p>’Pré yeck dívvus a Royston rookus jālled +mongin the kaulo chiriclos, an’ they putched (pootschered) him, +“Where did tute chore tiro pauno chúkko?” And +yuv pookered, “Mandy chored it from a bikshérro of a pigeon.” +Then he jālled a-men the pigeons an’ penned, “Sárishan, +pals?” And they pūtched lesti, “Where did tute +lel akovo kauli rokámyas te byáscros?” And +yuv penned, “Mandy chored ’em from those wafri múshis +the rookuses.”</p> +<p>Pāsh-rātis pen their kókeros for Gorgios mongin +Gorgios, and for Rommany mongin Rommany chals.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>On a day a Royston rook <a name="citation206"></a><a href="#footnote206">{206}</a> +went among the crows (black birds), and they asked him, “Where +did you steal your white coat?” And he told (them), “I +stole it from a fool of a pigeon.” Then he went among the +pigeons and said, “How are you, brothers?” And they +asked him, “Where did you get those black trousers and sleeves?” +And he said, “I stole ’em from those wretches the rooks.”</p> +<p>Half-breeds call themselves Gorgio among Gorgios, and Gipsy among +Gipsies.</p> +<h3>GUDLO V. THE GIPSY’S STORY OF THE GORGIO AND THE ROMMANY +CHAL.</h3> +<p>Once ’pré a chairus (or chýrus) a Gorgio penned +to a Rommany chal, “Why does tute always jāl about the tem +ajaw? There’s no kushtoben in what don’t hatch acäi.” +Penned the Rommany chal, “Sikker mandy tute’s wóngur!” +And yuv sikkered him a cutter (cotter?), a bar, a pāsh-bar, a pāsh-cutter, +a pange-cullo (caulor?) bittus, a pāsh-krooner (koraúna), +a dui-cullos bittus, a trin-mushi, a shuckóri, a stor’óras, +a trin’óras, a dui’óras, a haura, a poshéro, +a lúlli, a pāsh-lúlli. Penned the Rommany chal, +“Acovo’s sār wáfri wóngur.” +“Kek,” penned the Gorgio; “se sār kushto an’ +kirus. Chiv it adrée tute’s wast and shoon it ringus.” +“Āvo,” penned the Rommany chal. “Tute pookered +mandy that only wáfri covvas keep jāllin’, te ’covo +wóngur has jālled sar ’pré the ‘tem adusta +timei (or timey).”</p> +<p>Sār mushis aren’t all sim ta rúkers (rúkkers.) +Some must pírraben, and can’t besh’t a lay.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once upon a time a Gorgio said to a Gipsy, “Why do you always +go about the country so? There is ‘no good’ in what +does not rest (literally, stop here).” Said the Gipsy, “Show +me your money!” And he showed him a guinea, a sovereign, +a half-sovereign, a half-guinea, a five-shilling piece, a half-crown, +a two-shilling piece, a shilling, a sixpence, a fourpenny piece, a threepence, +a twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a farthing, a half-farthing. +Said the Gipsy, “This is all bad money.” “No,” +said the other man; “it is all good and sound. Toss it in +your hand and hear it ring!” “Yes,” replied +the Gipsy. “You told me that only bad things <i>keep going</i>, +and this money has gone all over the country many a time.”</p> +<p>All men are not like trees. Some must travel, and cannot keep +still.</p> +<h3>GUDLO VI. HOW THE GIPSY BRIBED THE POLICEMAN.</h3> +<p>Once apré a chairus a Rommany chal chored a rāni chillico +(or chiriclo), and then jālled atút a prastraméngro +’pré the drum. “Where did tute chore adovo +rāni?” putchered the prastramengro. “It’s +kek rāni; it’s a pauno rāni that I kinned ’drée +the gav to del tute.” “Tácho,” penned +the prastraméngro, “it’s the kushtiest pauno rāni +mandy ever dickdus. Ki did tute kin it?”</p> +<p>Āvali, many’s the chairus mandy’s tippered a trinmushi +to a prastraméngro ta mukk mandy hatch my tan with the chávvis.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once on a time a Gipsy stole a turkey, and then met a policeman on +the road. “Where did you steal that turkey?” asked +the policeman. “It’s no turkey; it’s a goose +that I bought in the town to give you.” “Fact,” +said the policeman, “it <i>is</i> the finest goose I ever saw. +Where <i>did</i> you buy it?”</p> +<p>Yes, many’s the time I have given a shilling (three fourpence) +to a policeman to let me pitch my tent with the children. <a name="citation209"></a><a href="#footnote209">{209}</a></p> +<h3>GUDLO VII. HOW A GIPSY LOST THREEPENCE.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a choro mush besht a lay ta kair trin horras-worth o’ +peggi for a māséngro. There jessed alang’s a +rye, who penned, “Tool my gry, an’ I’ll del tute a +shukóri.” While he tooled the gry a rāni pookered +him, “Rikker this trúshni to my ker, an’ I’ll +del tute a trin grushi.” So he lelled a chavo to tool the +gry, and pookered lester, “Tute shall get pāsh the wongur.” +Well, as yuv was rikkinin’ the trúshnee an’ siggerin +burry ora bender the drum, he dicked a rye, who penned, “If tute’ll +jaw to the ker and hatch minni’s júckal ta mandy, mi’ll +del tute a pash-koraúna.” So he got a waver chávo +to rikker the trúshnee for pāsh the wongur, whilst he jālled +for the júckal. Wellin’ alángus, he dicked +a bárvelo givéscro, who penned, “‘Avacai an’ +hūsker mandy to lel my gurúvni (<i>grūvni</i>) avree +the ditch, and I’ll del you pange cullos” (caulos). +So he lelled it. But at the kūnsus of the divvus, sā +yuv sus kennin apré sustis wóngurs, he penned, “How +wafro it is mandy nashered the trinóras I might have lelled for +the māss-kóshters!”</p> +<p>A mush must always pet the giv in the puv before he can chin the +harvest.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a poor man sat down to make threepence-worth of skewers <a name="citation210"></a><a href="#footnote210">{210}</a> +for a butcher. There came along a gentleman, who said, “Hold +my horse, and I’ll give you a sixpence.” While he +held the horse a lady said to him, “Carry this basket to my house, +and I’ll give you a shilling.” So he got a boy to +hold the horse, and said to him, “You shall have half the money.” +Well, as he was carrying the basket and hurrying along fast across the +road he saw a gentleman, who said, “If you’ll go to the +house and bring my dog to me, I will give you half-a-crown.” +So he got another boy to carry the basket for half the money, while +he went for the dog. Going along, he saw a rich farmer, who said, +“Come and help me here to get my cow out of the ditch, and I’ll +give you five shillings.” So he got it. But at the +end of the day, when he was counting his money, he said, “What +a pity it is I lost the threepence I might have got for the skewers!” +(literally, meat-woods.)</p> +<p>A man must always put the grain in the ground before he can cut the +harvest.</p> +<h3>GUDLO VIII. THE STORY OF THE GIPSY’S DOG.</h3> +<p>’Pré yeck divvus a choro mush had a júckal that +used to chore covvas and hākker them to the kér for his +mush—mass, wóngur, hóras, and rooys. A rye +kinned the júckal, an’ kaired boot dusta wóngur +by sikkerin’ the júckal at wellgóoras.</p> +<p>Where bárvelo mushis can kair wóngur tácho, +chori mushis have to loure.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>On a day a poor man had a dog that used to steal things and carry +them home for his master—meat, money, watches, and spoons. +A gentleman bought the dog, and made a great deal of money by showing +him at fairs.</p> +<p>Where rich men can make money honestly, poor men have to steal.</p> +<h3>GUDLO IX. A STORY OF THE PRIZE-FIGHTER AND THE GENTLEMAN.</h3> +<p>’Pré yeck chairus a cooroméngro was to coor, +and a rye rākkered him, “Will tute mukk your kókero +be koored for twenty bar?” Penned the cooroméngro, +“Will tute mukk mandy pogger your hérry for a hundred bar?” +“Kek,” penned the rye; “for if I did, mandy’d +never pirro kushto ajaw.” “And if I nashered a kóoraben,” +penned the éngro, “mandy’d never praster kekóomi.”</p> +<p>Kāmmoben is kushtier than wóngur.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>On a time a prize-fighter was to fight, and a gentleman asked him, +“Will you sell the fight” (<i>i.e</i>., let yourself be +beaten) “for twenty pounds?” Said the prize-fighter, +“Will you let me break your leg for a hundred pounds?” +“No,” said the gentleman; “for if I did, I should +never walk well again.” “And if I lost a fight,” +said the prize-fighter (literally, master, doer), “I could never +‘run’ again.”</p> +<p>Credit is better than money.</p> +<h3>GUDLO X. OF THE GENTLEMAN AND THE OLD GIPSY WOMAN.</h3> +<p>Pré yeck chairus a Rommany dye adrée the wellgooro +rākkered a rye to del lāker trin mushi for kushto bāk. +An’ he del it, an’ putchered láki, “If I bitcher +my wóngur a-múkkerin’ ’pré the graias, +ki’ll manni’s bāk be?” “My fino rye,” +she penned, “the bāk’ll be a collos-worth with mandy +and my chávvis.”</p> +<p>Bāk that’s pessured for is saw (sār) adöi.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>On a time a Gipsy mother at the fair asked a gentleman to give her +a shilling for luck. And he gave it, and asked her, “If +I lose my money a-betting on the horses, where will my luck be?” +“My fine gentleman,” she said, “the luck will be a +shilling’s worth with me and my children.”</p> +<p>Luck that is paid for is always somewhere (literally, there).</p> +<h3>GUDLO XI. THE GIPSY TELLS OF THE CAT AND THE HARE.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus the matchka jālled to dick her kako’s chávo +the kanéngro. An’ there welled a huntingmush, an’ +the matchka taddied up the choomber, pré durer, pré a +rukk, an’ odöi she lastered a chillico’s nest. +But the kanéngro prastered alay the choomber, longodurus adrée +the tem.</p> +<blockquote><p>Wafri bāk kairs<br /> + A choro mush ta jāl alay,<br /> +But it mukks a boro mush<br /> + To chiv his kokero apré. <a name="citation213"></a><a href="#footnote213">{213}</a></p> +</blockquote> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once the cat went to see her cousin the hare. And there came +a hunter, and the cat scrambled up the hill, further up, up a tree, +and there she found a bird’s nest. But the hare ran down +the hill, far down into the country.</p> +<p>Bad luck sends a poor man further down, but it causes a great man +to rise still more.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XII. OF THE GIPSY WOMAN AND THE CHILD.</h3> +<p>Pre yeck cháirus a chi jālled adrée a waver tem, +an’ she rikkered a gunno pré lāki dumo with a baulo +adrée. A rakli who was ladge of her tikno chored the baulo +avree the gunno and chivved the chavi adrée. Pasch a waver +hora the chi shooned the tikno rov (ruvving), and dicked adrée +the gunno in boro toob, and penned, “If the baulos in akovo tem +púraben into chávos, sā do the chávos púraben +adrée?”</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a woman went into a strange land, and she carried a bag on her +back with a pig in it. A girl who was ashamed of her child stole +the pig from the bag and put the baby in (its place). After an +hour the woman heard the child cry, and looked into the bag with great +amazement, and said, “If the pigs in this country change into +children, into what do the children change?”</p> +<h3>GUDLO XIII. OF THE GIRL THAT WAS TO MARRY THE DEVIL.</h3> +<p>’Pré yeck divvus a Rommany dye dūkkered a rakli, +and pookered lāki that a kaulo rye kaumed her. But when the +chi putchered her wóngur, the rakli penned, “Puri dye, +I haven’t got a poshéro to del túté. +But pen mandy the nav of the kaulo rye.” Then the dye shelled +avree, very húnnalo, “Beng is the nav of tute’s pírryno, +and yuv se kaulo adusta.”</p> +<p>If you chore puri juvas tute’ll lel the beng.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>On a day a Gipsy mother told a girl’s fortune, and said to +her that a dark (black) gentleman loved her. But when the woman +demanded her money, the girl said, “Old mother, I haven’t +got a halfpenny to give you. But tell me the name of the dark +gentleman.” Then the mother roared out, very angry, “Devil +is the name of your sweetheart, and he is black enough.”</p> +<p>If you cheat old women you will catch the devil.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XIV. OF THE GIPSY WHO STOLE THE HORSE.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a mush chored a gry and jālled him avree adrée +a waver tem, and the gry and the mush jālled kushti bāk kéttenus. +Penned the gry to his mush, “I kaums your covvas to wearus kushtier +than mandy’s, for there’s kek chúcknee or méllicus +(pusimígree) adrée them.” “Kek,” +penned the mush pauli; “the trash I lel when mandy jins of the +prastramengro an’ the bitcherin’ mush (krallis mush) is +wafrier than any chucknee or būsaha, an’ they’d kair +mandy to praster my míramon (miraben) avree any divvus.”</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a man stole a horse and ran him away into another country, and +the horse and the man became very intimate. Said the horse to +the man, “I like your things to wear better than I do mine, for +there’s no whip or spur among them.” “No,” +replied the man; “the fear I have when I think of the policeman +and of the judge (sending or “transporting” man, or king’s +man) is worse than any whip or spur, and they would make me run my life +away any day.”</p> +<h3>GUDLO XV. THE HALF-BLOOD GIPSY, HIS WIFE, AND THE PIG.</h3> +<p>’Pré yeck divvus there was a mush a-piin’ mā +his Rommany chals adrée a kitchema, an’ pauli a chairus +he got pash mātto. An’ he penned about mullo baulors, +that <i>he</i> never hawed kek. Kennā-sig his juvo welled +adrée an’ putched him to jāl kerri, but yuv pookered +her, “Kek—I won’t jāl kenna.” Then +she penned, “Well alang, the chavvis got kek hābben.” +So she putchered him ajaw an’ ajaw, an’ he always rākkered +her pauli “Kek.” So she lelled a mullo baulor ap her +dumo and wussered it ’pré the haumescro pré saw +the foki, an’ penned, “Lel the mullo baulor an’ rummer +it, an’ mandy’ll dick pauli the chavos.”</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once there was a man drinking with his Gipsy fellows in an alehouse, +and after a while he got half drunk. And he said of pigs that +had died a natural death, <i>he</i> never ate any. By-and-by his +wife came in and asked him to go home, but he told her, “No—I +won’t go now.” Then she said, “Come along, the +children have no food.” So she entreated him again and again, +and he always answered “No.” So she took a pig that +had died a natural death, from her back and threw it on the table before +all the people, and said, “Take the dead pig for a wife, and I +will look after the children.” <a name="citation218"></a><a href="#footnote218">{218}</a></p> +<h3>GUDLO XVI. THE GIPSY TELLS THE STORY OF THE SEVEN WHISTLERS.</h3> +<p>My raia, the gudlo of the Seven Whistlers, you jin, is adrée +the Scriptures—so they pookered mandy.</p> +<p>An’ the Seven Whistlers (<i>Efta Shellengeri</i>) is seven +spirits of rānis that jāl by the ratti, ’pré +the bávol, parl the heb, like chíllicos. An’ +it pookers ’drée the Bible that the Seven Whistlers shell +wherever they praster atút the bávol. But adúro +timeus yeck jālled avree an’ got nashered, and kennā +there’s only shove; but they pens ’em the Seven Whistlers. +An’ that sims the story tute pookered mandy of the Seven Stars.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Sir, the story of the Seven Whistlers, you know, is in the Scriptures—so +they told me.</p> +<p>An’ the Seven Whistlers are seven spirits of ladies that go +by the night, through the air, over the heaven, like birds. And +it tells (us) in the Bible that the Seven Whistlers whistle wherever +they fly across the air. But a long time ago one went away and +got lost, and now there are only six; but they call them the Seven Whistlers. +And that is like the story you told me of the Seven Stars. <a name="citation219"></a><a href="#footnote219">{219}</a></p> +<h3>GUDLO XVII. AN OLD STORY WELL KNOWN TO ALL GIPSIES.</h3> +<p>A Rommany rákli yeckorus jālled to a ker a-dukkerin’. +A’ter she jālled avree, the rákli of the ker missered +a plāchta, and pookered the rye that the Rommany chi had chored +it. So the rye jālled aduro pauli the tem, and latched the +Rommany chals, and bitchered them to stáruben. Now this +was adrée the púro chairus when they used to nasher mushis +for any bitti cóvvo. And some of the Rommany chals were +nashered, an’ some pannied. An’ sār the gunnos, +an’ kávis, and cóvvas of the Rommanis were chivved +and pordered kéttenus ’pré the bor adrée +the cángry-pūv, an’ kek mush tooled ’em. +An’ trin dood (or munti) pauli, the rákli was kairin’ +the baulors’ habben at the kókero ker, when she latched +the plāchta they nashered trin dood adóvo divvus. +So the rákli jālled with the plachta ta lāki rye, and +penned, “Dick what I kaired on those chúvvenny, chori Rommany +chals that were náshered and pannied for adóvo bitti cóvvo +adöi!”</p> +<p>And when they jālled to dick at the Rommanis’ cóvvas +pauli the bor adrée the cángry-pūv, the gunnos were +pordo and chivved adrée, chingered saw to cut-engroes, and they +latched ’em full o’ ruppeny covvos—rooys an’ +churls of sonnakai, an’ oras, curros an’ piimangris, that +had longed o’ the Rommany chals that were nashered an’ bitschered +pādel.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>A Gipsy girl once went to a house to tell fortunes. After she +went away, the girl of the house missed a pudding-bag (literally, <i>linen +cloth</i>), and told the master the Gipsy girl had stolen it. +So the master went far about the country, and found the Gipsies, and +sent them to prison. Now this was in the old time when they used +to hang people for any little thing. And some of the Gipsies were +hung, and some transported (literally, <i>watered</i>). And all +the bags, and kettles, and things of the Gipsies were thrown and piled +together behind the hedge in the churchyard, and no man touched them. +And three months after, the maid was preparing the pigs’ food +at the same house, when she found the linen cloth they lost three months +(before) that day. So the girl went with the cloth to her master, +and said, “See what I did to those poor, poor Gipsies that were +hung and transported for that trifle (there)!”</p> +<p>And when they went to look at the Gipsies’ things behind the +hedge in the churchyard, the bags were full and burst, torn all to rags, +and they found them full of silver things—spoons and knives of +gold, and watches, cups and teapots, that had belonged to the Gipsies +that were hung and transported. <a name="citation221a"></a><a href="#footnote221a">{221a}</a></p> +<h3>GUDLO XVIII. HOW THE GIPSY WENT TO CHURCH.</h3> +<p>Did mandy ever jāl to kangry? Āvali, dui koppas, +and beshed a lay odöi. I was adrée the tāle tem +o’ sār, an’ a rye putched mandy to well to kangry, +an’ I welled. And sār the ryas an’ ranis dicked +at mandy as I jālled adrée. <a name="citation221b"></a><a href="#footnote221b">{221b}</a> +So I beshed pukkenus mongin some geeros and dicked upar again the chumure +praller my sherro, and there was a deer and a kanengro odöi chinned +in the bar, an’ kaired kushto. I shooned the rashai a-rākkerin’; +and when the shunaben was kérro, I welled avree and jālled +alay the drum to the kitchema.</p> +<p>I latchered the raias mush adrée the kitchema; so we got mātto +odöi, an’ were jallin’ kerri alay the drum when we +dicked the raias wardo a-wellin’. So we jālled sig +’dusta parl the bor, an’ gavered our kokeros odöi adrée +the pūv till the rye had jessed avree.</p> +<p>I dicked adovo rye drée the sala, and he putched mandy what +I’d kaired the cauliko, pāsh kangry. I pookered him +I’d pii’d dui or trin curros levinor and was pāsh mātto. +An’ he penned mandy, “My mush was mātto sār tute, +and I nashered him.” I pookered him ajaw, “I hope +not, rya, for such a bitti covvo as dovo; an’ he aint cāmmoben +to piin’ levinor, he’s only used to pabengro, that don’t +kair him mātto.” But kek, the choro mush had to jāl +avree. An’ that’s sār I can rakker tute about +my jāllin’ to kangry.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Did I ever go to church? Yes, twice, and sat down there. +I was in the lower land of all (Cornwall), and a gentleman asked me +to go to church, and I went. And all the ladies and gentlemen +looked at me as I went in. So I sat quietly among some men and +looked up on the wall above my head, and there were a deer and a rabbit +cut in the stone, beautifully done. I heard the clergyman speaking; +and when the sermon was ended (literally, made), I came out and went +down the road to the alehouse.</p> +<p>I found the gentleman’s servant in the alehouse; so we got +drunk there, and were going home down the road when we saw the gentleman’s +carriage coming. So we went quickly enough over the hedge, and +hid ourselves there in the field until the gentleman was gone.</p> +<p>I saw the gentleman in the morning, and he asked me what I had done +the day before, after church. I told him I’d drunk two or +three cups of ale and was half tipsy. And he said, “My man +was drunk as you, and I sent him off.” I told him then, +“I hope not, sir, for such a little thing as that; and he is not +used to drink ale, he’s only accustomed to cider, that don’t +intoxicate him.” But no, the poor man had to go away. +<i>And that’s all I can tell you about my going to church</i>.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XIX. WHAT THE LITTLE GIPSY GIRL TOLD HER BROTHER.</h3> +<p>Penned the tikni Rommani chavi lāki pal, “More mor the +pishom, ’cause she’s a Rommani, and kairs her jivaben jāllin’ +parl the tem dukkerin’ the ruzhas and lellin’ the gudlo +avree ’em, sār moro dye dukkers the rānis. An’ +mā wusser bars at the rookas, ’cause they’re kaulos, +an’ kaulo rātt is Rommany rātt. An’ maun +pogger the bawris, for yuv rikkers his tan pré the dumo, sār +moro puro dádas, an’ so yuv’s Rommany.”</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Said the little Gipsy girl to her brother, “Don’t kill +the bee, because she is a Gipsy, and makes her living going about the +country telling fortunes to the flowers and taking honey out of them, +as our mother tells fortunes to the ladies. And don’t throw +stones at the rooks, because they are dark, and dark blood is Gipsy +blood. And don’t crush the snail, for he carries his tent +on his back, like our old father” (<i>i.e</i>., carries his home +about, and so he too is Rommany).</p> +<h3>GUDLO XX. HOW CHARLEY LEE PLAYED AT PITCH-AND-TOSS.</h3> +<p>I jinned a tāno mush yeckorus that nashered sār his wongur +’drée the toss-ring. Then he jālled kerri to +his dádas’ kanyas and lelled pange bar avree. Paul’ +a bitti chairus he dicked his dádas an’ pookered lester +he’d lelled pange bar avree his gunnas. But yuv’s +dádas penned, “Jāl an, kair it ajaw and win some wongur +againus!” So he jālled apopli to the toss-ring an’ +lelled sār his wongur pauli, an’ pange bar ferridearer. +So he jālled ajaw kerri to the tan, an’ dicked his dádas +beshtin’ alay by the rikk o’ the tan, and his dádas +penned, “Sā did you keravit, my chavo?” “Kushto, +dádas. I lelled sār my wongur pauli; and here’s +tute’s wongur acäi, an’ a bar for tute an’ shtār +bar for mi-kokero.”</p> +<p>An’ that’s tācho as ever you tool that pen in tute’s +waster—an’ dovo mush was poor Charley Lee, that’s +mullo kennā.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>I knew a little fellow once that lost all his money in the toss-ring +(<i>i.e</i>., at pitch-and-toss). Then he went home to his father’s +sacks and took five pounds out. After a little while he saw his +father and told him he’d taken five pounds from his bags. +But his father said, “Go on, spend it and win some more money!” +So he went again to the toss-ring and got all his money back, and five +pounds more. And going home, he saw his father sitting by the +side of the tent, and his father said, “How did you succeed (<i>i.e</i>., +<i>do it</i>), my son?” “Very well, father. +I got all <i>my</i> money back; and here’s <i>your</i> money now, +and a pound for you and four pounds for myself.”</p> +<p>And that’s true as ever you hold that pen in your hand—and +that man was poor Charley Lee, that’s dead now.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXI. OF THE TINKER AND THE KETTLE.</h3> +<p>A petulamengro hatched yeck divvus at a givéscro kér, +where the rāni del him māss an’ tood. While he +was hawin’ he dicked a kekávi sār chicklo an’ +bongo, pāshall a boro hev adrée, an’ he putchered, +“Del it a mandy an’ I’ll lel it avree for chichi, +’cause you’ve been so kushto an’ kāmmoben to +mandy.” So she del it a lester, an’ he jālled +avree for trin cooricus, an’ he keravit apré, an’ +kaired it pauno sār rupp. Adovo he welled akovo drum pauli, +an’ jessed to the same kér, an’ penned, “Dick +acai at covi kushti kekávi! I del shove trin mushis for +it, an’ tu shall lel it for the same wongur, ’cause you’ve +been so kushto a mandy.”</p> +<p>Dovo mush was like boot ’dusta mushis—wery cāmmoben +to his kokero.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>A tinker stopped one day at a farmer’s house, where the lady +gave him meat and milk. While he was eating he saw a kettle all +rusty and bent, with a great hole in it, and he asked, “Give it +to me and I will take it away for nothing, because you have been so +kind and obliging to me.” So she gave it to him, and he +went away for three weeks, and he repaired it (the kettle), and made +it as bright (white) as silver. Then he went that road again, +to the same house, and said, “Look here at this fine kettle! +I gave six shillings for it, and you shall have it for the same money, +because you have been so good to me.”</p> +<p>That man was like a great many men—very benevolent to himself.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXII. THE STORY OF “ROMMANY JŌTER.”</h3> +<p>If a Rommany chal gets nashered an’ can’t latch his drum +i’ the rātti, he shells avree, “<i>Hup</i>, <i>hup</i>—<i>Rom-ma-ny</i>, +<i>Rom-ma-ny jō-ter</i>!” When the chavvis can’t +latch the tan, it’s the same gudlo, “<i>Rom-ma-ny jō-ter</i>!” +Jōter pens kett’nus.</p> +<p>And yeck rātti my dádas, sixty besh kennā, was pirryin’ +par the weshes to tan, an’ he shooned a bitti gúdlo like +bitti rānis a rākkerin’ puro tácho Rommanis, +and so he jālled from yeck boro rukk to the waver, and paul’ +a cheirus he dicked a tāni rāni, and she was shellin’ +avree for her miraben, “<i>Rom-ma-ny</i>, <i>Rom-ma-ny jō-ter</i>!” +So my dáda shokkered ajaw, “<i>Rom-ma-ny chal</i>, <i>ak-ái</i>!” +But as he shelled there welled a boro bavol, and the bitti rānis +an’ sār prastered avree i’ the heb like chillicos adrée +a starmus, and all he shunned was a savvaben and “Rom-ma-ny jō-ter!” +shukàridir an’ shukàridir, pash sar was kerro.</p> +<p>An’ you can dick by dovo that the kukalos, an’ fairies, +an’ mullos, and chovihans all rākker pūro tàcho +Rommanis, ’cause that’s the old ’Gyptian jib that +was penned adrée the Scripture tem.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>If a Gipsy is lost and cannot find his way in the night, he cries +out, “Hup, hup—Rom-ma-ny, Rom-ma-ny jō-ter!” +When the children cannot find the tent, it is the same cry, “<i>Rom-ma-ny +jō-ter</i>!” Joter means together.</p> +<p>And one night my father, sixty years ago (literally, <i>now</i>), +was walking through the woods to his tent, and he heard a little cry +like little ladies talking real old Gipsy, and so he went from one great +tree to the other (<i>i.e</i>., concealing himself), and after a while +he saw a little lady, and she was crying out as if for her life, “<i>Rom-ma-ny</i>, +<i>Rom-ma-ny jō-ter</i>!” So my father cried again, +“<i>Gipsy</i>, <i>here</i>!” But as he hallooed there +came a great blast of wind, and the little ladies and all flew away +in the sky like birds in a storm, and all he heard was a laughing and +“<i>Rom-ma-ny jō-ter</i>!” softer and softer, till +all was done.</p> +<p>And you can see by that that the goblins (dwarfs, mannikins), and +fairies, and ghosts, and witches, and all talk real old Gipsy, because +that is the old Egyptian language that was talked in the Scripture land.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXIII. OF THE RICH GIPSY AND THE PHEASANT.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a Rommany chal kaired adusta wongur, and was boot barvelo +an’ a boro rye. His chuckko was kāshno, an’ the +crafnies ’pré lester chuckko were o’ sonnakai, and +his graias solivaris an’ guiders were sār ruppeny. +Yeck divvus this here Rommany rye was hawin’ habben anerjāl +the krallis’s chavo, an’ they hatched adrée a weshni +kānni that was kannelo, but saw the mushis penned it was kūshtidearer. +“Bless mi-Duvel!” rākkered the Rommany rye shukár +to his juvo, “tu and mandy have hawed mullo mass boot ’dusta +cheiruses, mi-deari, but never soomed kek so wafro as dovo. It +kauns worse than a mullo grai!”</p> +<p>Boro mushis an’ bitti mushis sometimes kaum covvas that waver +mushis don’t jin.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a Gipsy made much money, and was very rich and a great gentleman. +His coat was silk, and the buttons on his coat were of gold, and his +horse’s bridle and reins were all silver. One day this Gipsy +gentleman was eating (at table) opposite to the king’s son, and +they brought in a pheasant that smelt badly, but all the people said +it was excellent. “Bless me, God!” said the Gipsy +gentleman softly (whispering) to his wife, “you and I have eaten +dead meat (meat that died a natural death) many a time, my dear, but +never smelt anything so bad as that. It stinks worse than a dead +horse!”</p> +<p>Great men and small men sometimes like (agree in liking things) that +which other people do not understand.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXIV. THE GIPSY AND THE “VISITING-CARDS.”</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a choro Rommany chal dicked a rāni hatch taller the +wuder of a boro ker an’ mukked adovo a bitti lil. Then he +putched the rakli, when the rāni jessed avree, what the lil kaired. +Adoi the rakli pukkered lesco it was for her rāni ta jin kun’d +welled a dick her. “Āvali!” penned the Rommany +chal; “<i>that’s</i> the way the Gorgios mukks their patteran! +<i>We</i> mukks char apré the drum.”</p> +<p>The grai mukks his pirro apré the drum, an’ the sap +kairs his trail adrée the pūv.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a poor Gipsy saw a lady stop before the door of a great house +and left there a card (little letter). Then he asked the girl, +when the lady went away, what the card meant (literally, <i>did</i>). +Then (there) the girl told him it was for her lady to know who had come +to see her. “Yes!” said the Gipsy; “so that +is the way the Gorgios leave their sign! <i>We</i> leave grass +on the road.”</p> +<p>The horse leaves his track on the road, and the snake makes his trail +in the dust.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXV. THE GIPSY IN THE FOREST.</h3> +<p>When I was beshin’ alay adrée the wesh tāle the +bori rukkas, mandy putched a tikno chillico to latch mandy a bitti moro, +but it jālled avree an’ I never dicked it kekoomi. +Adöi I putched a boro chillico to latch mandy a curro o’ +tatti panni, but it jālled avree paul’ the waver. Mandy +never putchered the rukk parl my sherro for kek, but when the bàvol +welled it wussered a lay to mandy a hundred ripe kóri.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>When I was sitting down in the forest under the great trees, I asked +a little bird to bring (find) me a little bread, but it went away and +I never saw it again. Then I asked a great bird to bring me a +cup of brandy, but it flew away after the other. I never asked +the tree over my head for anything, but when the wind came it threw +down to me a hundred ripe nuts.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXVI. THE GIPSY FIDDLER AND THE YOUNG LADY.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a tāno mush was kellin’ kushto pré the +boshomengro, an’ a kushti dickin rāni pookered him, “Tute’s +killaben is as sāno as best-tood.” And he rākkered +ajaw, “Tute’s mui’s gudlo sār pishom, an’ +I’d cāmmoben to puraben mi tood for tute’s pishom.”</p> +<p>Kushto pāsh kushto kairs ferridearer.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a young man was playing well upon the violin, and a beautiful +lady told him, “Your playing is as soft as cream.” +And he answered, “Your mouth (<i>i.e</i>., lips or words) is sweet +as honey, and I would like to exchange my cream for your honey.”</p> +<p>Good with good makes better.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXVII. HOW THE GIPSY DANCED A HOLE THROUGH A STONE.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus some plochto Rommany chals an’ juvas were kellin’ +the pāsh-divvus by dood tall’ a boro kér, and yeck +penned the waver, “I’d be cāmmoben if dovo kér +was mandy’s.” And the rye o’ the kér, +kún sus dickin’ the kellaben, rākkered, “When +tute kells a hev muscro the bar you’re hatchin’ apré, +mandy’ll del tute the ker.” Adöi the Rom tarried +the bar apré, an’ dicked it was hollow tāle, and sār +a curro ’pré the waver rikk. So he lelled dui sastern +chokkas and kelled sār the rātti ’pré the bar, +kairin’ such a gúdlo you could shoon him a mee avree; an’ +adrée the sala he had kaired a hev adrée the bar as boro +as lesters sherro. So the barvelo rye del him the fino ker, and +sār the mushis got mātto, hallauter kettenus.</p> +<p>Many a cheirus I’ve shooned my puri dye pen that a bar with +a hev adrée it kairs kāmmoben.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once some jolly Gipsy men and girls were dancing in the evening by +moonlight before a great house, and one said to the other, “I’d +be glad if that house was mine.” And the gentleman of the +house, who was looking at the dancing, said, “When you dance a +hole through (in the centre of) the stone you are standing on, I’ll +give you the house.” Then the Gipsy pulled the stone up, +and saw it was hollow underneath, and like a cup on the other side. +So he took two iron shoes and danced all night on the stone, making +such a noise you could hear him a mile off; and in the morning he had +made a hole in the stone as large as his head. So the rich gentleman +gave him the fine house, and all the people got drunk, all together.</p> +<p>Many a time I’ve heard my old mother say that a stone with +a hole in it brings luck.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXVIII. STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN AND THE GIPSY.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a boro rye wouldn’t mukk a choro, pauvero, chovveny +Rommany chal hatch odöi ’pré his farm. So the +Rommany chal jālled on a puv apré the waver rikk o’ +the drum, anerjal the ryas beshaben. And dovo rātti the ryas +ker pelled alay; kek kāsh of it hatched apré, only the foki +that loddered adöi hullered their kokeros avree mā their miraben. +And the ryas tikno chavo would a-mullered if a Rommany juva had not +lelled it avree their pauveri bitti tan.</p> +<p>An’ dovo’s sār <i>tacho like my dad</i>, an’ +to the divvus kennā they pens that pūv the Rommany Pūv.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a great gentleman would not let a poor, poor, poor Gipsy stay +on his farm. So the Gipsy went to a field on the other side of +the way, opposite the gentleman’s residence. And that night +the gentleman’s house fell down; not a stick of it remained standing, +only the people who lodged there carried themselves out (<i>i.e</i>., +escaped) with their lives. And the gentleman’s little babe +would have died if a Gipsy woman had not taken it into their poor little +tent.</p> +<p>And that’s all <i>true as my father</i>, and to this day they +call that field the Gipsy Field.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXIX. HOW THE GIPSY WENT INTO THE WATER.</h3> +<p>Yeck divvus a prastramengro prastered pauli a Rommany chal, an’ +the chal jālled adrée the panni, that was pordo o’ +boro bittis o’ floatin’ shill, and there he hatched pāll +his men with only his sherro avree. “Hav avree,” shelled +a rye that was wafro in his see for the pooro mush, “an’ +we’ll mukk you jāl!” “Kek,” penned +the Rom; “I shan’t jāl.” “Well avree,” +penned the rye ajaw, “an’ I’ll del tute pange bar!” +“<i>Kek</i>,” rakkered the Rom. “Jāl avree,” +shokkered the rye, “an’ I’ll del tute pange bar an’ +a nevvi chukko!” “Will you del mandy a walin o’ +tatto panni too?” putched the Rommany chal. “Āvail, +ávail,” penned the rye; “but for Duveleste hav’ +avree the panni!” “Kushto,” penned the Rommany +chal, “for cāmmoben to tute, rya, I’ll jāl avree!” +<a name="citation235"></a><a href="#footnote235">{235}</a></p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a policeman chased a Gipsy, and the Gipsy ran into the river, +that was full of great pieces of floating ice, and there he stood up +to his neck with only his head out. “Come out,” cried +a gentleman that pitied the poor man, “and we’ll let you +go!” “No,” said the Gipsy; “I won’t +move.” “Come out,” said the gentleman again, +“and I’ll give you five pounds!” “No,” +said the Gipsy. “Come out,” cried the gentleman, “and +I’ll give you five pounds and a new coat!” “Will +you give me a glass of brandy too?” asked the Gipsy. “Yes, +yes,” said the gentleman; “but for God’s sake come +out of the water!” “Well,” exclaimed the Gipsy, +“to oblige you, sir, I’ll come out!”</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXX. THE GIPSY AND HIS TWO MASTERS.</h3> +<p>“Savo’s tute’s rye?” putched a ryas mush +of a Rommany chal. “I’ve dui ryas,” pooked the +Rommany chal: “Duvel’s the yeck an’ beng’s the +waver. Mandy kairs booti for the beng till I’ve lelled my +yeckora habben, an’ pallers mi Duvel pauli ajaw.”</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>“Who is your master?” asked a gentleman’s servant +of a Gipsy. “I’ve two masters,” said the Gipsy: +“God is the one, and the devil is the other. I work for +the devil till I have got my dinner (one-o’clock food), and after +that follow the Lord.”</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXI. THE LITTLE GIPSY BOY AT THE SILVERSMITH’S.</h3> +<p>A bitti chavo jalled adrée the boro gav pāsh his dàdas, +an’ they hatched taller the hev of a ruppenomengro’s buddika +sār pordo o’ kushti-dickin covvas. “O dàdas,” +shelled the tikno chavo, “what a boro choroméngro dovo +mush must be to a’ lelled so boot adusta rooys an’ horas!”</p> +<p>A tácho cóvva often dicks sār a hokkeny (huckeny) +cóvva; an dovo’s sim of a tácho mush, but a juva +often dicks tácho when she isn’t.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>A little boy went to the great village (<i>i.e</i>., London) with +his father, and they stopped before the window of a silversmith’s +shop all full of pretty things. “O father,” cried +the small boy, “what a great thief that man must be to have got +so many spoons and watches!”</p> +<p>A true thing often looks like a false one; and the same is true (and +that’s <i>same</i>) of a true man, but a girl often looks right +when she is not.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXII. THE GIPSY’S DREAM.</h3> +<p>Mandy sūtto’d I was pirraben lang o’ tute, an’ +I dicked mandy’s pen odöi ’pré the choomber. +Then I was pirryin’ ajaw parl the puvius, an’ I welled to +the panni paul’ the Beng’s Choomber, an’ adöi +I dicked some rānis, saw nāngo barrin’ a pauno plāchta +’pré lengis sherros, adree the panni pāsh their bukkos. +An’ I pookered lengis, “Mi-rānis, I putch tute’s +cāmmoben; I didn’t jin tute sus acai.” But yeck +pré the wavers penned mandy boot kushti cāmmoben, “Chichi, +mor dukker your-kokero; we just welled alay acai from the kér +to lel a bitti bath.” An’ she savvy’d sā +kushto, but they all jalled avree glan mandy sār the bavol, an’ +tute was hatchin’ pāsh a maudy sār the cheirus.</p> +<p>So it pens, “when you dick rānis sār dovo, you’ll +muller kushto.” Well, if it’s to be akovo, I kaum +it’ll be a booti cheirus a-wellin.’ Tácho!</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>I dreamed I was walking with you, and I saw my sister (a fortune-teller) +there upon the hill. Then I (found myself) walking again over +the field, and I came to the water near the Devil’s Dyke, and +there I saw some ladies, quite naked excepting a white cloth on their +heads, in the water to the waists. And I said to them, “Ladies, +I beg your pardon; I did not know you were here.” But one +among the rest said to me very kindly, “No matter, don’t +trouble yourself; we just came down here from the house to take a little +bath.” And she smiled sweetly, but they all vanished before +me like the cloud (wind), and you were standing by me all the time.</p> +<p>So it means, “<i>when you see ladies like that, you will die +happily</i>.” Well, if it’s to be that, I hope it +will be a long time coming. Yes, indeed.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXIII. OF THE GIRL AND HER LOVER.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus, boot hundred beshes the divvus acai, a juva was wellin’ +to chore a yora. “Mukk mandy hatch,” penned the yora, +“an’ I’ll sikker tute ki tute can lel a tikno pappni.” +So the juva lelled the tikno pappni, and it pookered lāki, “Mukk +mandy jāl an’ I’ll sikker tute ki tute can chore a +bori kāni.” Then she chored the bori kāni, an’ +it shelled avree, “Mukk mandy jāl an’ I’ll sikker +tute ki you can loure a rāni-chillico.” And when she +lelled the rāni-chillico, it penned, “Mukk mandy jāl +an’ I’ll sikker tute odöi ki tute can lel a guruvni’s +tikno.” So she lelled the guruvni’s tikno, an’ +it shokkered and ruvved, an’ rākkered, “Mukk mandy +jāl an’ I’ll sikker tute where to lel a fino grai.” +An’ when she loured the grai, it penned lāki, “Mukk +mandy jāl an’ I’ll rikker tute to a kushto-dick barvelo +rye who kaums a pirreny.” So she lelled the kushto tauno +rye, an’ she jivved with lester kushto yeck cooricus; but pāsh +dovo he pookered her to jāl avree, he didn’t kaum her kekoomi. +“Sā a wafro mush is tute,” ruvved the rakli, “to +bitcher mandy avree! For tute’s cāmmoben I delled avree +a yora, a tikno pappni, a boro kāni, a rāni-chillico, a guruvni’s +tikno, an’ a fino grai.” “Is dovo tácho?” +putched the raklo. “’Pré my mullo dàdas!” +sovahalled the rākli,” I del ’em sār apré +for tute, yeck paul the waver, an’ kennā tu bitchers mandy +avree!” “So ’p mi-Duvel!” penned the rye, +“if tute nashered sār booti covvas for mandy, I’ll +rummer tute.” So they were rummobend.</p> +<p>Āvali, there’s huckeny (hokkeny) tàchobens and +tacho hùckabens. You can sovahall pré the lil adovo.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once, many hundred years ago (to-day now), a girl was going to steal +an egg. “Let me be,” said the egg, “and I will +show you where you can get a duck.” So the girl got the +duck, and it said (told) to her, “Let me go and I will show you +where you can get a goose” (large hen). Then she stole the +goose, and it cried out, “Let me go and I’ll show you where +you can steal a turkey” (lady-bird). And when she took the +turkey, it said, “Let me go and I’ll show you where you +can get a calf.” So she got the calf, and it bawled and +wept, and cried, “Let me go and I’ll show you where to get +a fine horse.” And when she stole the horse, it said to +her, “Let me go and I’ll carry you to a handsome, rich gentleman +who wants a sweetheart.” So she got the nice young gentleman, +and lived with him pleasantly one week; but then he told her to go away, +he did not want her any more. “What a bad man you are,” +wept the girl, “to send me away! For your sake I gave away +an egg, a duck, a goose, a turkey, a calf, and a fine horse.” +“Is that true?” asked the youth. “By my dead +father!” swore the girl, “I gave them all up for you, one +after the other, and now you send me away!” “So help +me God!” said the gentleman, “if you lost so many things +for me, I’ll marry you.” So they were married.</p> +<p>Yes, there are false truths and true lies. You may kiss the +book on <i>that</i>.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXIV. THE GIPSY TELLS OF WILL-O’-THE-WISP.</h3> +<p>Does mandy jin the lav adrée Rommanis for a Jack-o’-lantern—the +dood that prasters, and hatches, an’ kells o’ the rātti, +parl the panni, adrée the puvs? <i>Avali</i>; some pens +’em the Momeli Mullos, and some the Bitti Mullos. They’re +bitti geeros who rikker tute adrée the gógemars, an’ +sikker tute a dood till you’re all jālled apré a wafro +drum an nashered, an’ odöi they chiv their kokeros pāuli +an’ savs at tute. Mandy’s dicked their doods ádusta +cheiruses, an’ kekoomi; but my pal dicked längis muis pāsh +mungwe yeck rātti. He was jāllin’ langus an’ +dicked their doods, and jinned it was the yāg of lesters tan. +So he pallered ’em, an’ they tàdered him dúkker +the drum, parl the bors, weshes, puvius, gogemars, till they lelled +him adrée the panni, an then savvy’d avree. And odöi +he dicked lender pré the waver rikk, mā lesters kokerus +yākkis, an’ they were bitti mushis, bitti chovihānis, +about dui peeras boro. An’ my pal was bengis hunnalo, an’ +sovahalled pal’ lengis, “If I lelled you acai, you ratfolly +juckos! if I nashered you, I’d chin tutes curros!” +An’ he jālled to tan ajaw an’ pookered mandy saw dovo +’pré dovo rat. “Kún sus adovo?” +Āvali, rya; dovo was pāsh Kaulo Panni—near Blackwater.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Do I know the word in Rommanis for a Jack-o’-lantern—the +light that runs, and stops, and dances by night, over the water, in +the fields? Yes; some call them the Light Ghosts, and some the +Little Ghosts. They’re little men who lead you into the +waste and swampy places, and show you a light until you have gone astray +and are lost, and then they turn themselves around and laugh at you. +I have seen their lights many a time, and nothing more; but my brother +saw their faces close and opposite to him (directly <i>vis-à-vis</i>) +one night. He was going along and saw their lights, and thought +it was the fire of his tent. So he followed them, and they drew +him from the road over hedges, woods, fields, and lonely marshes till +they got him in the water, and then laughed out loud. And there +he saw them with his own eyes, on the opposite side, and they were little +fellows, little goblins, about two feet high. And my brother was +devilish angry, and swore at them! “If I had you here, you +wretched dogs! if I caught you, I’d cut your throats!” +And he went home and told me all that that night. “<i>Where +was it</i>?” Yes, sir; that was near Blackwater.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXV. THE GIPSY EXPLAINS WHY THE FLOUNDER HAS HIS MOUTH +ON ONE SIDE.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus sār the matchis jālled an’ suvved kettenescrus +’drée the panni. And yeck penned as yuv was a boro +mush, an’ the waver rakkered ajaw sā yuv was a borodiro mush, +and sār pookered sigán ket’nus how lengis were borodirer +mushis. Adöi the flounder shelled avree for his meriben “Mandy’s +the krallis of you sār!” an’ he shelled so surrelo +he kaired his mui bongo, all o’ yeck rikkorus. So to akovo +divvus acäi he’s penned the Krallis o’ the Matchis, +and rikkers his mui bongo sār o’ yeck sidus.</p> +<p>Mushis shouldn’t shell too shunaben apré lengis kokeros.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once all the fish came and swam together in the water. And +one said that he was a great person, and the other declared that he +was a greater person, and (at last) all cried out at once what great +characters (men) they all were. Then the flounder shouted for +his life, “I’m the king of you all!” and he roared +so violently he twisted his mouth all to one side. So to this +day he is called the King of the Fishes, and bears his face crooked +all on one side.</p> +<p>Men should not boast too loudly of themselves.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXVI. A GIPSY ACCOUNT OF THE TRUE ORIGIN OF THE FISH +CALLED OLD MAIDS OR YOUNG MAIDS.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus kushti-dickin raklos were suvvin’ ’drée +the lun panni, and there welled odoi some plochti rāklis an’ +juvas who pooked the tāno ryas to hav’ avree an’ choomer +’em. But the rāklos wouldn’t well avree, so the +rānis rikkered their rivabens avree an’ pirried adrée +the panni paul’ lendy. An’ the ryas who were kandered +alay, suvved andurer ’drée the panni, an’ the rānis +pallered ’em far avree till they were saw latchered, rāklos +and rāklis. So the tauno ryas were purabened into Barini +Mushi Matchis because they were too ladge (latcho) of the rānis +that kaumed ’em, and the rānis were kaired adrée Puri +Rāni Matchis and Tāni Rāni Matchis because they were +too tatti an’ ruzli.</p> +<p>Rāklos shouldn’t be too ladge, nor rāklis be too +boro of their kokeros.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once some handsome youths were swimming in the sea, and there came +some wanton women and girls who told the young men to come out and kiss +them. But the youths would not come out, so the ladies stripped +themselves and ran into the water after them. And the gentles +who were driven away swam further into the water, and the ladies followed +them far away till all were lost, boys and girls. So the young +men were changed into Codfish because they were too shy of the girls +that loved them, and the ladies were turned into Old Maids and Young +Maids because they were too wanton and bold.</p> +<p>Men should not be too modest, nor girls too forward.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXVII. HOW LORD COVENTRY LEAPED THE GIPSY TENT. +A TRUE STORY.</h3> +<p>I dicked Lord Coventry at the Worcester races. He kistured +lester noko grai adrée the steeple-chase for the ruppeny—kek,—a +sonnakai tank I think it was,—but he nashered. It was dovo +tāno rye that yeck divvus in his noko park dicked a Rommany chal’s +tan pāsh the rikk of a bor; and at yeck leap he kistered apré +the bor, and jālled right atut an’ parl the Rommany chal’s +tan. “Ha, kún’s acai?” he shelled, as +he dicked the tikno kaulos; “a Rommany chal’s tan!” +And from dovo divvus he mukked akovo Rom hatch his cāmmoben ’pré +his puv. Tácho.</p> +<p>Ruzlo mushis has boro sees.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>I saw Lord Coventry at the Worcester races. He rode his own +horse in the steeple-chase for the silver—no, it was a gold tankard, +I think, but he lost.</p> +<p>It was that young gentleman who one day in his own park saw a Gipsy +tent by the side of a hedge, and took a flying leap over tent, hedge, +and all. “Ha, what’s here?” he cried, as he +saw the little brown children; “a Gipsy’s tent!” +And from that day he let that Gipsy stay as much as he pleased on his +land.</p> +<p>Bold men have generous hearts.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXVIII. OF MR BARTLETT’S LEAP.</h3> +<p>Dovo’s sim to what they pens of Mr Bartlett in Glo’stershire, +who had a fino tem pāsh Glo’ster an’ Bristol, where +he jivved adrée a boro ker. Kek mush never dicked so booti +weshni juckalos or weshni kannis as yuv rikkered odöi. They +prastered atūt saw the drumyas sim as kanyas. Yeck divvus +he was kisterin’ on a kushto grai, an’ he dicked a Rommany +chal rikkerin’ a truss of gib-pūss ’pré lester +dūmo prāl a bitti drum, an’ kistered ’pré +the pooro mush, pūss an’ sār. I jins that puro +mush better ’n I jins tute, for I was a’ter yeck o’ +his raklis yeckorus; he had kushti-dick raklis, an’ he was old +Knight Locke. “Puro,” pens the rye, “did I kair +you trash?” “I māng tūte’s shunaben, +rya,” pens Locke pauli; “I didn’t jin tute sus wellin’!” +So puro Locke hatched odöi ’pré dovo tem sār +his miraben, an’ that was a kushti covva for the puro Locke.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>That is like what is told of Mr Bartlett in Gloucestershire, who +had a fine place near Gloucester and Bristol, where he lived in a great +house. No man ever saw so many foxes or pheasants as he kept there. +They ran across all the paths like hens. One day he was riding +on a fine horse, when he saw a Gipsy carrying a truss of wheat-straw +on his back up a little path, and leaped over the poor man, straw and +all. I knew that old man better than I know you, for I was after +one of his daughters then; he had beautiful girls, and he was old Knight +Locke. “Old fellow,” said the gentleman, “did +I frighten you?” “I beg your pardon, sir,” said +Locke after him; “I didn’t know you were coming!” +So old Locke stayed on that land all his life, and that was a good thing +for old Locke.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XXXIX. THE GIPSY, THE PIG, AND THE MUSTARD.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a Rommany chal jālled to a boro givescroker sā’s +the rye sus hawin’. And sikk’s the Rom wan’t +a-dickin’, the rye all-sido pordered a kell-mallico pāsh +kris, an’ del it to the Rommany chal. An’ sā’s +the kris dantered adrée his gullo, he was pāsh tassered, +an’ the panni welled in his yākkas. Putched the rye, +“Kún’s tute ruvvin’ ajaw for?” +An’ he rākkered pauli, “The kris lelled mandys bávol +ajaw.” Penned the rye, “I kaum the kris’ll del +tute kushti bāk.” “Parraco, rya,” penned +the Rom pauli; “I’ll kommer it kairs dovo.” +Sikk’s the rye bitchered his sherro, the Rommany chal loured the +krissko-curro mā the ruppeny rooy, an’ kek dicked it. +The waver divvus anpauli, dovo Rom jālled to the ryas baulo-tan, +an’ dicked odöi a boro rikkeno baulo, an’ gillied, +“I’ll dick acai if I can kair tute ruv a bitti.”</p> +<p>Now, rya, you must jin if you del a baulor kris adrée a pābo, +he can’t shell avree or kair a gudlo for his miraben, an’ +you can rikker him bissin’, or chiv him apré a wardo, an’ +jāl andūrer an’ kek jin it. An’ dovo’s +what the Rommany chal kaired to the baulor, pāsh the sim kris; +an’ as he bissered it avree an’ pakkered it adrée +a gunno, he penned shukkár adrée the baulor’s kan, +“Cālico tute’s rye hatched my bavol, an’ the +divvus I’ve hatched tute’s; an’ yeckorus your rye +kaumed the kris would del mandy kushti bāk, and kennā it <i>has</i> +del mengy kushtier bāk than ever he jinned.</p> +<p>Ryes must be sig not to kair pyass an’ trickis atop o’ +choro mushis.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a Gipsy went to a great farmhouse as the gentleman sat at table +eating. And so soon as the Gipsy looked away, the gentleman very +quietly filled a cheese-cake with mustard and gave it to the Gipsy. +When the mustard bit in his throat, he was half choked, and the tears +came into his eyes. The gentleman asked him, “What are you +weeping for now?” And he replied, “The mustard took +my breath away.” The gentleman said, “I hope the mustard +will give you good luck!” “Thank you, sir,” +answered the Gipsy; “I’ll take care it does” (that). +As soon as the gentleman turned his head, the Gipsy stole the mustard-pot +with the silver spoon, and no one saw it. The next day after, +that Gipsy went to the gentleman’s pig-pen, and saw there a great +fine-looking pig, and sang, “I’ll see now if I can make +<i>you</i> weep a bit.”</p> +<p>Now, sir, you must know that if you give a pig mustard in an apple, +he can’t cry out or squeal for his life, and you can carry him +away, or throw him on a waggon, and get away, and nobody will know it. +And that is what the Gipsy did to the pig, with the same mustard; and +as he ran it away and put it in a bag, he whispered softly into the +pig’s ear, “Yesterday your master stopped my breath, and +to-day I’ve stopped yours; and once your master hoped the mustard +would give me good luck, and now it <i>has</i> given me better luck +than he ever imagined.”</p> +<p>Gentlemen must be careful not to make sport of and play tricks on +poor men.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XL. EXPLAINING THE ORIGIN OF A CURRENT GIPSY PROVERB +OR SAYING.</h3> +<p>Trin or shtor beshes pauli kennā yeck o’ the Petulengros +dicked a boro mullo baulor adrée a bitti drum. An’ +sig as he latched it, some Rommany chals welled alay an’ dicked +this here Rommany chal. So Petulengro he shelled avree, “A +fino baulor! saw tulloben! jāl an the sala an’ you shall +have pāsh.” And they welled apopli adrée the +sāla and lelled pāsh sār tacho. And ever sense +dovo divvus it’s a rākkerben o’ the Rommany chals, +“Sār tulloben; jāl an the sāla an’ tute shall +lel your pash.”</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Three or four years ago one of the Smiths found a great dead pig +in a lane. And just as he found it, some Gipsies came by and saw +this Rommany. So Smith bawled out to them, “A fine pig! +all fat! come in the morning and you shall have half.” And +they returned in the morning and got half, all right. And ever +since it has been a saying with the Gipsies, “It’s <i>all +fat</i>; come in the morning and get your half.”</p> +<h3>GUDLO XLI. THE GIPSY’S FISH-HOOK.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a rye pookered a Rommany chal he might jāl matchyin’ +’drée his panni, and he’d del lester the cāmmoben +for trin mushi, if he’d only matchy with a bongo sivv an’ +a púnsy-ran. So the Rom jālled with India-drab kaired +apré moro, an’ he drabbered saw the matchas adrée +the panni, and rikkered avree his wardo sār pordo. A boro +cheirus pauli dovo, the rye dicked the Rommany chal, an’ penned, +“You choramengro, did tute lel the matchas avree my panni with +a hook?” “Āyali, rya, with a hook,” penned +the Rom pāle, werry sido. “And what kind of a hook?” +“Rya,” rākkered the Rom, “it was yeck o’ +the longi kind, what we pens in amandis jib a hookaben” (<i>i.e</i>., +huckaben or hoc’aben).</p> +<p>When you del a mush cāmmoben to lel matchyas avree tute’s +panni, you’d better hatch adoi an’ dick how he kairs it.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a gentleman told a Gipsy he might fish in his pond, and he would +give him permission to do so for a shilling, but that he must only fish +with a hook and a fishing-pole (literally, crooked needle). So +the Gipsy went with India-drab (juice of the berries of <i>Indicus cocculus</i>) +made up with bread, and poisoned all the fish in the pond, and carried +away his waggonful. A long time after, the gentleman met the Gipsy, +and said, “You thief, did you catch the fish in my pond with a +hook?” “Yes, sir, with a hook,” replied the +Gipsy very quietly. “And what kind of a hook?” +“Sir,” said the Gipsy, “it was one of the long kind, +what we call in our language a hookaben” (<i>i.e</i>., <i>a lie +or trick</i>).</p> +<p>When you give a man leave to fish in your pond, you had better be +present and see how he does it.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XLII. THE GIPSY AND THE SNAKE.</h3> +<p>If you more the first sappa you dicks, tute’ll more the first +enemy you’ve got. That’s what ’em pens, but +I don’t jin if it’s tácho or nettus. And yeckorus +there was a werry wafro mush that was allers a-kairin’ wafri covvabens. +An’ yeck divvus he dicked a sap in the wesh, an’ he prastered +paller it with a bori churi adrée lester waster and chinned her +sherro apré. An’ then he rākkered to his kokerus, +“Now that I’ve mored the sap, I’ll lel the jivaben +of my wenomest enemy.” And just as he penned dovo lav he +delled his pirro atut the danyas of a rukk, an’ pet alay and chivved +the churi adrée his bukko. An’ as he was beshin’ +alay a-mullerin’ ’drée the weshes, he penned to his +kokerus, “Āvali, I dicks kennā that dovo’s tacho +what they pookers about morin’ a sappa; for I never had kek worser +ennemis than I’ve been to mandy’s selfus, and what wells +of morin’ innocen hanimals is kek kushtoben.”</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>If you kill the first snake you see, you’ll kill the first +(principal) enemy you have. That is what they say, but I don’t +know whether it is true or not. And once there was a very bad +man who was always doing bad deeds. And one day he saw a snake +in the forest, and ran after it with a great knife in his hand and cut +her head off. And then he said to himself, “Now that I’ve +killed the snake, I’ll take the life of my most vindictive (literally, +most venomous) enemy.” And just as he spoke that word he +struck his foot against the roots of a tree, and fell down and drove +the knife into his own body (liver or heart). And as he lay dying +in the forests, he said to himself, “Yes, I see now that it is +true what they told me as to killing a snake; for I never had any worse +enemy than I have been to myself, and what comes of killing innocent +animals is naught good.”</p> +<h3>GUDLO XLIII. THE STORY OF THE GIPSY AND THE BULL.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus there was a Rommany chal who was a boro koorin’ mush, +a surrelo mush, a boro-wasteni mush, werry toonery an’ hunnalo. +An’ he penned adusta cheiruses that kek geero an’ kek covva +’pré the drumyas couldn’t trasher him. But +yeck divvus, as yuv was jāllin’ langs the drum with a wáver +pal, chūnderin’ an’ hookerin’ an’ lunterin’, +an’ shorin’ his kokero how he could koor the puro bengis’ +selfus, they shooned a gūro a-goorin’ an’ googerin’, +an’ the first covva they jinned he prastered like divius at ’em, +an’ these here geeros prastered apré ye rukk, an’ +the boro koorin’ mush that was so flick o’ his wasters chury’d +first o’ saw (sār), an’ hatched duri-dirus from the +puv pré the limmers. An’ he beshed adoi an’ +dicked ye bullus wusserin’ an’ chongerin’ his trushnees +sār aboutus, an’ kellin’ pré lesters covvas, +an’ poggerin’ to cutengroes saw he lelled for lesters miraben. +An’ whenever the bavol pudered he was atrash he’d pelt-a-lay +’pré the shinger-ballos of the gooro (gūro). +An’ so they beshed adoi till the sig of the sala, when the mush +who dicked a’ter the gruvnis welled a-pirryin’ by an’ +dicked these here chals beshin’ like chillicos pré the +rukk, an’ patched lengis what they were kairin’ dovo for. +So they pookered him about the bullus, an’ he hānkered it +avree; an’ they welled alay an’ jālled andūrer +to the kitchema, for there never was dui mushis in ’covo tem that +kaumed a droppi levinor koomi than lender. But pāle dovo +divvus that trusheni mush never sookered he couldn’t be a trashni +mush no moreus. Tácho.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once there was a Gipsy who was a great fighting man, a strong man, +a great boxer, very bold and fierce. And he said many a time that +no man and no thing on the roads could frighten him. But one day, +as he was going along the road with another man (his friend), exaggerating +and bragging and boasting, and praising himself that he could beat the +old devil himself, they heard a bull bellowing and growling, and the +first thing they knew he ran like mad at them; and these men hurried +up a tree, and the great fighting man that was so handy with his fists +climbed first of all, and got (placed) himself furtherest from the ground +on the limbs. And he sat there and saw the bull tossing and throwing +his baskets all about, and dancing on his things, and breaking to pieces +all he had for his living. And whenever the wind blew he was afraid +he would fall on the horns of the bull. And so they sat there +till daybreak, when the man who looked after the cows came walking by +and saw these fellows sitting like birds on the tree, and asked them +what they were doing that for. So they told him about the bull, +and he drove it away; and they came down and went on to the alehouse, +for there never were two men in this country that wanted a drop of beer +more than they. But after that day that thirsty man never boasted +he could not be a frightened man. True.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XLIV. THE GIPSY AND HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus a tāno mush kaired his cāmmoben ta trin juvas +kett’nus an’ kek o’ the trin jinned yuv sus a pirryin’ +ye waver dui. An ’covo ráklo jivved adrée +a bitti tan pāsh the rikkorus side o’ the boro lun panni, +an’ yeck rātti sār the chais welled shikri kett’nus +a lester, an’ kek o’ the geeris jinned the wavers san lullerin +adoi. So they jālled sār-sigán kett’nus, +an’ rākkered, “Sarshan!” ta yeck chairus. +An’ dovo ráklo didn’t jin what jūva kaumed lester +ferridīrus, or kun yuv kaumed ye ferridīrus, so sār the +shtor besht-a-lay sum, at the habbenescro, and yuv del len habben an’ +levinor. Yeck hawed booti, but ye waver dui wouldn’t haw +kek, yeck pii’d, but ye wāver dui wouldn’t pi chommany, +’cause they were sār hunnali, and sookeri an’ kūried. +So the ráklo penned lengis, yuv sos atrash if yuv lelled a jūva +’at couldn’t haw, she wouldn’t jiv, so he rummored +the rákli that hawed her hābben.</p> +<p>All’ers haw sār the hābben foki banders apré +a tute, an’ tute’ll jāl sikker men dūsh an’ +tukli.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once a young man courted three girls together, and none of the three +knew he was courting the two others. And that youth lived in a +little place near the side of the great salt water, and one night all +the girls came at once together to him, and none of the girls knew the +others were coming there. So they went all quick together, and +said “Good evening,” (sarishan means really “How are +you?”) at the same time. And that youth did not know which +girl liked him best, or whom he loved best; so all the four sat down +together at the table, and he gave them food and beer. One ate +plenty, but the other two would eat nothing; one drank, but the other +two would not drink something, because they were all angry, and grieved, +and worried. So the youth told them he was afraid if he took a +wife that could not eat, she would not live, so he married the girl +that ate her food.</p> +<p>Always eat all the food that people give you (literally share out +to you), and you will go readily (securely) through sorrow and trouble.</p> +<h3>GUDLO XLV. THE GIPSIES AND THE SMUGGLERS. A TRUE STORY.</h3> +<p>Yeckorus, most a hundred besh kennā, when mi dádas sus +a chávo, yeck rātti a booti Rommany chals san millerin kettenescrus +pāsh the boro panni, kún sar-sig the graias ankaired a-wickerin +an’ lúdderin an’ núckerin’ an kairin +a boro gúdli, an’ the Rommanis shūned a shellin, an’ +dicked mūshis prasterin and lullyin for lenders miraben, sā’s +seer-dush, avree a boro hev. An’ when len sān sār +jālled lúg, the Rommany chāls welled adoi an’ +latched adusta bitti barrels o’ tatto-pánni, an’ +fino covvas, for dovo mushis were ’mugglers, and the Roms lelled +sar they mukked pāli. An’ dovo sus a boro covva for +the Rommany chāls, an’ they pii’d sār graias, +an’ the raklis an’ juvas jālled in kúshni heezis +for booti divvuses. An’ dovo sus kerro pāsh Bo-Peep—a +boro pūvius adrée bori chumures, pāsh Hastings in Sussex.</p> +<p>When ’mugglers násher an’ Rommany chāls latch, +there’s kek worser cāmmoben for it.</p> +<h4>TRANSLATION.</h4> +<p>Once almost a hundred years now, when my father was a boy, one night +many Gipsies were going together near the sea, when all at once the +horses began whinnying and kicking and neighing, and making a great +noise, and the Gipsies heard a crying out, and saw men running and rushing +as if in alarm, from a great cave. And when they were all gone +away together, the Gipsies went there and found many little barrels +of brandy, and valuables, for those men were smugglers, and the Gipsies +took all they left behind. And that was a great thing for the +Gipsies, and they drank like horses, and the girls and women went in +silk clothes for many days. And that was done near Bo-Peep, a +great field in the hills, by Hastings in Sussex.</p> +<p>When smugglers lose and Gipsies find, nobody is the worse for it.</p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote0a"></a><a href="#citation0a">{0a}</a> The +reason why Gipsy words have been kept unchanged was fully illustrated +one day in a Gipsy camp in my hearing, when one man declaring of a certain +word that it was only <i>kennick</i> or slang, and not “Rommanis,” +added, “It can’t be Rommanis, because everybody knows it. +When a word gets to be known to everybody, it’s no longer Rommanis.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> Lavengro +and the Rommany Rye: London, John Murray.</p> +<p><a name="footnote5"></a><a href="#citation5">{5}</a> To these +I would add “Zelda’s Fortune,” now publishing in the +<i>Cornhill Magazine</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote21"></a><a href="#citation21">{21}</a> Educated +Chinese often exercise themselves in what they call “handsome +talkee,” or “talkee leeson” (i.e., reason), by sitting +down and uttering, by way of assertion and rejoinder, all the learned +and wise sentences which they can recall. In their conversation +and on their crockery, before every house and behind every counter, +the elegant formula makes its appearance, teaching people not merely +<i>how</i> to think, but what should be thought, and when.</p> +<p><a name="footnote24"></a><a href="#citation24">{24}</a> Probably +from the modern Greek πατουνα, +the sole of the foot, <i>i.e</i>., a track. Panth, a road, Hindustani.</p> +<p><a name="footnote26"></a><a href="#citation26">{26}</a> Pott: +“Die Zigeuner in Europa and Asien,” vol. ii, p. 293.</p> +<p><a name="footnote30"></a><a href="#citation30">{30}</a> Two +hundred (shel) years growing, two hundred years losing his coat, two +hundred years before he dies, and then he loses all his blood and is +no longer good.</p> +<p><a name="footnote32"></a><a href="#citation32">{32}</a> The +words of the Gipsy, as I took them down from his own lips, were as follows:—</p> +<p>“Bawris are kushto habben. You can latcher adusta ’pré +the bors. When they’re pirraben pauli the puvius, or tale +the koshters, they’re kek kushti habben. The kushtiest are +sovven sār the wen. Lel’em and tove ’em and chiv +’em adrée the kávi, with panny an’ a bitti +lun. The simmun’s kushto for the yellow jaundice.”</p> +<p>I would remind the reader that in <i>every instance</i> where the +original Gipsy language is given, it was written down or <i>noted</i> +during conversation, and subsequently written out and read to a Gipsy, +by whom it was corrected. And I again beg the reader to remember, +that every Rommany phrase is followed by a translation into English.</p> +<p><a name="footnote33"></a><a href="#citation33">{33}</a> Dr +Pott intimates that <i>scharos</i>, a globe, may be identical with <i>sherro</i>, +a head. When we find, however, that in German Rommany <i>tscharo</i> +means goblet, pitcher, vessel, and in fact cup, it seems as if the Gipsy +had hit upon the correct derivation.</p> +<p><a name="footnote34"></a><a href="#citation34">{34}</a> “Dovós +yect o’ the covvos that saw foki jins. When you lel a wart +’pré tutés wasters you jāl ’pré +the drum or ’drée the puvius till you latcher a kaulo bawris—yeck +o’ the boro kind with kek ker apré him, an’ del it +apré the cāro of a kaulo kosh in the bor, and ear the bawris +mullers, yeck divvus pāuli the wāver for shtār or pange +divvuses the wart’ll kinner away-us. ’Dusta chairusses +I’ve pukkered dovo to Gorgios, an’ Gorgios have kaired it, +an’ the warts have yuzhered avree their wasters.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote35"></a><a href="#citation35">{35}</a> Among +certain tribes in North America, tobacco is both burned before and smoked +“unto” the Great Spirit.</p> +<p><a name="footnote38"></a><a href="#citation38">{38}</a> This +word palindrome, though Greek, is intelligible to every Gipsy. +In both languages it means “back on the road.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote53"></a><a href="#citation53">{53}</a> The +Krallis’s Gav, King’s Village, a term also applied to Windsor.</p> +<p><a name="footnote65"></a><a href="#citation65">{65}</a> Pronounced +cúv-vas, like <i>covers</i> without the <i>r</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote70"></a><a href="#citation70">{70}</a> The +Lord’s Prayer in pure English Gipsy:—</p> +<p>“Moro Dad, savo djives oteh drey o charos, te caumen Gorgio +ta Rommanny chal tiro nav, te awel tiro tem, te kairen tiro lav aukko +prey puv, sar kairdios oteh drey o charos. Dey men todivvus more +divvuskoe moro, ta for dey men pazorrhus tukey sar men for-denna len +pazhorrus amande; ma muck te petrenna drey caik temptaciones; ley men +abri sor doschder. Tiro se o tem, mi-duvel, tiro o zoozlu vast, +tiro sor koskopen drey sor cheros. Avali. Tachipen.”</p> +<p>Specimens of old English Gipsy, preserving grammatical forms, may +be found in Bright’s Hungary (Appendix). London, 1818. +I call attention to the fact that all the specimens of the language +which I give in this book simply represent <i>the modern and greatly +corrupted</i> Rommany of the roads, which has, however, assumed a peculiar +form of its own.</p> +<p><a name="footnote75"></a><a href="#citation75">{75}</a> In +gipsy <i>chores</i> would mean swindles. In America it is applied +to small jobs.</p> +<p><a name="footnote81"></a><a href="#citation81">{81}</a> Vide +chapter x.</p> +<p><a name="footnote83"></a><a href="#citation83">{83}</a> This +should be <i>Bengo-tem</i> or devil land, but the Gipsy who gave me +the word declared it was <i>bongo</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote110"></a><a href="#citation110">{110}</a> +In English: “Water is the Great God, and it is Bishnoo or Vishnoo +because it falls from God. <i>Vishnu is then the Great God</i>?” +“Yes; there can be no forced meaning there, can there, sir? +Duvel (God) is Duvel all the world over; but correctly speaking, Vishnu +is God’s blood—I have heard that many times. And the +snow is feathers that fall from the angels’ wings. And what +I said, that Bishnoo is God’s Blood is old Gipsy, and known by +all our people.”</p> +<p><a name="footnote112"></a><a href="#citation112">{112}</a> +“Simurgh—a fabulous bird, <i>a griffin</i>.”—<i>Brice’s +Hindustani Dictionary</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote124"></a><a href="#citation124">{124}</a> +Romi in Coptic signifies <i>a man</i>.</p> +<p><a name="footnote127"></a><a href="#citation127">{127}</a> +Since writing the above I have been told that among many Hindus “(good) +evening” is the common greeting at any time of the day. +And more recently still, meeting a gentleman who during twelve years +in India had paid especial attention to all the dialects, I greeted +him, as an experiment, with “Sarisham!” He replied, +‘Why, that’s more elegant than common Hindu—it’s +Persian!” “Sarisham” is, in fact, still in use +in India, as among the Gipsies. And as the latter often corrupt +it into <i>sha’shān</i>, so the vulgar Hindus call it “shān!” +Sarishan means in Gipsy, “How are you?” but its affinity +with <i>sarisham</i> is evident.</p> +<p><a name="footnote133"></a><a href="#citation133">{133}</a> +Miklosich (“Uber die Mundarten de der Zigeuner,” Wien, 1872) +gives, it is true, 647 Rommany words of Slavonic origin, but many of +these are also Hindustani. Moreover, Dr Miklosich treats as Gipsy +words numbers of Slavonian words which Gipsies in Slavonian lands have +Rommanised, but which are not generally Gipsy.</p> +<p><a name="footnote171"></a><a href="#citation171">{171}</a> +Fortune-telling.</p> +<p><a name="footnote189"></a><a href="#citation189">{189}</a> +In Egypt, as in Syria, every child is more or less marked by tattooing. +Infants of the first families, even among Christians, are thus stamped.</p> +<p><a name="footnote206"></a><a href="#citation206">{206}</a> +The Royston rook or crow has a greyish-white back, but is with this +exception entirely black.</p> +<p><a name="footnote209"></a><a href="#citation209">{209}</a> +The peacock and turkey are called lady-birds in Rommany, because, as +a Gipsy told me, “they spread out their clothes, and hold up their +heads and look fine, and walk proud, like great ladies.” +I have heard a swan called a pauno rāni chillico—a white +lady-bird.</p> +<p><a name="footnote210"></a><a href="#citation210">{210}</a> +To make skewers is a common employment among the poorer English Gipsies.</p> +<p><a name="footnote213"></a><a href="#citation213">{213}</a> +This rhyme and metre (such as they are) were purely accidental with +my narrator; but as they occurred <i>verb. et lit</i>., I set them down.</p> +<p><a name="footnote218"></a><a href="#citation218">{218}</a> +This story is well known to most “travellers.” It +is also true, the “hero” being a <i>pash-and-pash</i>, or +half-blood Rommany chal, whose name was told to me.</p> +<p><a name="footnote219"></a><a href="#citation219">{219}</a> +The reader will find in Lord Lytton’s “Harold” mention +of an Anglo-Saxon superstition very similar to that embodied in the +story of the Seven Whistlers. This story is, however, entirely +Gipsy.</p> +<p><a name="footnote221a"></a><a href="#citation221a">{221a}</a> +This, which is a common story among the English Gipsies, and told exactly +in the words here given, is implicitly believed in by them. Unfortunately, +the terrible legends, but too well authenticated, of the persecutions +to which their ancestors were subjected, render it very probable that +it may have occurred as narrated. When Gipsies were hung and transported +merely for <i>being</i> Gipsies, it is not unlikely that a persecution +to death may have originated in even such a trifle as the alleged theft +of a dish-clout.</p> +<p><a name="footnote221b"></a><a href="#citation221b">{221b}</a> +Although they bear it with remarkable <i>apparent</i> indifference, +Gipsies are in reality extremely susceptible to being looked at or laughed +at.</p> +<p><a name="footnote235"></a><a href="#citation235">{235}</a> +This story was told me in a Gipsy tent near Brighton, and afterwards +repeated by one of the auditors while I transcribed it.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH GIPSIES AND THEIR</p> +<pre> +LANGUAGE*** + + +***** This file should be named 16358-h.htm or 16358-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/3/5/16358 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Leland + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The English Gipsies and Their Language + + +Author: Charles G. Leland + + + +Release Date: July 25, 2005 [eBook #16358] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH GIPSIES AND THEIR +LANGUAGE*** + + + + + + +Transcribed from the 1874 Trubner & Co. edition by David Price, email +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +THE ENGLISH GIPSIES AND THEIR LANGUAGE +By Charles G. Leland + + +Author of "Hans Breitmann's Ballads," "The Music Lesson of Confucius," +Etc. Etc. + +Second Edition + +LONDON +TRUBNER & CO., 57 & 59 LUDGATE HILL +1874 + +[_All rights reserved_] + + + + +PREFACE. + + +As Author of this book, I beg leave to observe that all which is stated +in it relative to the customs or peculiarities of Gipsies _was gathered +directly from Gipsies themselves_; and that every word of their language +here given, whether in conversations, stories, or sayings, was taken from +Gipsy mouths. While entertaining the highest respect for the labours of +Mr George Borrow in this field, I have carefully avoided repeating him in +the least detail; neither have I taken anything from Simson, Hoyland, or +any other writer on the Rommany race in England. Whatever the demerits +of the work may be, it can at least claim to be an original collection of +material fresh from nature, and not a reproduction from books. There +are, it is true, two German Gipsy letters from other works, but these may +be excused as illustrative of an English one. + +I may here in all sincerity speak kindly and gratefully of every true +Gipsy I have ever met, and of the cheerfulness with which they have +invariably assisted me in my labour to the extent of their humble +abilities. Other writers have had much to say of their incredible +distrust of _Gorgios_ and unwillingness to impart their language, but I +have always found them obliging and communicative. I have never had +occasion to complain of rapacity or greediness among them; on the +contrary, I have often wondered to see how the great want of such very +poor people was generally kept in check by their natural politeness, +which always manifests itself when they are treated properly. In fact, +the first effort which I ever made to acquire a knowledge of English +Rommany originated in a voluntary offer from an intelligent old dame to +teach me "the old Egyptian language." And as she also suggested that I +should set forth the knowledge which I might acquire from her and her +relatives in a book (referring to Mr Borrow's having done so), I may hold +myself fully acquitted from the charge of having acquired and published +anything which my Gipsy friends would not have had made known to the +public. + +Mr Borrow has very well and truly said that it is not by passing a few +hours among Gipsies that one can acquire a knowledge of their +characteristics; and I think that this book presents abundant evidence +that its contents were not gathered by slight and superficial intercourse +with the Rommany. It is only by entering gradually and sympathetically, +without any parade of patronage, into a familiar knowledge of the +circumstances of the common life of humble people, be they Gipsies, +Indians, or whites, that one can surprise unawares those little inner +traits which constitute the _characteristic_. However this may be, the +reader will readily enough understand, on perusing these pages--possibly +much better than I do myself--how it was I was able to collect whatever +they contain that is new. + +The book contains some remarks on that great curious centre and secret of +all the nomadic and vagabond life in England, THE ROMMANY, with comments +on the fact, that of the many novel or story-writers who have described +the "Travellers" of the Roads, very few have penetrated the real nature +of their life. It gives several incidents illustrating the character of +the Gipsy, and some information of a very curious nature in reference to +the respect of the English Gipsies for their dead, and the strange manner +in which they testify it. I believe that this will be found to be fully +and distinctly illustrated by anecdotes and a narrative in the original +Gipsy language, with a translation. There is also a chapter containing +in Rommany and English a very characteristic letter from a full-blood +Gipsy to a relative, which was dictated to me, and which gives a sketch +of the leading incidents of Gipsy life--trading in horses, +fortune-telling, and cock-shying. I have also given accounts of +conversations with Gipsies, introducing in their language and in English +their own remarks (noted down by me) on certain curious customs; among +others, on one which indicates that many of them profess among themselves +a certain regard for our Saviour, because His birth and life appear to +them to be like that of the Rommany. There is a collection of a number +of words now current in vulgar English which were probably derived from +Gipsy, such as row, shindy, pal, trash, bosh, and niggling, and finally a +number of _Gudli_ or short stories. These _Gudli_ have been regarded by +my literary friends as interesting and curious, since they are nearly all +specimens of a form of original narrative occupying a middle ground +between the anecdote and fable, and abounding in Gipsy traits. Some of +them are given word for word as they are current among Gipsies, and +others owe their existence almost entirely either to the vivid +imagination and childlike fancies of an old Gipsy assistant, or were +developed from some hint or imperfect saying or story. But all are +thoroughly and truly Rommany; for every one, after being brought into +shape, passed through a purely "unsophisticated" Gipsy mind, and was +finally declared to be _tacho_, or sound, by real Rommanis. The truth +is, that it is a difficult matter to hear a story among English Gipsies +which is not mangled or marred in the telling; so that to print it, +restitution and invention become inevitable. But with a man who lived in +a tent among the gorse and fern, and who intermitted his earnest +conversation with a little wooden bear to point out to me the gentleman +on horseback riding over the two beautiful little girls in the flowers on +the carpet, such fables as I have given sprang up of themselves, owing +nothing to books, though they often required the influence of a better +disciplined mind to guide them to a consistent termination. + +The Rommany English Vocabulary which I propose shall follow this work is +many times over more extensive than any ever before published, and it +will also be found interesting to all philologists by its establishing +the very curious fact that this last wave of the primitive Aryan-Indian +ocean which spread over Europe, though it has lost the original form in +its subsidence and degradation, consists of the same substance--or, in +other words, that although the grammar has wellnigh disappeared, the +words are almost without exception the same as those used in India, +Germany, Hungary, or Turkey. It is generally believed that English Gipsy +is a mere jargon of the cant and slang of all nations, that of England +predominating; but a very slight examination of the Vocabulary will show +that during more than three hundred years in England the Rommany have not +admitted a single English word to what they correctly call their +language. I mean, of course, so far as my own knowledge of Rommany +extends. To this at least I can testify, that the Gipsy to whom I was +principally indebted for words, though he often used "slang," invariably +discriminated correctly between it and Rommany; and I have often admired +the extraordinary pride in their language which has induced the Gipsies +for so many generations to teach their children this difference. {0a} +Almost every word which my assistant declared to be Gipsy I have found +either in Hindustani or in the works of Pott, Liebich, or Paspati. On +this subject I would remark by the way, that many words which appear to +have been taken by the Gipsies from modern languages are in reality +Indian. + +And as I have honestly done what I could to give the English reader fresh +material on the Gipsies, and not a rewarming of that which was gathered +by others, I sincerely trust that I may not be held to sharp account (as +the authors of such books very often are) for not having given more or +done more or done it better than was really in my power. Gipsies in +England are passing away as rapidly as Indians in North America. They +keep among themselves the most singular fragments of their Oriental +origin; they abound in quaint characteristics, and yet almost nothing is +done to preserve what another generation will deeply regret the loss of. +There are complete dictionaries of the Dacotah and many other American +Indian languages, and every detail of the rude life of those savages has +been carefully recorded; while the autobiographic romances of Mr Borrow +and Mr Simson's History contain nearly all the information of any value +extant relative to the English Gipsies. Yet of these two writers, Mr +Borrow is the only one who had, so to speak, an inside view of his +subject, or was a philologist. + +In conclusion I would remark, that if I have not, like many writers on +the poor Gipsies, abused them for certain proverbial faults, it has been +because they never troubled me with anything very serious of the kind, or +brought it to my notice; and I certainly never took the pains to hunt it +up to the discredit of people who always behaved decently to me. I have +found them more cheerful, polite, and grateful than the lower orders of +other races in Europe or America; and I believe that where their respect +and sympathy are secured, they are quite as upright. Like all people who +are regarded as outcasts, they are very proud of being trusted, and under +this influence will commit the most daring acts of honesty. And with +this I commend my book to the public. Should it be favourably received, +I will add fresh reading to it; in any case I shall at least have the +satisfaction of knowing that I did my best to collect material +illustrating a very curious and greatly-neglected subject. It is merely +as a collection of material that I offer it; let those who can use it, do +what they will with it. + +If I have not given in this book a sketch of the history of the Gipsies, +or statistics of their numbers, or accounts of their social condition in +different countries, it is because nearly everything of the kind may be +found in the works of George Borrow and Walter Simson, which are in all +respectable libraries, and may be obtained from any bookseller. + +I would remark to any impatient reader for mere entertainment, who may +find fault with the abundance of Rommany or Gipsy language in the +following pages, that _the principal object of the Author was to collect +and preserve such specimens of a rapidly-vanishing language_, and that +the title-page itself indirectly indicates such an object. I have, +however, invariably given with the Gipsy a translation immediately +following the text in plain English--at times very plain--in order that +the literal meaning of words may be readily apprehended. I call especial +attention to this fact, so that no one may accuse me of encumbering my +pages with Rommany. + +While writing this book, or in fact after the whole of the first part was +written, I passed a winter in Egypt; and as that country is still +supposed by many people to be the fatherland of the Gipsies, and as very +little is known relative to the Rommany there, I have taken the liberty +of communicating what I could learn on the subject, though it does not +refer directly to the Gipsies of England. Those who are interested in +the latter will readily pardon the addition. + +There are now in existence about three hundred works on the Gipsies, but +of the entire number comparatively few contain fresh material gathered +from the Rommany themselves. Of late years the first philologists of +Europe have taken a great interest in their language, which is now +included in "Die Sprachen Europas" as the only Indian tongue spoken in +this quarter of the world; and I believe that English Gipsy is really the +only strongly-distinct Rommany dialect which has never as yet been +illustrated by copious specimens or a vocabulary of any extent. I +therefore trust that the critical reader will make due allowances for the +very great difficulties under which I have laboured, and not blame me for +not having done better that which, so far as I can ascertain, would +possibly not have been done at all. Within the memory of man the popular +Rommany of this country was really grammatical; that which is now spoken, +and from which I gathered the material for the following pages, is, as +the reader will observe, almost entirely English as to its structure, +although it still abounds in Hindu words to a far greater extent than has +been hitherto supposed. + + + + +CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. + + +The Rommany of the Roads.--The Secret of Vagabond Life in England.--Its +peculiar and thoroughly hidden Nature.--Gipsy Character and the Causes +which formed it.--Moral Results of hungry Marauding.--Gipsy ideas of +Religion. The Scripture story of the Seven Whistlers.--The Baker's +Daughter.--Difficulties of acquiring Rommany.--The Fable of the Cat.--The +Chinese, the American Indian, and the Wandering Gipsy. + +Although the valuable and curious works of Mr George Borrow have been in +part for more than twenty years before the British public, {1} it may +still be doubted whether many, even of our scholars, are aware of the +remarkable, social, and philological facts which are connected with an +immense proportion of our out-of-door population. There are, indeed, +very few people who know, that every time we look from the window into a +crowded street, the chances are greatly in favour of the assertion, that +we shall see at least one man who bears in his memory some hundreds of +Sanscrit roots, and that man English born; though it was probably in the +open air, and English bred, albeit his breeding was of the roads. + +For go where you will, though you may not know it, you encounter at every +step, in one form or the other, _the Rommany_. True, the dwellers in +tents are becoming few and far between, because the "close cultivation" +of the present generation, which has enclosed nearly all the waste land +in England, has left no spot in many a day's journey, where "the +travellers," as they call themselves, can light the fire and boil the +kettle undisturbed. There is almost "no tan to hatch," or place to stay +in. So it has come to pass, that those among them who cannot settle down +like unto the Gentiles, have gone across the Great Water to America, +which is their true Canaan, where they flourish mightily, the more +enterprising making a good thing of it, by _prastering graias_ or +"running horses," or trading in them, while the idler or more moral ones, +pick up their living as easily as a mouse in a cheese, on the endless +roads and in the forests. And so many of them have gone there, that I am +sure the child is now born, to whom the sight of a real old-fashioned +gipsy will be as rare in England as a Sioux or Pawnee warrior in the +streets of New York or Philadelphia. But there is a modified and yet +real Rommany-dom, which lives and will live with great vigour, so long as +a regularly organised nomadic class exists on our roads--and it is the +true nature and inner life of this class which has remained for ages, an +impenetrable mystery to the world at large. A member of it may be a +tramp and a beggar, the proprietor of some valuable travelling show, a +horse-dealer, or a tinker. He may be eloquent, as a Cheap Jack, noisy as +a Punch, or musical with a fiddle at fairs. He may "peddle" pottery, +make and sell skewers and clothes-pegs, or vend baskets in a caravan; he +may keep cock-shys and Aunt Sallys at races. But whatever he may be, +depend upon it, reader, that among those who follow these and similar +callings which he represents, are literally many thousands who, +unsuspected by the _Gorgios_, are known to one another, and who still +speak among themselves, more or less, that curious old tongue which the +researches of the greatest living philologists have indicated, is in all +probability not merely allied to Sanscrit, but perhaps in point of age, +an elder though vagabond sister or cousin of that ancient language. + +For THE ROMMANY is the characteristic leaven of all the real tramp life +and nomadic callings of Great Britain. And by this word I mean not the +language alone, which is regarded, however, as a test of superior +knowledge of "the roads," but a curious _inner life_ and freemasonry of +secret intelligence, ties of blood and information, useful to a class who +have much in common with one another, and very little in common with the +settled tradesman or worthy citizen. The hawker whom you meet, and whose +blue eyes and light hair indicate no trace of Oriental blood, may not be +a _churdo_, or _pash-ratt_, or half-blood, or _half-scrag_, as a full +Gipsy might contemptuously term him, but he may be, of his kind, a +quadroon or octoroon, or he may have "gipsified," by marrying a Gipsy +wife; and by the way be it said, such women make by far the best wives to +be found among English itinerants, and the best suited for "a traveller." +But in any case he has taken pains to pick up all the Gipsy he can. If +he is a tinker, he knows _Kennick_, or cant, or thieves' slang by nature, +but the Rommany, which has very few words in common with the former, is +the true language of the mysteries; in fact, it has with him become, +strangely enough, what it was originally, a sort of sacred Sanscrit, +known only to the Brahmins of the roads, compared to which the other +language is only commonplace _Prakrit_, which anybody may acquire. + +He is proud of his knowledge, he makes of it a deep mystery; and if you, +a gentleman, ask him about it, he will probably deny that he ever heard +of its existence. Should he be very thirsty, and your manners frank and +assuring, it is, however, not impossible that after draining a pot of +beer at your expense, he may recall, with a grin, the fact that he _has_ +heard that the Gipsies have a queer kind of language of their own; and +then, if you have any Rommany yourself at command, he will perhaps +_rakker Rommanis_ with greater or less fluency. Mr Simeon, in his +"History of the Gipsies," asserts that there is not a tinker or scissors- +grinder in Great Britain who cannot talk this language, and my own +experience agrees with his declaration, to this extent--that they all +have some knowledge of it, or claim to have it, however slight it may be. + +So rare is a knowledge of Rommany among those who are not connected in +some way with Gipsies, that the slightest indication of it is invariably +taken as an irrefutable proof of relationship with them. It is but a few +weeks since, as I was walking along the Marine Parade in Brighton, I +overtook a tinker. Wishing him to sharpen some tools for me, I directed +him to proceed to my home, and _en route_ spoke to him in Gipsy. As he +was quite fair in complexion, I casually remarked, "I should have never +supposed you could speak Rommany--you don't look like it." To which he +replied, very gravely, in a tone as of gentle reproach, "You don't look a +Gipsy yourself, sir; but you know you _are_ one--_you talk like one_." + +Truly, the secret of the Rommany has been well kept in England. It seems +so to me when I reflect that, with the exception of Lavengro and the +Rommany Rye, {5} I cannot recall a single novel, in our language, in +which the writer has shown familiarity with the _real_ life, habits, or +language of the vast majority of that very large class, the itinerants of +the roads. Mr Dickens has set before us Cheap Jacks, and a number of men +who were, in their very face, of the class of which I speak; but I cannot +recall in his writings any indication that he knew that these men had a +singular secret life with their _confreres_, or that they could speak a +strange language; for we may well call that language strange which is, in +the main, Sanscrit, with many Persian words intermingled. Mr Dickens, +however, did not pretend, as some have done, to specially treat of +Gipsies, and he made no affectation of a knowledge of any mysteries. He +simply reflected popular life as he saw it. But there are many novels +and tales, old and new, devoted to setting forth Rommany life and +conversation, which are as much like the originals as a Pastor Fido is +like a common shepherd. One novel which I once read, is so full of "the +dark blood," that it might almost be called a gipsy novel. The hero is a +gipsy; he lives among his kind--the book is full of them; and yet, with +all due respect to its author, who is one of the most gifted and best- +informed romance writers of the century, I must declare that, from +beginning to end, there is not in the novel the slightest indication of +any real and familiar knowledge of gipsies. Again, to put thieves' slang +into the mouths of gipsies, as their natural and habitual language, has +been so much the custom, from Sir Walter Scott to the present day, that +readers are sometimes gravely assured in good faith that this jargon is +pure Rommany. But this is an old error in England, since the vocabulary +of cant appended to the "English Rogue," published in 1680, was long +believed to be Gipsy; and Captain Grose, the antiquary, who should have +known better, speaks with the same ignorance. + +It is, indeed, strange to see learned and shrewd writers, who pride +themselves on truthfully depicting every element of European life, and +every type of every society, so ignorant of the habits, manners, and +language of thousands of really strange people who swarm on the highways +and bye-ways! We have had the squire and the governess, my lord and all +Bohemia--Bohemia, artistic and literary--but where are our _Vrais +Bohemiens_?--Out of Lavengro and Rommany Rye--nowhere. Yet there is to +be found among the children of Rom, or the descendants of the worshippers +of Rama, or the Doms or Coptic Romi, whatever their ancestors may have +been, more that is quaint and adapted to the purposes of the novelist, +than is to be found in any other class of the inhabitants of England. You +may not detect a trace of it on the roads; but once become truly +acquainted with a fair average specimen of a Gipsy, pass many days in +conversation with him, and above all acquire his confidence and respect, +and you will wonder that such a being, so entirely different from +yourself, could exist in Europe in the nineteenth century. It is said +that those who can converse with Irish peasants in their own native +tongue, form far higher opinions of their appreciation of the beautiful, +and of the elements of humour and pathos in their hearts, than do those +who know their thoughts only through the medium of English. I know from +my own observation that this is quite the case with the Indians of North +America, and it is unquestionably so with the Gipsy. When you know a +true specimen to the depths of his soul, you will find a character so +entirely strange, so utterly at variance with your ordinary conceptions +of humanity, that it is no exaggeration whatever to declare that it would +be a very difficult task for the best writer to convey to the most +intelligent reader an idea of his subject's nature. You have in him, to +begin with, a being whose every condition of life is in direct +contradiction to what you suppose every man's life in England must be. "I +was born in the open air," said a Gipsy to me a few days since; "and put +me down anywhere, in the fields or woods, I can always support myself." +Understand me, he did not mean by pilfering, since it was of America that +we were speaking, and of living in the lonely forests. We pity with +tears many of the poor among us, whose life is one of luxury compared to +that which the Gipsy, who despises them, enjoys with a zest worth more +than riches. + +"What a country America must be," quoth Pirengro, the Walker, to me, on +the occasion just referred to. "Why, my pal, who's just welled apopli +from dovo tem--(my brother, who has just returned from that country), +tells me that when a cow or anything dies there, they just chuck it away, +and nobody ask a word for any of it." "What would _you_ do," he +continued, "if you were in the fields and had nothing to eat?" + +I replied, "that if any could be found, I should hunt for fern-roots." + +"I could do better than that," he said. "I should hunt for a +_hotchewitchi_,--a hedge-hog,--and I should be sure to find one; there's +no better eating." + +Whereupon assuming his left hand to be an imaginary hedge-hog, he +proceeded to score and turn and dress it for ideal cooking with a case- +knife. + +"And what had you for dinner to-day?" I inquired. + +"Some cocks' heads. They're very fine--very fine indeed!" + +Now it is curious but true that there is no person in the world more +particular as to what he eats than the half-starved English or Irish +peasant, whose sufferings have so often been set forth for our +condolence. We may be equally foolish, you and I--in fact chemistry +proves it--when we are disgusted at the idea of feeding on many things +which mere association and superstition render revolting. But the old +fashioned gipsy has none of these qualms--he is haunted by no ghost of +society--save the policeman, he knows none of its terrors. Whatever is +edible he eats, except horse-meat; wherever there is an empty spot he +sleeps; and the man who can do this devoid of shame, without caring a pin +for what the world says--nay, without even knowing that he does not care, +or that he is peculiar--is independent to a degree which of itself +confers a character which is not easy to understand. + +I grew up as a young man with great contempt for Helvetius, D'Holbach, +and all the French philosophers of the last century, whose ideal man was +a perfect savage; but I must confess that since I have studied gipsy +nature, my contempt has changed into wonder where they ever learned in +their _salons_ and libraries enough of humanity to theorise so boldly, +and with such likeness to truth, as they did. It is not merely in the +absolute out-of-doors independence of the old-fashioned Gipsy, freer than +any wild beast from care for food, that his resemblance to a +"philosopher" consists, or rather to the ideal man, free from imaginary +cares. For more than this, be it for good or for evil, the real Gipsy +has, unlike all other men, unlike the lowest savage, positively no +religion, no tie to a spiritual world, no fear of a future, nothing but a +few trifling superstitions and legends, which in themselves indicate no +faith whatever in anything deeply seated. It would be difficult, I +think, for any highly civilised man, who had not studied Thought deeply, +and in a liberal spirit, to approach in the least to a rational +comprehension of a real Gipsy mind. During my life it has been my +fortune to become intimate with men who were "absolutely" or "positively" +free-thinkers--men who had, by long study and mere logic, completely +freed themselves from any mental tie whatever. Such men are rare; it +requires an enormous amount of intellectual culture, an unlimited +expenditure of pains in the metaphysical hot-bed, and tremendous self- +confidence to produce them--I mean "the real article." Among the most +thorough of these, a man on whom utter and entire freedom of thought sat +easily and unconsciously, was a certain German doctor of philosophy named +P---. To him God and all things were simply ideas of development. The +last remark which I can recall from him was "_Ja, ja_. We advanced +Hegelians agree exactly on the whole with the Materialists." Now, to my +mind, nothing seems more natural than that, when sitting entire days +talking with an old Gipsy, no one rises so frequently from the past +before me as Mr P---. To him all religion represented a portion of the +vast mass of frozen, petrified developments, which simply impede the +march of intelligent minds; to my Rommany friend, it is one of the +thousand inventions of _gorgio_ life, which, like policemen, are simply +obstacles to Gipsies in the search of a living, and could he have grasped +the circumstances of the case, he would doubtless have replied "_Avali_, +we Gipsies agree on the whole exactly with Mr P---." Extremes meet. + +One Sunday an old Gipsy was assuring me, with a great appearance of +piety, that on that day she neither told fortunes nor worked at any kind +of labour--in fact, she kept it altogether correctly. + +"_Avali_, _dye_," I replied. "Do you know what the Gipsies in Germany +say became of their church?" + +"_Kek_," answered the old lady. "No. What is it?" + +"They say that the Gipsies' church was made of pork, and the dogs ate +it." + +Long, loud, and joyously affirmative was the peal of laughter with which +the Gipsies welcomed this characteristic story. + +So far as research and the analogy of living tribes of the same race can +establish a fact, it would seem that the Gipsies were, previous to their +quitting India, not people of high caste, but wandering Pariahs, +outcasts, foes to the Brahmins, and unbelievers. All the Pariahs are not +free-thinkers, but in India, the Church, as in Italy, loses no time in +making of all detected free-thinkers Pariahs. Thus we are told, in the +introduction to the English translation of that very curious book, "The +Tales of the Gooroo Simple," which should be read by every scholar, that +all the true literature of the country--that which has life, and freedom, +and humour--comes from the Pariahs. And was it different in those days, +when Rabelais, and Von Hutten, and Giordano Bruno were, in their wise, +Pariahs and Gipsies, roving from city to city, often wanting bread and +dreading fire, but asking for nothing but freedom? + +The more I have conversed intimately with Gipsies, the more have I been +struck by the fact, that my mingled experiences of European education and +of life in the Far West of America have given me a basis of mutual +intelligence which had otherwise been utterly wanting. I, myself, have +known in a wild country what it is to be half-starved for many days--to +feel that all my thoughts and intellectual exertions, hour by hour, were +all becoming centered on one subject--how to get something to eat. I +felt what it was to be wolfish and even ravening; and I noted, step by +step, in myself, how a strange sagacity grew within me--an art of +detecting food. It was during the American war, and there were thousands +of us pitifully starved. When we came near some log hut I began at once +to surmise, if I saw a flour sack lying about, that there was a mill not +far distant; perhaps flour or bread in the house; while the dwellers in +the hut were closely scanned to judge from their appearance if they were +well fed, and of a charitable disposition. It is a melancholy thing to +recall; but it is absolutely necessary for a thinker to have once lived +such a life, that he may be able to understand what is the intellectual +status of those fellow beings whose whole life is simply a hunt for +enough food to sustain life, and enough beer to cheer it. + +I have spoken of the Gipsy fondness for the hedgehog. Richard Liebich, +in his book, _Die Zigeuner in ihrem Wesen und in ihrer Sprache_, tells +his readers that the only indication of a belief in a future state which +he ever detected in an old Gipsy woman, was that she once dreamed she was +in heaven. It appeared to her as a large garden, full of fine fat +hedgehogs. "This is," says Mr Liebich, "unquestionably very earthly, and +dreamed very sensuously; reminding us of Mahommed's paradise, which in +like manner was directed to the animal and not to the spiritual nature, +only that here were hedgehogs and there houris." + +Six or seven thousand years of hungry-marauding, end by establishing +strange points of difference between the mind of a Gipsy and a well-to-do +citizen. It has starved God out of the former; he inherited unbelief +from his half fed Pariah ancestors, and often retains it, even in +England, to this day, with many other unmistakable signs of his Eastern- +jackal origin. And strange as it may seem to you, reader, his +intercourse with Christians has all over Europe been so limited, that he +seldom really knows what religion is. The same Mr Liebich tells us that +one day he overheard a Gipsy disputing with his wife as to what was the +true character of the belief of the Gentiles. Both admitted that there +was a great elder grown up God (the _baro puro dewel_), and a smaller +younger God (the _tikno tarno dewel_). But the wife maintained, +appealing to Mr Liebich for confirmation, that the great God no longer +reigned, having abdicated in favour of the Son, while the husband +declared that the Great older God died long ago, and that the world was +now governed by the little God who was, however, not the son of his +predecessor, but of a poor carpenter. + +I have never heard of any such nonsense among the English wandering +Gipsies with regard to Christianity, but at the same time I must admit +that their ideas of what the Bible contains are extremely vague. One day +I was sitting with an old Gipsy, discussing Rommany matters, when he +suddenly asked me what the word was in the _waver temmeny jib_, or +foreign Gipsy, for The Seven Stars. + +"That would be," I said, "the _Efta Sirnie_. I suppose your name for it +is the Hefta Pens. There is a story that once they were seven sisters, +but one of them was lost, and so they are called seven to this day--though +there are only six. And their right name is the Pleiades." + +"That _gudlo_--that story," replied the gipsy, "is like the one of the +Seven Whistlers, which you know is in the Scriptures." + +"What!" + +"At least they told me so; that the Seven Whistlers are seven spirits of +ladies who fly by night, high in the air, like birds. And it says in the +Bible that once on a time one got lost, and never came back again, and +now the six whistles to find her. But people calls 'em the Seven +Whistlers--though there are only six--exactly the same as in your story +of the stars." + +"It's queer," resumed my Gipsy, after a pause, "how they always tells +these here stories by Sevens. Were you ever on Salisbury Plain?" + +"No!" + +"There are great stones there--_bori bars_--and many a night I've slept +there in the moonlight, in the open air, when I was a boy, and listened +to my father tellin' me about the Baker. For there's seven great +stories, and they say that hundreds of years ago a baker used to come +with loaves of bread, and waste it all a tryin' to make seven loaves +remain at the same place, one on each stone. But one all'us fell off, +and to this here day he's never yet been able to get all seven on the +seven stones." + +I think that my Gipsy told this story in connection with that of the +Whistlers, because he was under the impression that it also was of +Scriptural origin. It is, however, really curious that the Gipsy term +for an owlet is the _Maromengro's Chavi_, or Baker's Daughter, and that +they are all familiar with the monkish legend which declares that Jesus, +in a baker's shop, once asked for bread. The mistress was about to give +him a large cake, when her daughter declared it was too much, and +diminished the gift by one half. + + "He nothing said, + But by the fire laid down the bread, + When lo, as when a blossom blows-- + To a vast loaf the manchet rose; + In angry wonder, standing by, + The girl sent forth a wild, rude cry, + And, feathering fast into a fowl, + Flew to the woods a wailing owl." + +According to Eilert Sundt, who devoted his life to studying the _Fanten +and Tataren_, or vagabonds and Gipsies of Sweden and Norway, there is a +horrible and ghastly semblance among them of something like a religion, +current in Scandinavia. Once a year, by night, the Gipsies of that +country assemble for the purpose of un-baptizing all of their children +whom they have, during the year, suffered to be baptized for the sake of +gifts, by the Gorgios. On this occasion, amid wild orgies, they worship +a small idol, which is preserved until the next meeting with the greatest +secresy and care by their captain. I must declare that this story seems +very doubtful to me. + +I have devoted this chapter to illustrating from different points the +fact that there lives in England a race which has given its impress to a +vast proportion of our vagabond population, and which is more curious and +more radically distinct in all its characteristics, than our writers, +with one or two exceptions, have ever understood. One extraordinary +difference still remains to be pointed out--as it has, in fact, already +been, with great acumen, by Mr George Borrow, in his "Gipsies in Spain," +and by Dr Alexander Paspati, in his "Etudes sur les Tchinghianes ou +Bohemiens de l'Empire Ottoman" (Constantinople, 1870); also by Mr Bright, +in his "Hungary," and by Mr Simson. It is this, that in every part of +the world it is extremely difficult to get Rommany words, even from +intelligent gipsies, although they may be willing with all their heart to +communicate them. It may seem simple enough to the reader to ask a man +"How do you call 'to carry' in your language?" But can the reader +understand that a man, who is possibly very much shrewder than himself in +reading at a glance many phases of character, and in countless +trickeries, should be literally unable to answer such a question? And +yet I have met with many such. The truth is, that there are people in +this world who never had such a thing as an abstract idea, let us say +even of an apple, plumped suddenly at them--not once in all their +lives--and, when it came, the unphilosophical mind could no more grasp +it, than the gentleman mentioned by G. H. Lewes (History of Philosophy), +could grasp the idea of substance without attribute as presented by +Berkeley. The real Gipsy could talk about apples all day, but the sudden +demand for the unconnected word, staggers him--at least, until he has had +some practice in this, to him, new process. And it is so with other +races. Professor Max Muller once told me in conversation, as nearly as I +can recollect, that the Mohawk Indian language is extremely rich in +declension, every noun having some sixteen or seventeen inflexions of +case, but no nominative. One can express one's relations to a father to +a most extraordinary extent, among the dilapidated descendants of that +once powerful tribe. But such a thing as the abstract idea of _a_ +father, or of 'father' _pur et simple_, never entered the Mohawk mind, +and this is very like the Gipsies. + +When a rather wild Gipsy once gives you a word, it must be promptly +recorded, for a demand for its repetition at once confuses him. _On doit +saisir le mot echappe au Nomade, et ne pas l'obliger a le repeter, car il +le changera selon so, facon_, says Paspati. Unused to abstract efforts +of memory, all that he can retain is the sense of his last remark, and +very often this is changed with the fleeting second by some associated +thought, which materially modifies it. It is always difficult, in +consequence, to take down a story in the exact terms which a philologist +desires. There are two words for "bad" in English Gipsy, _wafro_ and +_vessavo_; and I think it must have taken me ten minutes one day to +learn, from a by no means dull gipsy, whether the latter word was known +to him, or if it were used at all. He got himself into a hopeless tangle +in trying to explain the difference between _wafro_ and _naflo_, or ill, +until his mind finally refused to act on _vessavo_ at all, and +spasmodically rejected it. With all the patience of Job, and the +meekness of Moses, I awaited my time, and finally obtained my +information. + +The impatience of such minds in narrative is amusing. Let us suppose +that I am asking some _kushto Rommany chal_ for a version of AEsop's +fable of the youth and the cat. He is sitting comfortably by the fire, +and good ale has put him into a story-telling humour. I begin-- + +"Now then, tell me this _adree Rommanis_, in Gipsy--Once upon a time +there was a young man who had a cat." + +Gipsy.--"_Yeckorus--'pre yeck cheirus_--_a raklo lelled a matchka_"-- + +While I am writing this down, and long before it is half done, the +professor of Rommany, becoming interested in the subject, continues +volubly-- + +--"_an' the matchka yeck sala dicked a chillico apre a rukk_--(and the +cat one morning saw a bird in a tree"--) + +I.--"Stop, stop! _Hatch a wongish_! That is not it! Now go on. _The +young man loved this cat so much_"-- + +_Gipsy_ (fluently, in Rommany), "that he thought her skin would make a +nice pair of gloves"-- + +"Confound your gloves! Now do begin again"-- + +_Gipsy_, with an air of grief and injury: "I'm sure I was telling the +story for you the best way I knew how!" + +Yet this man was far from being a fool. What was it, then? Simply and +solely, a lack of education--of that mental training which even those who +never entered a schoolhouse, receive more or less of, when they so much +as wait patiently for a month behind a chair, or tug for six months at a +plough, or in short, acquire the civilised virtue of Christian patience. +That is it. We often hear in this world that a little education goes a +great way; but to get some idea of the immense value of a very little +education indeed, and the incredible effect it may have upon character, +one should study with gentleness and patience a real Gipsy. + +Probably the most universal error in the world is the belief that all +men, due allowance being made for greater or less knowledge, or +"talents," have minds like our own; are endowed with the same moral +perception, and see things on the whole very much as we do. Now the +truth is that a Chinese, whose mind is formed, not by "religion" as we +understand it, but simply by the intense pressure of "Old Custom," which +we do not understand, thinks in a different manner from an European; +moralists accuse him of "moral obliquity," but in reality it is a moral +difference. Docility of mind, the patriarchal principle, and the very +perfection of innumerable wise and moral precepts have, by the practice +of thousands of years, produced in him their natural result. Whenever he +attempts to think, his mind runs at once into some broad and open path, +beautifully bordered with dry artificial flowers, {21} and the result has +been the inability to comprehend any new idea--a state to which the +Church of the Middle Ages, or any too rigidly established system, would +in a few thousand years have reduced humanity. Under the action of +widely different causes, the gipsy has also a different cast of mind from +our own, and a radical moral difference. A very few years ago, when I +was on the Plains of Western Kansas, old Black Kettle, a famous Indian +chief said in a speech, "I am not a white man, I am a _wolf_. I was born +like a wolf on the prairies. I have lived like a wolf, and I shall die +like one." Such is the wild gipsy. Ever poor and hungry, theft seems to +him, in the trifling easy manner in which he practises it, simply a +necessity. The moral aspects of petty crime he never considers at all, +nor does he, in fact, reflect upon anything as it is reflected on by the +humblest peasant who goes to church, or who in any way feels himself +connected as an integral part of that great body-corporate--Society. + + + + +CHAPTER II. A GIPSY COTTAGE. + + +The Old Fortune-Teller and her Brother.--The Patteran, or Gipsies' Road- +Mark .--The Christian Cross, named by Continental Gipsies Trushul, after +the Trident of Siva.--Curious English-Gipsy term for the Cross.--Ashwood +Fires on Christmas Day.--Our Saviour regarded with affection by the +Rommany because he was like themselves and poor.--Strange ideas of the +Bible.--The Oak.--Lizards renew their lives.--Snails.--Slugs.--Tobacco +Pipes as old as the world. + +"Duveleste; Avo. Mandy's kaired my patteran adusta chairuses where a +drum jals atut the waver," which means in English--"God bless you, yes. +Many a time I have marked my sign where the roads cross." + +I was seated in the cottage of an old Gipsy mother, one of the most noted +fortune-tellers in England, when I heard this from her brother, himself +an ancient wanderer, who loves far better to hear the lark sing than the +mouse cheep when he wakes of a morning. + +It was a very small but clean cottage, of the kind quite peculiar to the +English labourer, and therefore attractive to every one who has felt the +true spirit of the most original poetry and art which this country has +produced. For look high or low, dear reader, you will find that nothing +has ever been better done in England than the pictures of rural life, and +over nothing have its gifted minds cast a deeper charm. + +There were the little rough porcelain figures of which the English +peasantry are so fond, and which, cheap as they are, indicate that the +taste of your friends Lady --- for Worcester "porcelain," or the Duchess +of --- for Majolica, has its roots among far humbler folk. In fact there +were perhaps twenty things which no English reader would have supposed +were peculiar, yet which were something more than peculiar to me. The +master of the house was an Anglo-Saxon--a Gorgio--and his wife, by some +magic or other, the oracle before-mentioned. + +And I, answering said-- + +"So you all call it _patteran_?" {24} + +"No; very few of us know that name. We do it without calling it +anything." + +Then I took my stick and marked on the floor the following sign-- + +[Sign: ill24.jpg] + +"There," I said, "is the oldest patteran--first of all--which the Gipsies +use to-day in foreign lands. In Germany, when one band of Gipsies goes +by a cross road, they draw that deep in the dust, with the end of the +longest line pointing in the direction in which they have gone. Then, +the next who come by see the mark, and, if they choose, follow it." + +"We make it differently," said the Gipsy. "This is our sign--the _trin +bongo drums_, or cross." And he drew his patteran thus-- + +[Cross: ill25.jpg] + +"The long end points the way," he added; "just as in your sign." + +"You call a cross," I remarked, "_trin bongo drums_, or the three crooked +roads. Do you know any such word as _trushul_ for it?" + +"No; _trushilo_ is thirsty, and _trushni_ means a faggot, and also a +basket." + +"I shouldn't wonder if a faggot once got the old Rommany word for cross," +I said, "because in it every stick is crossed by the wooden _withy_ which +binds it; and in a basket, every wooden strip crosses the other." + +I did not, however, think it worth while to explain to the Gipsies that +when their ancestors, centuries ago, left India, it was with the memory +that Shiva, the Destroyer, bore a trident, the tri-cula in Sanscrit, the +_trisul_ of Mahadeva in Hindustani, and that in coming to Europe the +resemblance of its shape to that of the Cross impressed them, so that +they gave to the Christian symbol the name of the sacred triple spear. +{26} For if you turn up a little the two arms of a cross, you change the +emblem of suffering and innocence at once into one of murder--just as +ever so little a deviation from goodness will lead you, my dear boy, into +any amount of devilry. + +And that the unfailing lucid flash of humour may not be wanting, there +lightens on my mind the memory of _The Mysterious Pitchfork_--a German +satirical play which made a sensation in its time--and Herlossohn in his +romance of _Der Letzte Taborit_ (which helped George Sand amazingly in +Consuelo), makes a Gipsy chieftain appear in a wonderfully puzzling light +by brandishing, in fierce midnight dignity, this agricultural parody on +Neptune's weapon, which brings me nicely around to my Gipsies again. + +If I said nothing to the inmates of the cottage of all that the _trushul_ +or cross trident suggested, still less did I vex their souls with the +mystic possible meaning of the antique _patteran_ or sign which I had +drawn. For it has, I opine, a deep meaning, which as one who knew +Creuzer of old, I have a right to set forth. Briefly, then, and without +encumbering my book with masses of authority, let me state that in all +early lore, the _road_ is a symbol of life; Christ himself having used it +in this sense. Cross roads were peculiarly meaning-full as indicating +the meet-of life with life, of good with evil, a faith of which abundant +traces are preserved in the fact that until the present generation +suicides were buried at them, and magical rites and diabolic incantations +are supposed to be most successful when practised in such places. The +English _path_, the Gipsy patteran, the Rommany-Hindu _pat_, a foot, and +the Hindu _panth_, a road, all meet in the Sanscrit _path_, which was the +original parting of the ways. Now the _patteran_ which I have drawn, +like the Koua of the Chinese or the mystical _Swastika_ of the Buddhists, +embraces the long line of life, or of the infinite and the short, or +broken lines of the finite, and, therefore, as an ancient magical Eastern +sign, would be most appropriately inscribed as a _sikker-paskero +dromescro_--or hand post--to show the wandering Rommany how to proceed on +their way of life. + +[Svastika: ill27.jpg] + +That the ordinary Christian Cross should be called by the English Gipsies +a _trin bongo drum_--or the three cross roads--is not remarkable when we +consider that their only association with it is that of a "wayshower," as +Germans would call it. To you, reader, it may be that it points the way +of eternal life; to the benighted Rommany-English-Hindoo, it indicates +nothing more than the same old weary track of daily travel; of wayfare +and warfare with the world, seeking food and too often finding none; +living for petty joys and driven by dire need; lying down with poverty +and rising with hunger, ignorant in his very wretchedness of a thousand +things which he _ought_ to want, and not knowing enough to miss them. + +Just as the reader a thousand, or perhaps only a hundred, years +hence--should a copy of this work be then extant--may pity the writer of +these lines for his ignorance of the charming comforts, as yet unborn, +which will render _his_ physical condition so delightful. To thee, oh, +future reader, I am what the Gipsy is to me! Wait, my dear boy of the +Future--wait--till _you_ get to heaven! + +Which is a long way off from the Gipsies. Let us return. We had spoken +_of patteran_, or of crosses by the way-side, and this led naturally +enough to speaking of Him who died on the Cross, and of wandering. And I +must confess that it was with great interest I learned that the Gipsies, +from a very singular and Rommany point of view, respect, and even pay +him, in common with the peasantry in some parts of England, a peculiar +honour. For this reason I bade the Gipsy carefully repeat his words, and +wrote them down accurately. I give them in the original, with a +translation. Let me first state that my informant was not quite clear in +his mind as to whether the Boro Divvus, or Great Day, was Christmas or +New Year's, nor was he by any means certain on which Christ was born. But +he knew very well that when it came, the Gipsies took great pains to burn +an ash-wood fire. + +"Avali--adusta cheirus I've had to jal dui or trin mees of a Boro Divvus +sig' in the sala, to lel ash-wood for the yag. That was when I was a +bitti chavo, for my dadas always would keravit. + +"An' we kairs it because foki pens our Saviour, the tikno Duvel was born +apre the Boro Divvus, 'pre the puv, avree in the temm, like we Rommanis, +and he was brought 'pre pash an ash yag--(_Why you can dick dovo adree +the Scriptures_!). + +"The ivy and holly an' pine rukks never pookered a lav when our Saviour +was gaverin' of his kokero, an' so they tools their jivaben saw (sar) the +wen, and dicks selno saw the besh; but the ash, like the surrelo rukk, +pukkered atut him, where he was gaverin, so they have to hatch mullo +adree the wen. And so we Rommany chals always hatchers an ash yag saw +the Boro Divvuses. For the tickno duvel was chivved a wadras 'pre the +puvius like a Rommany chal, and kistered apre a myla like a Rommany, an' +jalled pale the tem a mangin his moro like a Rom. An' he was always a +pauveri choro mush, like we, till he was nashered by the Gorgios. + +"An' he kistered apre a myla? Avali. Yeckorus he putchered the pash- +grai if he might kister her, but she pookered him _kek_. So because the +pash-grai wouldn't rikker him, she was sovahalled againsus never to be a +dye or lel tiknos. So she never lelled kek, nor any cross either. + +"Then he putchered the myla to rikker him, and she penned: 'Avali!' so he +pet a cross apre laki's dumo. And to the divvus the myla has a trin +bongo drum and latchers tiknos, but the pash-grai has kek. So the mylas +'longs of the Rommanis." + +(TRANSLATION.)--"Yes--many a time I've had to go two or three miles of a +Great Day (Christmas), early in the morning, to get ash-wood for the +fire. That was when I was a small boy, for my father always would do it. + +"And we do it because people say our Saviour, the small God, was born on +the Great Day, in the field, out in the country, like we Rommanis, and he +was brought up by an ash-fire." + +Here a sudden sensation of doubt or astonishment at my ignorance seemed +to occur to my informant, for he said,-- + +"Why, you can see that in the Scriptures!" + +To which I answered, "But the Gipsies have Scripture stories different +from those of the Gorgios, and different ideas about religion. Go on +with your story. Why do you burn ash-wood?" + +"The ivy, and holly, and pine trees, never told a word where our Saviour +was hiding himself, and so they keep alive all the winter, and look green +all the year. But the ash, like the oak (_lit_. strong tree), told of +him (_lit_. across, against him), where he was hiding, so they have to +remain dead through the winter. And so we Gipsies always burn an ash- +fire every Great Day. For the Saviour was born in the open field like a +Gipsy, and rode on an ass like one, and went round the land a begging his +bread like a Rom. And he was always a poor wretched man like us, till he +was destroyed by the Gentiles. + +"And He rode on an ass? Yes. Once he asked the mule if he might ride +her, but she told him no. So because the mule would not carry him, she +was cursed never to be a mother or have children. So she never had any, +nor any cross either. + +"Then he asked the ass to carry him, and she said 'Yes;' so he put a +cross upon her back. And to this day the ass has a cross and bears +young, but the mule has none. So the asses belong to (are peculiar to) +the Gipsies." + +There was a pause, when I remarked-- + +"That is a _fino gudlo_--a fine story; and all of it about an ash tree. +Can you tell me anything about the _surrelo rukk_--the strong tree--the +oak?" + +"Only what I've often heard our people say about its life." + +"And what is that?" + +"Dui hundred besh a hatchin, dui hundred besh nasherin his chuckko, dui +hundred besh 'pre he mullers, and then he nashers sar his ratt and he's +kekoomi kushto." {30} + +"That is good, too. There are a great many men who would like to live as +long." + +"_Tacho_, true. But an old coat can hold out better than a man. If a +man gets a hole in him he dies, but his _chukko_ (coat) can be _toofered_ +and _sivved apre_ (mended and sewed up) for ever. So, unless a man could +get a new life every year, as they say the _hepputs_, the little lizards +do, he needn't hope to live like an oak." + +"Do the lizards get a new life every year?" + +"_Avali_. A _hepput_ only lives one year, and then he begins life over +again." + +"Do snails live as long as lizards?" + +"Not when I find 'em rya--if I am hungry. Snails are good eating. {32} +You can find plenty on the hedges. When they're going about in the +fields or (are found) under wood, they are not good eating. The best are +those which are kept, or live through (literally _sleep_) the winter. +Take 'em and wash 'em and throw 'em into the kettle, with water and a +little salt. The broth's good for the yellow jaundice." + +"So you call a snail"-- + +"A bawris," said the old fortune-teller. + +"Bawris! The Hungarian Gipsies call it a _bouro_. But in Germany the +Rommanis say stargoli. I wonder why a snail should be a stargoli." + +"I know," cried the brother, eagerly. "When you put a snail on the fire +it cries out and squeaks just like a little child. Stargoli means 'four +cries.'" + +I had my doubts as to the accuracy of this startling derivation, but said +nothing. The same Gipsy on a subsequent occasion, being asked what he +would call a _roan_ horse in Rommany, replied promptly-- + +"A matchno grai"--a fish-horse. + +"Why a matchno grai?" + +"Because a fish has a roan (_i.e_., roe), hasn't it? Leastways I can't +come no nearer to it, if it ain't that." + +But he did better when I was puzzling my brain, as the learned Pott and +Zippel had done before me, over the possible origin of churro or tchurro, +"a ball, or anything round," when he suggested-- + +"Rya--I should say that as a _churro_ is round, and a _curro_ or cup is +round, and they both sound alike and look alike, it must be all werry +much the same thing." {33} + +"Can you tell me anything more about snails?" I asked, reverting to a +topic which, by the way, I have observed is like that of the hedgehog, a +favourite one with Gipsies. + +"Yes; you can cure warts with the big black kind that have no shells." + +"You mean slugs. I never knew they were fit to cure anything." + +"Why, that's one of the things that everybody knows. When you get a wart +on your hands, you go on to the road or into the field till you find a +slug, one of the large kind with no shell (literally, with no house upon +him), and stick it on the thorn of a blackthorn in a hedge, and as the +snail dies, one day after the other, for four or five days, the wart will +die away. Many a time I've told that to Gorgios, and Gorgios have done +it, and the warts have gone away (literally, cleaned away) from their +hands." {34} + +Here the Gipsy began to inquire very politely if smoking were offensive +to me; and as I assured him that it was not, he took out his pipe. And +knowing by experience that nothing is more conducive to sociability, be +it among Chippeways or Gipsies, than that smoking which is among our +Indians, literally a burnt-offering, {35} I produced a small clay pipe of +the time of Charles the Second, given to me by a gentleman who has the +amiable taste to collect such curiosities, and give them to his friends +under the express condition that they shall be smoked, and not laid away +as relics of the past. If you move in _etching_ circles, dear readers, +you will at once know to whom I refer. + +The quick eye of the Gipsy at once observed my pipe. + +"That is a _crow-swagler_--a crow-pipe," he remarked. + +"Why a crow-pipe?" + +"I don't know. Some Gipsies call 'em _mullos' swaglers_, or dead men's +pipes, because those who made 'em were dead long ago. There are places +in England where you can find 'em by dozens in the fields. I never +dicked (saw) one with so long a stem to it as yours. And they're old, +very old. What is it you call it before everything" (here he seemed +puzzled for a word) "when the world was a-making?" + +"The Creation." + +"Avali--that's it, the Creation. Well, them crow-swaglers was kaired at +the same time; they're hundreds--avali--thousands of beshes (years) old. +And sometimes we call the beng (devil) a swagler, or we calls a swagler +the beng." + +"Why?" + +"Because the devil lives in smoke." + + + + +CHAPTER III. THE GIPSY TINKER. + + +Difficulty of coming to an Understanding with Gipsies.--The +Cabman.--Rommany for French.--"Wanderlust."--Gipsy Politeness.--The +Tinker and the Painting.--Secrets of Bat-catching.--The Piper of Hamelin, +and the Tinker's Opinion of the Story.--The Walloon Tinker of Spa.--Argot. + +One summer day in London, in 1871, I was seated alone in an artist's +studio. Suddenly I heard without, beneath the window, the murmur of two +voices, and the sleepy, hissing, grating sound of a scissors-grinder's +wheel. + +By me lay a few tools, one of which, a chisel, was broken. I took it, +went softly to the window, and looked down. + +There was the wheel, including all the apparatus of a travelling tinker. +I looked to see if I could discover in the two men who stood by it any +trace of the Rommany. One, a fat, short, mind-his-own-business, ragged +son of the roads, who looked, however, as if a sturdy drinker might be +hidden in his shell, was evidently not my "affair." He seemed to be the +"Co." of the firm. + +But by him, and officiating at the wheeling smithy, stood a taller +figure--the face to me invisible--which I scrutinised more nearly. And +the instant I observed his _hat_ I said to myself, "This looks like it." + +For dilapidated, worn, wretched as that hat was, there was in it an +attempt, though indescribably humble, to be something melo-dramatic, +foreign, Bohemian, and poetic. It was the mere blind, dull, dead germ of +an effort--not even _life_--only the ciliary movement of an antecedent +embryo--and yet it _had_ got beyond Anglo-Saxondom. No costermonger, or +common cad, or true Englishman, ever yet had that indefinable touch of +the opera-supernumerary in the streets. It _was_ a sombrero. + +"That's the man for me," I said. So I called him, and gave him the +chisel, and after a while went down. He was grinding away, and touched +his hat respectfully as I approached. + +Now the reader is possibly aware that of all difficult tasks one of the +most difficult is to induce a disguised Gipsy, or even a professed one, +to utter a word of Rommany to a man not of the blood. Of this all +writers on the subject have much to say. For it is so black-swanish, I +may say so centenarian in unfrequency, for a gentleman to speak Gipsy, +that the Zingaro thus addressed is at once subjected to morbid +astonishment and nervous fears, which under his calm countenance and +infinite "cheek" are indeed concealed, but which speedily reduce +themselves to two categories. + +1. That Rommany is the language of men at war with the law; therefore +you are either a detective who has acquired it for no healthy purpose, or +else you yourself are a scamp so high up in the profession that it +behooves all the little fish of outlawdom to beware of you. + +2. Or else--what is quite as much to be dreaded--you are indeed a +gentleman, but one seeking to make fun of him, and possibly able to do +so. At any rate, your knowledge of Rommany is a most alarming coin of +vantage. Certainly, reader, you know that a regular London streeter, say +a cabman, would rather go to jail than be beaten in a chaffing match. I +nearly drove a hansom into sheer convulsions one night, about the time +this chapter happened, by a very light puzzler indeed. I had hesitated +between him and another. + +"You don't know _your own mind_," said the disappointed candidate to me. + +"_Mind your own_ business," I replied. It was a poor palindrome, {38} +reader--hardly worth telling--yet it settled him. But he swore--oh, of +course he did--he swore beautifully. + +Therefore, being moved to caution, I approached calmly and gazed +earnestly on the revolving wheel. + +"Do you know," I said, "I think a great deal of your business, and take a +great interest in it." + +"Yes, sir." + +"I can tell you all the names of your tools in French. You'd like to +hear them, wouldn't you?" + +"Wery much indeed, sir." + +So I took up the chisel. "This," I said, "is a _churi_, sometimes called +a _chinomescro_." + +"That's the French for it, is it, sir?" replied the tinker, gravely. Not +a muscle of his face moved. + +"The _coals_," I added, "are _hangars_ or _wongurs_, sometimes called +_kaulos_." + +"Never heerd the words before in my life," quoth the sedate tinker. + +"The bellows is a _pudemengro_. Some call it a _pishota_." + +"Wery fine language, sir, is French," rejoined the tinker. In every +instance he repeated the words after me, and pronounced them correctly, +which I had not invariably done. "Wery fine language. But it's quite +new to me." + +"You wouldn't think now," I said, affably, "that _I_ had ever been on the +roads!" + +The tinker looked at me from my hat to my boots, and solemnly replied-- + +"I should say it was wery likely. From your language, sir, wery likely +indeed." + +I gazed as gravely back as if I had not been at that instant the worst +sold man in London, and asked-- + +"Can you _rakher Rommanis_?" (_i.e_., speak Gipsy.) + +And _he_ said he _could_. + +Then we conversed. He spoke English intermingled with Gipsy, stopping +from time to time to explain to his assistant, or to teach him a word. +This portly person appeared to be about as well up in the English Gipsy +as myself--that is, he knew it quite as imperfectly. I learned that the +master had been in America, and made New York and Brooklyn glad by his +presence, while Philadelphia, my native city had been benefited as to its +scissors and morals by him. + +"And as I suppose you made money there, why didn't you remain?" I +inquired. + +The Gipsy--for he was really a Gipsy, and not a half-scrag--looked at me +wistfully, and apparently a little surprised that I should ask him such a +question. + +"Why, sir, _you_ know that _we_ can't keep still. Somethin' kept telling +me to move on, and keep a movin'. Some day I'll go back again." + +Suddenly--I suppose because a doubt of my perfect Freemasonry had been +aroused by my absurd question--he said, holding up a kettle-- + +"What do you call this here in Rommanis?" + +"I call it a _kekavi_ or a _kavi_," I said. "But it isn't _right_ +Rommany. It's Greek, which the Rommanichals picked up on their way +here." + +And here I would remark, by the way, that I have seldom spoken to a Gipsy +in England who did not try me on the word for kettle. + +"And what do you call a face?" he added. + +"I call a face a _mui_," I said, "and a nose a _nak_; and as for _mui_, I +call _rikker tiro mui_, 'hold your jaw.' That is German Rommany." + +The tinker gazed at me admiringly, and then said, "You're 'deep' Gipsy, I +see, sir--that's what _you_ are." + +"_Mo rov a jaw_; _mo rakker so drovan_?" I answered. "Don't talk so +loud; do you think I want all the Gorgios around here to know I talk +Gipsy? Come in; _jal adree the ker and pi a curro levinor_." + +The tinker entered. As with most Gipsies there was really, despite the +want of "education," a real politeness--a singular intuitive refinement +pervading all his actions, which indicated, through many centuries of +brutalisation, that fountain-source of all politeness--the Oriental. Many +a time I have found among Gipsies whose life, and food, and dress, and +abject ignorance, and dreadful poverty were far below that of most +paupers and prisoners, a delicacy in speaking to and acting before +ladies, and a tact in little things, utterly foreign to the great +majority of poor Anglo-Saxons, and not by any means too common in even +higher classes. + +For example, there was a basket of cakes on the table, which cakes were +made like soldiers in platoons. Now Mr Katzimengro, or Scissorman, as I +call him, not being familiar with the anatomy of such delicate and +winsome maro, or bread, was startled to find, when he picked up one +biscuit de Rheims, that he had taken a row. Instantly he darted at me an +astonished and piteous glance, which said-- + +"I cannot, with my black tinker fingers, break off and put the cakes back +again; I do not want to take all--it looks greedy." + +So I said, "Put them in your pocket." And he did so, quietly. I have +never seen anything done with a better grace. + +On the easel hung an unfinished picture, representing the Piper of +Hamelin surrounded by rats without number. The Gipsy appeared to be much +interested in it. + +"I used to be a rat-catcher myself," he said. "I learned the business +under old Lee, who was the greatest rat-catcher in England. I suppose +you know, of course, sir, how to _draw_ rats?" + +"Certainly," I replied. "Oil of rhodium. I have known a house to be +entirely cleared by it. There were just thirty-six rats in the house, +and they had a trap which held exactly twelve. For three nights they +caught a dozen, and that finished the congregation." + +"Aniseed is better," replied the Gipsy, solemnly. (By the way, another +and an older Gipsy afterwards told me that he used caraway-oil and the +heads of dried herrings.) "And if you've got a rat, sir, anywhere in +this here house, I'll bring it to you in five minutes." + +He did, in fact, subsequently bring the artist as models for the picture +two very pretty rats, which he had quite tamed while catching them. + +"But what does the picture mean, sir?" he inquired, with curiosity. + +"Once upon a time," I replied, "there was a city in Germany which was +overrun with rats. They teased the dogs and worried the cats, and bit +the babies in the cradle, and licked the soup from the cook's own ladle." + +"There must have been an uncommon lot of them, sir," replied the tinker, +gravely. + +"There was. Millions of them. Now in those days there were no +Rommanichals, and consequently no rat-catchers." + +"'Taint so now-a-days," replied the Gipsy, gloomily. "The business is +quite spiled, and not to get a livin' by." + +"Avo. And by the time the people had almost gone crazy, one day there +came a man--a Gipsy--the first Gipsy who had ever been seen in _dovo tem_ +(or that country). And he agreed for a thousand crowns to clear all the +rats away. So he blew on a pipe, and the rats all followed him out of +town." + +"What did he blow on a pipe for?" + +"Just for _hokkerben_, to humbug them. I suppose he had oils rubbed on +his heels. But when he had drawn the rats away and asked for his money, +they would not give it to him. So then, what do you think he did?" + +"I suppose--ah, I see," said the Gipsy, with a shrewd look. "He went and +drew 'em all back again." + +"No; he went, and this time piped all the children away. They all went +after him--all except one little lame boy--and that was the last of it." + +The Gipsy looked earnestly at me, and then, as if I puzzled, but with an +expression of perfect faith, he asked-- + +"And is that all _tacho_--all a fact--or is it made up, you know?" + +"Well, I think it is partly one and partly the other. You see, that in +those days Gipsies were very scarce, and people were very much astonished +at rat-drawing, and so they made a queer story of it." + +"But how about the children?" + +"Well," I answered; "I suppose you have heard occasionally that Gipsies +used to chore Gorgios' chavis--steal people's children?" + +Very grave indeed was the assent yielded to this explanation. He _had_ +heard it among other things. + +My dear Mr Robert Browning, I little thought, when I suggested to the +artist your poem of the piper, that I should ever retail the story in +Rommany to a tinker. But who knows with whom he may associate in this +life, or whither he may drift on the great white rolling sea of humanity? +Did not Lord Lytton, unless the preface to Pelham err, himself once tarry +in the tents of the Egyptians? and did not Christopher North also wander +with them, and sing-- + + "Oh, little did my mother think, + The day she cradled me, + The lands that I should travel in, + Or the death that I should dee; + Or gae rovin' about wi' tinkler loons, + And sic-like companie"? + +"You know, sir," said the Gipsy, "that we have two languages. For +besides the Rummany, there's the reg'lar cant, which all tinkers talk." + +"_Kennick_ you mean?" + +"Yes, sir; that's the Rummany for it. A 'dolly mort' is Kennick, but +it's _juva_ or _rakli_ in Rummanis. It's a girl, or a rom's _chi_." + +"You say _rom_ sometimes, and then _rum_." + +"There's _rums_ and _roms_, sir. The _rum_ is a Gipsy, and a _rom_ is a +husband." + +"That's your English way of calling it. All the rest of the world over +there is only one word among Gipsies, and that is _rom_." + +Now, the allusion to _Kennick_ or cant by a tinker, recalls an incident +which, though not strictly Gipsy in its nature, I will nevertheless +narrate. + +In the summer of 1870 I spent several weeks at Spa, in the Ardennes. One +day while walking I saw by the roadside a picturesque old tinker, looking +neither better nor worse than the grinder made immortal by Teniers. + +I was anxious to know if all of his craft in Belgium could speak Gipsy, +and addressed him in that language, giving him at the same time my knife +to grind. He replied politely in French that he did not speak Rommany, +and only understood French and Walloon. Yet he seemed to understand +perfectly the drift of my question, and to know what Gipsy was, and its +nature, since after a pause he added, with a significant smile-- + +"But to tell the truth, monsieur, though I cannot talk Rommany, I know +another secret language. I can speak _Argot_ fluently." + +Now, I retain in my memory, from reading the Memoirs of Vidocq thirty +years ago, one or two phrases of this French thieves' slang, and I at +once replied that I knew a few words of it myself, adding-- + +"_Tu sais jaspiner en bigorne_?"--you can talk argot? + +"_Oui, monsieur_." + +"_Et tu vas roulant de vergne en vergne_?"--and you go about from town to +town? + +Grave and keen, and with a queer smile, the tinker replied, very slowly-- + +"Monsieur knows the Gipsies" (here he shook his head), "and monsieur +speaks _argot_ very well." (A shrug.) "Perhaps he knows more than he +credits himself with. Perhaps" (and here his wink was diabolical)-- +"_perhaps monsieur knows the entire tongue_!" + +Spa is full not only of gamblers, but of numbers of well-dressed Parisian +sharpers who certainly know "the entire tongue." I hastened to pay my +tinker, and went my way homewards. Ross Browne was accused in Syria of +having "burgled" onions, and the pursuit of philology has twice subjected +me to be suspected by tinkers as a flourishing member of the "dangerous +classes." + +But to return to my rat-catcher. As I quoted a verse of German Gipsy +song, he manifested an interest in it, and put me several questions with +regard to the race in other lands. + +"I wish I was a rich gentleman. I would like to travel like you, sir, +and have nothing to do but go about from land to land, looking after our +Rummany people as you do, and learnin' everything Rummany. Is it true, +sir, we come from Egypt?" + +"No. I think not. There are Gipsies in Egypt, but there is less Rommany +in their _jib_ (language) than in any other Gipsy tribe in the world. The +Gipsies came from India." + +"And don't you think, sir, that we're of the children of the lost Ten +Tribes?" + +"I am quite sure that you never had a drop of blood in common with them. +Tell me, do you know any Gipsy _gilis_--any songs?" + +"Only a bit of a one, sir; most of it isn't fit to sing, but it begins--" + +And here he sang: + + "Jal 'dree the ker my honey, + And you shall be my rom." + +And chanting this, after thanking me, he departed, gratified with his +gratuity, rejoiced at his reception, and most undoubtedly benefited by +the beer with which I had encouraged his palaver--a word, by the way, +which is not inappropriate, since it contains in itself the very word of +words, the _lav_, which means a word, and is most antiquely and +excellently Gipsy. Pehlevi is old Persian, and to _pen lavi_ is Rommany +all the world over "to speak words." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. GIPSY RESPECT FOR THE DEAD. + + +Gipsies and Comteists identical as to "Religion"--Singular Manner of +Mourning for the Dead, as practised by Gipsies--Illustrations from +Life--Gipsy Job and the Cigars--Oaths by the Dead--Universal Gipsy Custom +of never Mentioning the Names of the Dead--Burying valuable Objects with +the Dead--Gipsies, Comteists, Hegelians, and Jews--The Rev. James Crabbe. + +Comte, the author of the Positivist philosophy, never felt the need of a +religion until he had fallen in love; and at the present day his "faith" +appears to consist in a worship of the great and wise and good among the +dead. I have already spoken of many Gipsies reminding me, by their +entirely unconscious ungodliness, of thorough Hegelians. I may now add, +that, like the Positivists, they seem to correct their irreligion through +the influence of love; and by a strange custom, which is, in spirit and +fact, nothing less than adoring the departed and offering to the dead a +singular sacrifice. + +He who has no house finds a home in family and friends, whence it results +that the Gipsy, despite his ferocious quarrels in the clan, and his sharp +practice even with near relations, is--all things considered--perhaps the +most devoted to kith and kin of any one in the world. His very name--rom, +a husband--indicates it. His children, as almost every writer on him, +from Grellmann down to the present day, has observed, are more thoroughly +indulged and spoiled than any non-gipsy can conceive; and despite all the +apparent contradictions caused by the selfishness born of poverty, +irritable Eastern blood, and the eccentricity of semi-civilisation, I +doubt if any man, on the whole, in the world, is more attached to his +own. + +It was only three or four hours ago, as I write, on the fifth day of +February 1872, that a Gipsy said to me, "It is nine years since my wife +died, and I would give all Anglaterra to have her again." + +That the real religion of the Gipsies, as I have already observed, +consists like that of the Comteists, in devotion to the dead, is +indicated by a very extraordinary custom, which, notwithstanding the very +general decay, of late years, of all their old habits, still prevails +universally. This is the refraining from some usage or indulgence in +honour of the departed--a sacrifice, as it were, to their _manes_--and I +believe that, by inquiring, it will be found to exist among all Gipsies +in all parts of the world. In England it is shown by observances which +are maintained at great personal inconvenience, sometime for years, or +during life. Thus, there are many Gipsies who, because a deceased +brother was fond of spirits, have refrained, after his departure, from +tasting them, or who have given up their favourite pursuits, for the +reason that they were last indulged in, in company with the lost and +loved one. + +As a further illustration, I will give in the original Gipsy-language, as +I myself took it down rapidly, but literally, the comments of a +full-blooded Gipsy on this custom--the translation being annexed. I +should state that the narrative which precedes his comments was a reply +to my question, Why he invariably declined my offer of cigars? + +"No; I never toovs cigaras, kek. I never toovs 'em kenna since my pal's +chavo Job mullered. And I'll pooker tute how it welled." + +"It was at the boro wellgooro where the graias prasters. I was kairin +the paiass of the koshters, and mandy dicked a rye an' pookered him for a +droppi levinor. '_Avali_,' he penned, 'I'll del you levinor and a kushto +tuvalo too.' 'Parraco,' says I, 'rya.' So he del mandy the levinor and +a dozen cigaras. I pet em adree my poachy an' jailed apre the purge and +latched odoi my pal's chavo, an' he pook'd mandy, 'Where you jallin to, +kako?' And I penned: 'Job, I've lelled some covvas for tute.' 'Tacho,' +says he--so I del him the cigaras. Penned he: 'Where did tute latcher +'em?' 'A rye del 'em a mandy.' So he pet em adree his poachy, an' +pookered mandy, 'What'll tu lel to pi?' 'A droppi levinor.' So he +penned, 'Pauli the grais prasters, I'll jal atut the puvius and dick +tute.' + +"Eight or nine divvuses pauli, at the K'allis's Gav, his pal welled to +mandy and pookered mi Job sus naflo. And I penned, 'Any thing dush?' +'Worse nor dovo.' 'What _is_ the covvo?' Says yuv, 'Mandy kaums tute to +jal to my pal--don't spare the gry--mukk her jal!' So he del mi a fino +grai, and I kistered eight mee so sig that I thought I'd mored her. An' +I pet her dree the stanya, an' I jalled a lay in the puv and' odoi I +dicked Job. 'Thank me Duvel!' penned he, 'Kako you's welled acai, and if +mandy gets opre this bugni (for 'twas the bugni he'd lelled), I'll del +tute the kushtiest gry that you'll beat sar the Romni chuls.' But he +mullered. + +"And he pens as he was mullerin. 'Kako, tute jins the cigarras you del a +mandy?' '_Avali_,' I says he, 'I've got 'em acai in my poachy.' Mandy +and my pens was by him, but his romni was avree, adree the boro tan, +bikinin covvas, for she'd never lelled the bugni, nor his chavos, so they +couldn't well a dickin, for we wouldn't mukk em. And so he mullered. + +"And when yuv's mullo I pet my wast adree his poachy and there mandy +lastered the cigaras. And from dovo chairus, rya, mandy never tooved a +cigar. + +"Avali--there's adusta Romni chuls that kairs dovo. And when my juvo +mullered, mandy never lelled nokengro kekoomi. Some chairuses in her +jivaben, she'd lel a bitti nokengro avree my mokto, and when I'd pen, +'Deari juvo, what do you kair dovo for?' she pooker mandy, 'It's kushti +for my sherro.' And so when she mullered mandy never lelled chichi +sensus. + +"Some mushis wont haw mass because the pal or pen that mullered was +kammaben to it,--some wont pi levinor for panj or ten besh, some wont haw +the kammaben matcho that the chavo hawed. Some wont haw puvengroes or pi +tood, or haw pabos, and saw (sar) for the mullos. + +"Some won't kair wardos or kil the boshomengro--'that's mandy's pooro +chavo's gilli'--and some won't kel. 'No, I can't kel, the last time I +kelled was with mandy's poor juvo that's been mullo this shtor besh.' + +"'Come pal, let's jal an' have a drappi levinor--the boshomengri's odoi.' +'Kek, pal, kekoomi--I never pi'd a drappi levinor since my bibi's +jalled.' 'Kushto--lel some tuvalo pal?' 'Kek--kek--mandy never tooved +since minno juvo pelled a lay in the panni, and never jalled avree +kekoomi a jivaben.' 'Well, let's jal and kair paiass with the +koshters--we dui'll play you dui for a pint o' levinor.' 'Kek--I never +kaired the paiass of the koshters since my dadas mullered--the last +chairus I ever played was with him.' + +"And Lena, the juva of my pal's chavo, Job, never hawed plums a'ter her +rom mullered." + +(TRANSLATION).--"No, I never smoke cigars. No; I never smoke them now +since my brother's son Job died. And I'll tell you how it came. + +"It was at the great fair where the horses run (_i.e_., the races), I was +keeping a cock-shy, and I saw a gentleman, and asked him for a drop of +ale. 'Yes,' he said, 'I'll give you ale, and a good smoke too.' 'Thank +you,' says I, 'Sir.' So he gave me the ale, and a dozen cigars. I put +them in my pocket, and went on the road and found there my brother's son, +and he asked me, 'Where (are) you going, uncle?' And I said: 'Job, I +have something for you.' 'Good,' says he--so I gave him the cigars. He +said: 'Where did you find them?' 'A gentleman gave them to me.' So he +put them in his pocket, and asked me, 'What'll you take to drink?' 'A +drop of ale.' So he said, 'After the horses (have) run I'll go across +the field and see you.' + +"Eight or nine days after, at Hampton Court, {53} his 'pal' came to me +and told me that Job was ill. And I said, 'Anything wrong?' 'Worse nor +that.' 'What _is_ the affair?' Said he, 'I want you to go to my +pal,--don't spare the horse--let her go!' So he gave me a fine horse, +and I rode eight miles so fast that I thought I'd killed her. And I put +her in the stable, and I went down into the field, and there I saw Job. +'Thank God!' said he; 'Uncle, you've come here; and if I get over this +small-pox (for 'twas the smallpox he'd caught), I'll give you the best +horse that you'll beat all the Gipsies.' But he died. + +"And he says as he was dying, 'Uncle, you know the cigars you gave me?' +'Yes.' Says he, 'I've got 'em here in my pocket.' I and my sisters were +by him, but his wife was outside in the great tent, selling things, for +she never had the smallpox, nor his children, so they couldn't come to +see, for we wouldn't let them. And so he died. + +"And when he was dead, I put my hand in his pocket, and there I found the +cigars. And from that time, Sir, I never smoked a cigar. + +"Yes! there are plenty of Gipsies who do that. And when my wife died, I +never took snuff again. Sometimes in her life she'd take a bit of snuff +out (from) my box; and when I'd say, 'Dear wife, what do you do that +for?' she'd tell me, 'It's good for my head.' And so when she died I +never took any (none) since. + +"Some men won't eat meat because the brother or sister that died was fond +of (to) it; some won't drink ale for five or ten years; some won't eat +the favourite fish that the child ate. Some won't eat potatoes, or drink +milk, or eat apples; and all for the dead. + +"Some won't play cards or the fiddle--'that's my poor boy's tune'--and +some won't dance--'No, I can't dance, the last time I danced was with my +poor wife (or girl) that's been dead this four years.' + +"'Come, brother, let's go and have a drop of ale; the fiddler is there.' +'No, brother, I never drank a drop of ale since my aunt went (died).' +'Well, take some tobacco, brother?' 'No, no, I have not smoked since my +wife fell in the water and never came out again alive.' 'Well, let's go +and play at cock-shy, we two'll play you two for a pint o' ale.' 'No, I +never played at cock-shy since my father died; the last time I played was +with him.' + +"And Lena, the wife of my nephew Job, never ate plums after her husband +died." + +This is a strange manner of mourning, but it is more effective than the +mere wearing of black, since it is often a long-sustained and trying +tribute to the dead. Its Oriental-Indian origin is apparent enough. But +among the German Gipsies, who, I am firmly convinced, represent in +language and customs their English brethren as the latter were three +centuries ago, this reverence for the departed assumes an even deeper and +more serious character. Mr Richard Liebich (_Die Zigeuner_, _Leipzig_, +1863), tells us that in his country their most sacred oath is _Ap i +mulende_!--by the dead!--and with it may be classed the equally +patriarchal imprecation, "By my father's hand!" + +Since writing the foregoing sentence a very remarkable confirmation of +the existence of this oath among English Gipsies, and the sacredness with +which it is observed, came under my own observation. An elderly Gipsy, +during the course of a family difficulty, declared to his sister that he +would leave the house. She did not believe he would until he swore by +his dead wife--by his "_mullo juvo_." And when he had said this, his +sister promptly remarked: "Now you have sworn by her, I know you will do +it." He narrated this to me the next day, adding that he was going to +put a tent up, about a mile away, and live there. I asked him if he ever +swore by his dead father, to which he said: "Always, until my wife died." +This poor man was almost entirely ignorant of what was in the Bible, as I +found by questioning him; but I doubt whether I know any Christian on +whom a Bible oath would be more binding than was to him his own by the +dead. To me there was something deeply moving in the simple earnestness +and strangeness of this adjuration. + +The German, like the older English Gipsies, carefully burn the clothes +and bed of the deceased, and, indeed, most objects closely connected with +them, and what is more extraordinary, evince their respect by carefully +avoiding mentioning their names, even when they are borne by other +persons or are characteristic of certain things. So that when a Gipsy +maiden named Forella once died, her entire nation, among whom the trout +had always been known only by its German designation, Forelle, at once +changed the name, and, to this day it is called by them _mulo +madscho_--the dead fish,--or at times _lolo madscho_--the red fish. + +This is also the case among the English Gipsies. Wishing to have the +exact words and views of a real Rommany on this subject, I made inquiry, +and noted down his reply, which was literally as follows:-- + +"Avali; when Rommany chals or juvos are mullos, their pals don't kaum to +shoon their navs pauli--it kairs 'em too bongo--so they're purabend to +waver navs. Saw don't kair it--kek--but posh do, kenna. My chavo's nav +was Horfer or Horferus, but the bitti chavis penned him Wacker. Well, +yeck divvus pre the wellgooro o' the graias prasters, my juvo dicked a +boro _doll_ adree some hev of a buttika and penned, 'Dovo odoi dicks just +like moro Wacker!' So we penned him _Wackerdoll_, but a'ter my juvo +mullered I rakkered him Wacker again, because Wackerdoll pet mandy in +cammoben o' my poor juvo." + +In English: "Yes. When Gipsy men or women die, their friends don't care +to hear their names again--it makes them too sad, so they are changed to +other names. All don't do it--no--but half of them do so still. My +boy's name was Horfer or Horferus (Orpheus), but the children called him +Wacker. Well, one day at the great fair of the races, my wife saw a +large doll in some window of a shop, and said, 'That looks just like our +Wacker!' So we called him Wackerdoll, but after my wife died I called +him Wacker again, because Wacker_doll_ put me in mind of my poor wife." + +When further interrogated on the same subject, he said: + +"A'ter my juva mullered, if I dicked a waver rakli with lakis'nav, an' +mandy was a rakkerin laki, mandy'd pen ajaw a waver geeri's nav, an +rakker her by a waver nav:--dovo's to pen I'd lel some bongonav sar's +Polly or Sukey. An' it was the sar covva with my dades nav--if I dicked +a mush with a nav that simmed leskers, mandy'd rakker him by a waver nav. +For 'twould kair any mush wafro to shoon the navyas of the mullas a't +'were cammoben to him." + +Or in English, "After my wife died, if I saw another girl with her name, +and I was talking to her, I'd _speak_ another woman's name, and call her +by another name; that's to say, I'd take some nick-name, such as Polly or +Sukey. And it was the same thing with my father's name--if I saw a man +with a name that was the same as his (literally, 'that _samed_ his'), I'd +call him by another name. For 'twould make any man grieve (lit. 'bad') +to hear the names of the dead that were dear to him." + +I suppose that there are very few persons, not of Gipsy blood, in +England, to whom the information will not be new, that there are to be +found everywhere among us, people who mourn for their lost friends in +this strange and touching manner. + +Another form of respect for the departed among Gipsies, is shown by their +frequently burying some object of value with the corpse, as is, however, +done by most wild races. On questioning the same Gipsy last alluded to, +he spoke as follows on this subject, I taking down his words:-- + +"When Job mullered and was chivved adree the puv, there was a nevvi +kushto-dickin dui chakkas pakkered adree the mullo mokto. Dighton penned +a mandy the waver divvus, that trin thousand bars was gavvered posh yeck +o' the Chilcotts. An I've shooned o' some Stanleys were buried with +sonnakai wongashees apre langis wastos. '_Do sar the Rommany chals kair +adovo_?' Kek. Some chivs covvas pash the mullos adree the puv, and boot +adusta don't." + +In English: "When Job died and was buried, there was a new beautiful pair +of shoes put in the coffin (_lit_. corpse-box). Dighton told me the +other day, that three thousand pounds were hidden with one of the +Chilcotts. And I have heard of some Stanleys who were buried with gold +rings on their fingers. '_Do all the Gipsies do that_?' No! some put +things with the dead in the earth, and many do not." + +Mr Liebich further declares, that while there is really nothing in it to +sustain the belief, this extraordinary reverence and regard for the dead +is the only fact at all indicating an idea of the immortality of the soul +which he has ever found among the Gipsies; but, as he admits, it proves +nothing. To me, however, it is grimly grotesque, when I return to the +disciples of Comte--the Positivists--the most highly cultivated scholars +of the most refined form of philosophy in its latest stage, and find that +their ultimate and practical manifestation of _la religion_, is quite the +same as that of those unaffected and natural Positivists, the Gipsies. +With these, as with the others, our fathers find their immortality in our +short-lived memories, and if among either, some one moved by deep love--as +Auguste was by the eyes of Clotilda--has yearned for immortality with the +dear one, and cursed in agony Annihilation, he falls upon the faith +founded in ancient India, that only that soul lives for ever which has +done so much good on earth, as to leave behind it in humanity, +ineffaceable traces of its elevation. + +Verily, the poor Gipsies would seem, to a humourist, to have been created +by the devil, whose name they almost use for God, a living parody and +satanic burlesque of all that human faith, doubt, or wisdom, have ever +accomplished in their highest forms. Even to the weakest minded and most +uninformed manufacturers of "Grellmann-diluted" pamphlets, on the +Gipsies, their parallel to the Jews is most apparent. All over the world +this black and God-wanting shadow dances behind the solid Theism of "The +People," affording proof that if the latter can be preserved, even in the +wildest wanderings, to illustrate Holy Writ--so can gipsydom--for no +apparent purpose whatever. How often have we heard that the preservation +of the Jews is a phenomenon without equal? And yet they both live--the +sad and sober Jew, the gay and tipsy Gipsy, Shemite and Aryan--the one so +ridiculously like and unlike the other, that we may almost wonder whether +Humour does not enter into the Divine purpose and have its place in the +Destiny of Man. For my own part, I shall always believe that the Heathen +Mythology shows a superiority to any other, in _one_ conception--that of +Loki, who into the tremendous upturnings of the Universe always inspires +a grim grotesqueness; a laughter either diabolic or divine. + +Judaism, which is pre-eminently the principle of religious belief:--the +metaphysical emancipation and enlightenment of Germany, and the +materialistic positivism of France, are then, as I have indicated, +nowhere so practically and yet laughably illustrated as by the Gipsy. +Free from all the trammels of faith, and, to the last degree, indifferent +and rationalistic, he satisfies the demands of Feuerbach; devoted to the +positive and to the memory of the dead, he is the ideal of the greatest +French philosophy, while as a wanderer on the face of the earth--not +neglectful of picking up things _en route_--he is the rather blurred +_facsimile_ of the Hebrew, the main difference in the latter parallel +being that while the Jews are God's chosen people, the poor Gipsies seem +to have been selected as favourites by that darker spirit, whose name +they have naively substituted for divinity:--_Nomen et omen_. + +I may add, however, in due fairness, that there are in England some true +Gipsies of unmixed blood, who--it may be without much reflection--have +certainly adopted ideas consonant with a genial faith in immortality, and +certain phases of religion. The reader will find in another chapter a +curious and beautiful Gipsy custom recorded, that of burning an ash fire +on Christmas-day, in honour of our Saviour, because He was born and lived +like a Gipsy; and one day I was startled by bearing a Rom say "Miduvel +hatch for mandy an' kair me kushto."--My God stand up for me and make me +well. "That" he added, in an explanatory tone, "is what you say when +you're sick." These instances, however, indicate no deep-seated +conviction, though they are certainly curious, and, in their extreme +simplicity, affecting. That truly good man, the Rev. James Crabb, in his +touching little book, "The Gipsies' Advocate," gave numbers of instances +of Gipsy conversions to religion and of real piety among them, which +occurred after their minds and feelings had been changed by his labours; +indeed, it would seem as if their lively imaginations and warm hearts +render them extremely susceptible to the sufferings of Jesus. But this +does not in the least affect the extraordinary truth that in their +nomadic and natural condition, the Gipsies, all the world over, present +the spectacle, almost without a parallel, of total indifference to, and +ignorance of, religion, and that I have found true old-fashioned +specimens of it in England. + +I would say, in conclusion, that the Rev. James Crabb, whose unaffected +and earnest little book tells its own story, did much good in his own +time and way among the poor Gipsies; and the fact that he is mentioned to +the present day, by them, with respect and love, proves that missionaries +are not useless, nor Gipsies ungrateful--though it is almost the fashion +with too many people to assume both positions as rules without +exceptions. + + + + +CHAPTER V. GIPSY LETTERS. + + +A Gipsy's Letter to his Sister.--Drabbing Horses.--Fortune Telling.--Cock +Shys.--"Hatch 'em pauli, or he'll lel sar the Covvas!"--Two German Gipsy +Letters. + +I shall give in this chapter a few curious illustrations of Gipsy life +and character, as shown in a letter, which is illustrated by two +specimens in the German Rommany dialect. + +With regard to the first letter, I might prefix to it, as a motto, old +John Willett's remark: "What's a man without an imagination?" Certainly +it would not apply to the Gipsy, who has an imagination so lively as to +be at times almost ungovernable; considering which I was much surprised +that, so far as I know, the whole race has as yet produced only one +writer who has distinguished himself in the department of fiction--albeit +he who did so was a giant therein--I mean John Bunyan. + +And here I may well be allowed an unintended digression, as to whether +Bunyan were really a Gipsy. In a previous chapter of this work, I, with +little thought of Bunyan, narrated the fact that an intelligent tinker, +and a full Gipsy, asked me last summer in London, if I thought that the +Rommany were of the Ten Tribes of Israel? When John Bunyan tells us +explicitly that he once asked his father whether he and his relatives +were of the race of the Israelites--he having then never seen a Jew--and +when he carefully informs his readers that his descent was of a low and +inconsiderable generation, "my father's house being of that rank that is +meanest and most despised of all the families of the land," there remains +no rational doubt whatever that Bunyan was indeed a Rom of the Rommany. +"_Applico_" of which, as my own special and particular Gipsy is wont to +say--it is worth noting that the magician Shakespeare, who knew +everything, showed himself superior to many modern dramatists in being +aware that the tinkers of England had, not a peculiar cant, but a special +_language_. + +And now for the letters. One day Ward'engro of the K'allis's Gav, asked +me to write him a letter to his daughter, in Rommany. So I began to +write from his dictation. But being, like all his race, unused to +literary labour, his lively imagination continually led him astray, and +as I found amusement in his so doing, it proved to be an easy matter to +induce him to wander off into scenes of gipsy life, which, however +edifying they might be to my reader, would certainly not have the charm +of novelty to the black-eyed lady to whom they were supposed to be +addressed. However, as I read over from time to time to my Rommany chal +what I had written, his delight in actually hearing his own words read +from writing, partook of all the pride of successful authorship--it was, +my dear sir, like your delight over your first proof sheet. + +Well, this was the letter. A translation will be found following it. + +THE PANNI GAV, _Dec_. 16, 1871. + +MY KAMLI CHAVI,--Kushti bak! My cammoben to turo mush an' turo dadas an' +besto bak. We've had wafri bak, my pen's been naflo this here cooricus, +we're doin' very wafro and couldn't lel no wongur. Your dui pals are +kairin kushto, prasturin 'bout the tem, bickinin covvas. {65} Your puro +kako welled acai to his pen, and hatched trin divvus, and jawed avree +like a puro jucko, and never del mandy a poshero. + +Kek adusta nevvi. A rakli acai lelled a hora waver divvus from a waver +rakli, and the one who nashered it pens: "Del it pauli a mandi and I wont +dukker tute! Del it apre!" But the waver rakli penned "kek," and so +they bitchered for the prastramengro. He lelled the juva to the wardo, +and just before she welled odoi, she hatched her wast in her poachy, an' +chiv it avree, and the prastramengro hatched it apre. So they bitchered +her for shurabun. + +(Here my Gipsy suggested that _stardo_ or _staramangro_ might be used for +greater elegance, in place of shurabun.) + +I've got kek gry and can't lel no wongur to kin kek. My kamli chavi, if +you could bitch me a few bars it would be cammoben. I rikkers my covvas +apre mi dumo kenna. I dicked my kako, waver divvus adree a lot o Rommany +chals, saw a piin'. There was the juvas a koorin adoi and the mushis a +koorin an' there was a boro chingaree, some with kali yakkas an' some +with sherros chinned so the ratt jalled alay 'pre the drum. There was +dui or trin bar to pessur in the sala for the graias an' mylas that got +in pandamam (_pandapenn_). + +Your pal's got a kushti gry that can jal alangus the drum kushto. L--- +too's got a baro kushto gry. He jawed to the wellgooro, to the boro gav, +with a poggobavescro gry an' a nokengro. You could a mored dovo gry an' +kek penn'd a lav tute. I del it some ballovas to hatch his bavol and I +bikened it for 9 bar, to a rye that you jins kushto. Lotti was at the +wellgooro dukkerin the ranis. She lelled some kushti habben, an' her +jellico was saw porder, when she dicked her mush and shelled. "Havacai! +I've got some fine habben!" She penned to a rakli, "Pet your wonger +adree turo wast an I'll dukker tute." An' she lelled a pash bar from the +rani. She penned her: "You kaums a rye a longo duros. He's a kaulo and +there's a waver rye, a pauno, that kaums you too, an' you'll soon lel a +chinamangree. Tute'll rummorben before dui besh, an' be the dye of trin +chavis.' + +There was a gry jallin with a wardo langus the drum, an' I dicked a +raklo, an' putsched (_pootched_) him. "How much wongur?" an' he pookered +man'y "Desh bar;" I penned: "Is dovo, noko gry?" "Avali." Well, a +Rommany chul del him desh bar for the gry an' bikined it for twelve bar +to a boro rye. It was a fino kaulo gry with a boro herree, but had a +naflo piro; it was the _nearo_ piro an' was a dellemescro. He del it +some hopium drab to hatch adoi, and tooled his solivengro upo the purgis. + +At the paiass with the koshters a rye welled and Wantelo shelled avree: +"Trin kosters for a horra, eighteen for a shekori!" An' the rye lelled a +koshter an' we had pange collos for trin dozenos. The rye kaired paiass +kushto and lelled pange cocoanuts, and lelled us to his wardo, and dell'd +mandy trin currus of tatty panni, so that I was most matto. He was a +kushti rye and his rani was as good as the rye. + +There was a waver mush a playin, an' mandy penned: "Pen the kosh paulier, +hatch 'em odoi, don't well adoorer or he'll lel saw the covvos! Chiv 'em +pauli!" A chi rakkered the ryes an' got fifteen cullos from yeck. And +no moro the divvus from your kaum pal, + +M. + + + +TRANSLATION. + + +THE WATER VILLAGE, _Dec_. 16, 1871. + +MY DEAR DAUGHTER,--Good luck! my love to your husband and your father, +and best luck! We've had bad fortune, my sister has been sick this here +week, we're doing very badly and could not get any money. Your two +brothers are doing well, running about the country selling things. Your +old uncle came to his sister and stayed three days, and went away like an +old dog and never gave me a penny. + +Nothing much new. A girl here took a watch the other day from another +girl, and the one who lost it said: "Give it back to me and I won't hurt +you." But the other girl said "No," and so they sent for the constable. +He took the girl to the station (or carriage), and just before she got +there she put her hand in her pocket and threw it away, and the policeman +picked it up. So they sent her to prison. + +I have no horse, and can't get any money to buy _none_. My dear +daughter, if you could send me a few pounds it would be agreeable. I +carry my _traps_ on my back now. I saw my uncle the other day among a +lot of Gipsies, all drinking. There were the women fighting there, and +the men fighting, and there was a great _shindy_, some with black eyes, +and some with heads cut so that the blood ran down on the road. There +were two or three pounds to pay in the morning for the horses and asses +that were in the pound. + +Your brother has got a capital horse that can go along the road nicely. +L---, too, has a large fine horse. He went to the fair in --- with a +broken-winded horse and a glandered. You could have killed that horse +and nobody said a word to you. I gave it some lard to stop his +breathing, and I sold it for nine pound to a gentleman whom you know +well. + +Lotty was at the fair telling fortunes to the ladies. She got some +excellent food, and her apron was quite full, when she saw her husband +and cried out: "Come here! I've got some nice victuals!" She said to a +girl: "Put you money in your hand and I'll tell you your fortune." And +she took half a sovereign from the lady. She told her: "You love a +gentleman who is far away. He is dark, and there is another gentleman, a +fair-haired man that loves you, and you'll soon get a letter. You'll +marry before two years, and be the mother of three children." + +There was a horse going with a waggon along the road; and I saw a youth, +and asked him, "How much money?" (for the horse), and he replied to me, +"Ten pounds." I said, "Is that your horse?" "Yes." Well, a Gipsy gave +him ten pounds for the horse, and sold it for twelve pounds to a great +gentleman. It was a good black horse, with a (handsome) strong leg +(literally large), but it had a bad foot; it was the _near_ foot, and it +was a kicker. He gave it some opium medicament to keep quiet (literally +to stop there), and held his rein (_i.e_., trotted him so as to show his +pace, and conceal his faults) on the road. + +At the cock-shy a gentleman came, and Wantelo halloed out, "Three sticks +for a penny, eighteen for a sixpence!" And the gentleman took a stick, +and we had five shillings for three dozen throws! The gentleman played +well, and got five cocoanuts, and took us to his carriage and gave me +three glasses of brandy, so that I was almost drunk. He was a good +gentleman, and his lady was as good as her husband. + +There was another man playing; and I said, "Set the sticks more back, set +'em there; don't go further or he'll get all the things! Set 'em back!" +A Gipsy girl talked to the gentlemen (_i.e_., persuaded them to play), +and got fifteen shillings from one. And no more to-day from your dear +brother, + +M. + +* * * * * + +One thing in the foregoing letter is worth noting. Every remark or +incident occurring in it is literally true--drawn from life--_pur et +simple_. It is, indeed, almost the _resume_ of the entire life of many +poor Gipsies during the summer. And I may add that the language in which +it is written, though not the "deep" or grammatical Gipsy, in which no +English words occur--as for instance in the Lord's Prayer, as given by Mr +Borrow in his appendix to the Gipsies in Spain {70}--is still really a +fair specimen of the Rommany of the present day, which is spoken at races +by cock-shysters and fortune-tellers. + +The "Water Village," from which it is dated, is the generic term among +Gipsies for all towns by the sea-side. The phrase _kushto_ (or +_kushti_), _bak_!--"good luck!" is after "_Sarishan_!" or "how are you?" +the common greeting among Gipsies. The fight is from life and to the +life; and the "two or three pounds to pay in the morning for the horses +and asses that got impounded," indicates its magnitude. To have a beast +in pound in consequence of a frolic, is a common disaster in Gipsy life. + +During the dictation of the foregoing letter, my Gipsy paused at the word +"broken-winded horse," when I asked him how he could stop the heavy +breathing? + +"With ballovas (or lard and starch)--long enough to sell it." + +"But how would you sell a glandered horse?" + +Here he described, with great ingenuity, the manner in which he would +_tool_ or manage the horse--an art in which Gipsies excel all the world +over--and which, as Mr Borrow tells us, they call in Spain "_de +pacuaro_," which is pure Persian. + +"But that would not stop the running. How would you prevent that?" + +"I don't know." + +"Then I am a better graiengro than you, for I know a powder, and with a +penny's worth of it I could stop the glanders in the worst case, long +enough to sell the horse. I once knew an old horse-dealer who paid sixty +pounds for a _nokengro_ (a glandered horse) which had been powdered in +this way." + +The Gipsy listened to me in great admiration. About a week afterwards I +heard he had spoken of me as follows:-- + +"Don't talk about knowing. My rye knows more than anybody. He can cheat +any man in England selling him a glandered horse." + +Had this letter been strictly confined to the limits originally intended, +it would have spoken only of the sufferings of the family, the want of +money, and possibly, the acquisition of a new horse by the brother. In +this case it bears a decided family-likeness to the following letter in +the German-Gipsy dialect, which originally appeared in a book entitled, +_Beytrag zur Rottwellischen Grammatik_, _oder Worterbuch von der Zigeuner +Spracke_, Leipzig 1755, and which was republished by Dr A. F. Pott in his +stupendous work, _Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien_. Halle, 1844. + + + +GERMAN GIPSY. + + +MIRI KOMLI ROMNI,--Ertiewium Francfurtter wium te gajum apro Newoforo. +Apro drum ne his mange mishdo. Mare manush tschingerwenes ketteni. +Tschiel his te midschach wettra. Tschawe wele naswele. Dowa ker, kai me +gaijam medre gazdias tele; mare ziga t'o terno kalbo nahsle penge. O +flachso te hanfa te wulla te schwigarizakri te stifftshakri ho spinderde +gotshias nina. Lopennawa, wium ke tshorero te wiam hallauter nange +Denkerdum tschingerwam mangi kasht te mre wastiengri butin, oder hunte di +kaw te kinnaw tschommoni pre te bikkewaw pale, te de denkerwaw te +ehrnahrwaw man kiacke. Me bium kiacke kuremangrender pene aper mande, +buten tschingerde buten trinen marde te man, tshimaster apri butin +tshidde. O bolloben te rackel tutt andre sawe kolester, kai me wium adre +te me tshawa tiro rum shin andro meraben. + + + +TRANSLATION. + + +MY DEAR WIFE,--Before I came to Frankfort I went to Neustadt. On the way +it did not go well with me. Our men quarrelled together. It was cold +and wet weather. The children were ill. That house into which we had +gone burnt down; our kid and the young calf run away. The flax and hemp +and wool [which] the sister-in-law and step-daughter spun are also +burned. In short, I say I became so poor that we all went naked. I +thought of cutting wood and working by hand, or I should go into business +and sell something. I think I will make my living so. I was so treated +by the soldiers. They fell on us, wounded many, three they killed, and I +was taken to prison to work for life. Heaven preserve you in all things +from that into which I have fallen, and I remain thy husband unto death. + +* * * * * + +It is the same sad story in all, wretchedness, poverty, losses, and +hunger. In the English letter there was a _chingari_--a shindy; in the +German they have a _tshinger_, which is nearly the same word, and means +the same. It may be remarked as curious that the word _meraben_ at the +end of the letter, meaning death, is used by English Gipsies to signify +life as well. + + "Dick at the gorgios, + The gorgios round mandy; + Trying to take my meripon, + My meripon away." + +The third letter is also in the German-Gipsy dialect, and requires a +little explanation. Once a man named Charles Augustus was arrested as a +beggar and suspected Gipsy, and brought before Mr Richard Liebich, who +appears to have been nothing less in the total than the _Furstlich Reuss- +Plauenschem Criminalrathe und Vorstande des Furstlichen Criminalgerichts +zu Lobenstein_--in fact, a rather lofty local magistrate. Before this +terrible title Charles appeared, and swore stoutly that he was no more a +Rommany chal than he was one of the Apostles--for be it remembered, +reader, that in Germany at the present day, the mere fact of being a +Gipsy is still treated as a crime. Suddenly the judge attacked him with +the words--"_Tu hal rom, me hom, rakker tschatschopenn_!"--"Thou art a +Gipsy, I am a Gipsy, speak the truth." And Charles, looking up in +amazement and seeing the black hair and brown face of the judge, verily +believed that he was of the blood of Dom. So crossing his arms on his +breast in true Oriental style, he salaamed deeply, and in a submissive +voice said--"_Me hom rom_"--"_I am a_ Gipsy." + +The judge did not abuse the confidence gained by his little trick, since +he appears to have taken Charles under his wing, employed him in small +jobs (in America we should say _chores_, but the word would be +frightfully significant, if applied to a Gipsy), {75} and finally +dismissed him. And Charles replied Rommanesquely, by asking for +something. His application was as follows:-- + + + +GERMAN GIPSY. + + +"LICHTENBERG ANE DESCHE OCHDADO, _Januar_ 1859. + +"LADSCHO BARO RAI,--Me hunde dschinawe duge gole dui trin Lawinser mire +zelle gowe, har geas mange an demaro foro de demare Birengerenser. Har +weum me stildo gage lean demare Birengere mr lowe dele, de har weum biro +gage lean jon man dran o stilibin bri, de mangum me mr lowe lender, gai +deum dele. Jon pendin len wellen geg mander. Gai me deum miro lowe +lende, naste pennene jon gar wawer. Brinscherdo lowe hi an i Gissig, o +baro godder lolo paro, trin Chairingere de jeg dschildo gotter sinagro +lowe. Man weas mr lowe gar gobe dschanel o Baro Dewel ani Bolebin. Miro +baaro bargerbin vaschge demare Ladschebin bennawe. O baro Dewel de +pleisserwel de maro ladscho sii i pure sasde Tschiwaha demende demaro +zelo Beero. De hadzin e Birengere miro lowe, dale mangawa me len de +bidschin jon mire lowe gadder o foro Naile abbi Bidschebasger wurtum +sikk. Gai me dschingerdum ab demende, hi gar dschadscho, gai miri romni +hass mando, gowe hi dschadscho. Obaaro Dewel de bleiserwel de mange de +menge demaro Ladscho Sii. Miero Bargerbin. De me dschawe demaro gandelo +Waleddo. + +CHARLES AUGUSTIN." + + + +TRANSLATION. + + +"LICHTENBERG, _January_ 18, 1859. + +"GOOD GREAT SIR,--I must write to you with these two or three words my +whole business (_gowe_, English Gipsy _covvo_, literally 'thing,') how it +happened to me in your town, by your servants (literally 'footmen'). When +I was arrested, your servants took my money away, and when I was freed +they took me out of prison. I asked my money of them which I had given +up. They said they had got none from me. That I gave them my money they +cannot deny. The said (literally, known) money is in a purse, a great +piece, red (and) old, three kreutzers, and a yellow piece of good-for- +nothing money. I did not get my money, as the great God in heaven knows. +My great thanks for your goodness, I say. The great God reward your good +heart with long healthy life, you and your whole family. And if your +servants find my money, I beg they will send it to the town Naila, by the +post at once. That I cursed you is not true; that my wife was drunk is +true. The great God reward your good heart. My thanks. And I remain, +your obedient servant, + +CHARLES AUGUSTIN." + +Those who attempt to read this letter in the original, should be informed +that German Gipsy is, as compared to the English or Spanish dialects, +almost a perfect language; in fact, Pott has by incredible industry, +actually restored it to its primitive complete form; and its orthography +is now settled. Against this orthography poor Charles Augustin sins +sadly, and yet it may be doubted whether many English tramps and beggars +could write a better letter. + +The especial Gipsy characteristic in this letter is the constant use of +the name of God, and the pious profusion of blessings. "She's the +_blessing-est_ old woman I ever came across," was very well said of an +old Rommany dame in England. And yet these well-wishings are not always +insincere, and they are earnest enough when uttered in Gipsy. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. GIPSY WORDS WHICH HAVE PASSED INTO ENGLISH SLANG. + + +Jockey.--Tool.--Cove or Covey.--Hook, Hookey, and Walker, Hocus, Hanky- +Panky, and Hocus-Pocus.--Shindy.--Row.--Chivvy.--Bunged Eye.--Shavers.-- +Clichy.--Caliban.--A Rum 'un.--Pal.--Trash.--Cadger.--Cad.--Bosh.--Bats.-- +Chee-chee.--The Cheese.--Chiv Fencer.--Cooter.--Gorger.--Dick.--Dook.-- +Tanner.--Drum.--Gibberish.--Ken.--Lil.--Loure.--Loafer.--Maunder.--Moke.-- +Parny.--Posh.--Queer. Raclan.--Bivvy.--Rigs.--Moll.--Distarabin.--Tiny.-- +Toffer.--Tool.--Punch.--Wardo.--Voker (one of Mr Hotten's Gipsy words).-- +Welcher.--Yack.--Lushy.--A Mull.--Pross.--Toshers.--Up to Trap.--Barney.-- +Beebee.--Cull, Culley.--Jomer.--Bloke.--Duffer.--Niggling.--Mug.-- +Bamboozle, Slang, and Bite.--Rules to be observed in determining the +Etymology of Gipsy Words. + +Though the language of the Gipsies has been kept a great secret for +centuries, still a few words have in England oozed out here and there +from some unguarded crevice, and become a portion of our tongue. There +is, it must be admitted, a great difficulty in tracing, with anything +like accuracy, the real origin or identity of such expressions. Some of +them came into English centuries ago, and during that time great changes +have taken place in Rommany. At least one-third of the words now used by +Scottish Gipsies are unintelligible to their English brothers. To +satisfy myself on this point, I have examined an intelligent English +Gipsy on the Scottish Gipsy vocabularies in Mr Simpson's work, and found +it was as I anticipated; a statement which will not appear incredible +when it is remembered, that even the Rommany of Yetholm have a dialect +marked and distinct from that of other Scotch Gipsies. As for England, +numbers of the words collected by William Marsden, and Jacob Bryant, in +1784-5, Dr Bright in 1817, and by Harriott in 1830, are not known at the +present day to any Gipsies whom I have met. Again, it should be +remembered that the pronunciation of Rommany differs widely with +individuals; thus the word which is given as _cumbo_, a hill, by Bryant, +I have heard very distinctly pronounced _choomure_. + +I believe that to Mr Borrow is due the discovery that the word JOCKEY is +of Gipsy origin, and derived from _chuckni_, which means a whip. For +nothing is more clearly established than that the jockey-whip was the +original term in which this word first made its appearance on the turf, +and that the _chuckni_ was a peculiar form of whip, very long and heavy, +first used by the Gipsies. "Jockeyism," says Mr Borrow, "properly means +_the management of a whip_, and the word jockey is neither more nor less +than the term, slightly modified, by which they designate the formidable +whips which they usually carry, and which are at present in general use +among horse-traffickers, under the title of jockey-whips." In Hungary +and Germany the word occurs as _tschuckini_ or _chookni_, and _tschupni_. + +Many of my readers are doubtless familiar with the word to TOOL as +applied to dexterously managing the reins and driving horses. 'To tool +the horses down the road,' is indeed rather a fine word of its class, +being as much used in certain clubs as in stables, and often denotes +stylish and gentlemanly driving. And the term is without the slightest +modification, either of pronunciation or meaning, directly and simply +Gipsy, and is used by Gipsies in the same way. It has, however, in +Rommany, as a primitive meaning--to hold, or to take. Thus I have heard +of a feeble old fellow that "he could not tool himself togetherus"--for +which last word, by the way, _kettenus_ might have been more correctly +substituted. + +COVE is not an elegant, though a very old, word, but it is well known, +and I have no doubt as to its having come from the Gipsy. In Rommany, +all the world over, _cova_ means "a thing," but it is almost indefinite +in its applicability. "It is," says Pott, "a general helper on all +occasions; is used as substantive and adjective, and has a far wider +scope than the Latin _res_." Thus _covo_ may mean "that man;" _covi_, +"that woman;" and _covo_ or _cuvvo_, as it very often does in English, +"that, there." It sometimes appears in the word _acovat_, or _this_. +There is no expression more frequent in a Gipsy's mouth, and it is +precisely the one which would be probably overheard by "Gorgios" and +applied to persons. I believe that it first made its appearance in +English slang as _covey_, and was then pronounced _cuvvy_, being +subsequently abbreviated into cove. + +Quite a little family of words has come into English from the Rommany, +_Hocben_, _huckaben_, _hokkeny_, or _hooker_, all meaning a lie, or to +lie, deception and _humbug_. Mr Borrow shows us that _hocus_, to +"bewitch" liquor with an opiate, and _hoax_, are probably Rommany from +this root, and I have no doubt that the expression, "Yes, with a _hook_," +meaning "it is false," comes from the same. The well-known "Hookey" who +corresponds so closely with his untruthful and disreputable pal "Walker," +is decidedly of the streets--gipsy. In German Gipsy we find _chochavav_ +and _hochewawa_, and in Roumanian Gipsy _kokao_--a lie. Hanky-panky and +Hocus-pocus are each one half almost pure Hindustani. {81} + +A SHINDY approaches so nearly in sound to the Gipsy word _chingaree_, +which means precisely the same thing, that the suggestion is at least +worth consideration. And it also greatly resembles _chindi_, which may +be translated as "cutting up," and also quarrel. "To cut up shindies" +was the first form in which this extraordinary word reached the public. +In the original Gipsy tongue the word to quarrel is _chinger-av_, meaning +also (Pott, _Zigeuner_, p. 209) to cut, hew, and fight, while to cut is +_chinav_. "Cutting up" is, if the reader reflects, a very unmeaning word +as applied to outrageous or noisy pranks; but in Gipsy, whether English, +German, or Oriental, it is perfectly sensible and logical, involving the +idea of quarrelling, separating, dividing, cutting, and stabbing. What, +indeed, could be more absurd than the expression "cutting up shines," +unless we attribute to _shine_ its legitimate Gipsy meaning of _a piece +cut off_, and its cognate meaning, a noise? + +I can see but little reason for saying that a man _cut away_ or that he +_shinned_ it, for run away, unless we have recourse to Gipsy, though I +only offer this as a mere suggestion. + +"Applico" to shindy we have the word ROW, meaning nearly the same thing +and as nearly Gipsy in every respect as can be. It is in Gipsy at the +present day in England, correctly, _rov_, or _roven_--to cry--but _v_ and +_w_ are so frequently transposed that we may consider them as the same +letter. _Raw_ or _me rauaw_, "I howl" or "cry," is German Gipsy. _Rowan_ +is given by Pott as equivalent to the Latin _ululatus_, which constituted +a very respectable _row_ as regards mere noise. "Rowdy" comes from "row" +and both are very good Gipsy in their origin. In Hindustani _Rao mut_ is +"don't cry!" + +CHIVVY is a common English vulgar word, meaning to goad, drive, vex, +hunt, or throw as it were here and there. It is purely Gipsy, and seems +to have more than one root. _Chiv_, _chib_, or _chipe_, in Rommany, mean +a tongue, inferring scolding, and _chiv_ anything sharp-pointed, as for +instance a dagger, or goad or knife. But the old Gipsy word _chiv-av_ +among its numerous meanings has exactly that of casting, throwing, +pitching, and driving. To _chiv_ in English Gipsy means as much and more +than to _fix_ in America, in fact, it is applied to almost any kind of +action. + +It may be remarked in this connection, that in German or continental +Gipsy, which represents the English in a great measure as it once was, +and which is far more perfect as to grammar, we find different words, +which in English have become blended into one. Thus, _chib_ or _chiv_, a +tongue, and _tschiwawa_ (or _chiv_-ava), to lay, place, lean, sow, sink, +set upright, move, harness, cover up, are united in England into _chiv_, +which embraces the whole. "_Chiv it apre_" may be applied to throwing +anything, to covering it up, to lifting it, to setting it, to pushing it, +to circulating, and in fact to a very great number of similar verbs. + +There is, I think, no rational connection between the BUNG of a barrel +and an eye which has been closed by a blow. One might as well get the +simile from a knot in a tree or a cork in a flask. But when we reflect +on the constant mingling of Gipsies with prizefighters, it is almost +evident that the word BONGO may have been the origin of it. A _bongo +yakko_ or _yak_, means a distorted, crooked, or, in fact, a bunged eye. +It also means lame, crooked, or sinister, and by a very singular figure +of speech, _Bongo Tem_ or the Crooked Land is the name for hell. {83} + +SHAVERS, as a quaint nick-name for children, is possibly inexplicable, +unless we resort to Gipsy, where we find it used as directly as possible. +_Chavo_ is the Rommany word for child all the world over, and the English +term _chavies_, in Scottish Gipsy _shavies_, or shavers, leaves us but +little room for doubt. I am not aware to what extent the term "little +shavers" is applied to children in England, but in America it is as +common as any cant word can be. + +I do not know the origin of the French word CLICHY, as applied to the +noted prison of that name, but it is perhaps not undeserving the comment +that in Continental Gipsy it means a key and a bolt. + +I have been struck with the fact that CALIBAN, the monster in "The +Tempest," by Shakespeare, has an appellation which literally signifies +blackness in Gipsy. In fact, this very word, or Cauliban, is given in +one of the Gipsy vocabularies for "black." Kaulopen or Kauloben would, +however, be more correct. + +"A regular RUM 'un" was the form in which the application of the word +"rum" to strange, difficult, or distinguished, was first introduced to +the British public. This, I honestly believe (as Mr Borrow indicates), +came from _Rum_ or _Rom_, a Gipsy. It is a peculiar word, and all of its +peculiarities might well be assumed by the sporting Gipsy, who is always, +in his way, a character, gifted with an indescribable self-confidence, as +are all "horsey" men characters, "sports" and boxers, which enables them +to keep to perfection the German eleventh commandment, "Thou shall not +let thyself be _bluffed_!"--_i.e_., abashed. + +PAL is a common cant word for brother or friend, and it is purely Gipsy, +having come directly from that language, without the slightest change. On +the Continent it is _prala_, or _pral_. In England it sometimes takes +the form "_pel_." + +TRASH is derived by Mr Wedgwood (Dictionary of English Etymology, 1872) +from the old word _trousse_, signifying the clipping of trees. But in +old Gipsy or in the German Gipsy of the present day, as in the Turkish +Rommany, it means so directly "fear, mental weakness and worthlessness," +that it may possibly have had a Rommany origin. Terror in Gipsy is +_trash_, while thirst is _trush_, and both are to be found in the +Hindustani. _Tras_, which means _thirst_ and _alarm_ or _terror_. + +It should be observed that in no instance can these Gipsy words have been +borrowed from English slang. They are all to be found in German Gipsy, +which is in its turn identical with the Rommany language of India--of the +Nats, Bhazeghurs, Doms, Multanee or Banjoree, as I find the primitive +wandering Gipsies termed by different writers. + +I am aware that the word CAD was applied to the conductor of an omnibus, +or to a non-student at Universities, before it became a synonym for +vulgar fellow, yet I believe that it was abbreviated from cadger, and +that this is simply the Gipsy word Gorgio, which often means a man in the +abstract. I have seen this word printed as gorger in English slang. +CODGER, which is common, is applied, as Gipsies use the term Gorgio, +contemptuously, and it sounds still more like it. + +BOSH, signifying nothing, or in fact empty humbug, is generally credited +to the Turkish language, but I can see no reason for going to the Turks +for what the Gipsies at home already had, in all probability, from the +same Persian source, or else from the Sanskrit. With the Gipsies, _bosh_ +is a fiddle, music, noise, barking, and very often an idle sound or +nonsense. "Stop your bosherin," or "your bosh," is what they would term +_flickin lav_, or current phrase. + +"BATS," a low term for a pair of boots, especially bad ones, is, I think, +from the Gipsy and Hindustani _pat_, a foot, generally called, however, +by the Rommany in England, Tom Pats. "To pad the hoof," and "to stand +pad "--the latter phrase meaning to stand upright, or to stand and beg, +are probably derived from _pat_. It should be borne in mind that +Gipsies, in all countries, are in the habit of changing certain letters, +so that _p_ and _b_, like _l_ and _n_, or _k_ and _g_ hard, may often be +regarded as identical. + +"CHEE-CHEE," "be silent!" or "fie," is termed "Anglo-Indian," by the +author of the Slang Dictionary, but we need not go to India of the +present day for a term which is familiar to every Gipsy and "traveller" +in England, and which, as Mr Simson discovered long ago, is an excellent +"spell" to discourage the advances of thimble-riggers and similar gentry, +at fairs, or in public places. + +CHEESE, or "THE CHEESE," meaning that anything is pre-eminent or +superior; in fact, "the thing," is supposed by many to be of gipsy origin +because Gipsies use it, and it is to be found as "chiz" in Hindustani, in +which language it means a thing. Gipsies do not, however, seem to regard +it themselves, as _tacho_ or true Rommanis, despite this testimony, and I +am inclined to think that it partly originated in some wag's perversion +of the French word _chose_. + +In London, a man who sells cutlery in the streets is called a CHIVE +FENCER, a term evidently derived from the Gipsy _chiv_, a sharp-pointed +instrument or knife. A knife is also called a _chiv_ by the lowest class +all over England. + +COUTER or COOTER is a common English slang term for a guinea. It was not +necessary for the author of the Slang Dictionary to go to the banks of +the Danube for the origin of a word which is in the mouths of all English +Gipsies, and which was brought to England by their ancestors. A +sovereign, a pound, in Gipsy, is a _bar_. + +A GORGER, meaning a gentleman, or well-dressed man, and in theatrical +parlance, a manager, is derived by the author of the Slang +Dictionary--absurdly enough, it must be confessed--from "gorgeous,"--a +word with which it has no more in common than with gouges or chisels. A +gorger or gorgio--the two are often confounded--is the common Gipsy word +for one who is not Gipsy, and very often means with them a _rye_ or +gentleman, and indeed any man whatever. Actors sometimes call a fellow- +performer a _cully-gorger_. + +DICK, an English slang word for sight, or seeing, is purely Gipsy in its +origin, and in common use by Rommanis over all the world. + +DOOK, to tell fortunes, and DOOKING, fortune-telling, are derived by the +writer last cited, correctly enough, from the Gipsy _dukkerin_,--a fact +which I specify, since it is one of the very rare instances in which he +has not blundered when commenting on Rommany words, or other persons' +works. + +Mr Borrow has told us that a TANNER or sixpence, sometimes called a +Downer, owes its pseudonym to the Gipsy word _tawno_ or _tano_, meaning +"little"--the sixpence being the little coin as compared with a shilling. + +DRUM or DROM, is the common English Gipsy word for a road. In English +slang it is applied, not only to highways, but also to houses. + +If the word GIBBERISH was, as has been asserted, first applied to the +language of the Gipsies, it may have been derived either from "Gip," the +nickname for Gipsy, with _ish_ or _rish_ appended as in Engl-_ish_, I- +_rish_, or from the Rommany word _Jib_ signifying a language. + +KEN, a low term for a house, is possibly of Gipsy origin. The common +word in every Rommany dialect for a house is, however, neither ken nor +khan, but _Ker_. + +LIL, a book, a letter, has passed from the Gipsies to the low "Gorgios," +though it is not a very common word. In Rommany it can be _correctly_ +applied only to a letter or a piece of paper, which is written on, though +English Gipsies call all books by this name, and often speak of a letter +as a _Chinamangri_. + +LOUR or LOWR, and LOAVER, are all vulgar terms for money, and combine two +Gipsy words, the one _lovo_ or _lovey_, and the other _loure_, to steal. +The reason for the combination or confusion is obvious. The author of +the Slang Dictionary, in order to explain this word, goes as usual to the +Wallachian Gipsies, for what he might have learned from the first tinker +in the streets of London. I should remark on the word loure, that Mr +Borrow has shown its original identity with _loot_, the Hindustani for +plunder or booty. + +I believe that the American word loafer owes something to this Gipsy +root, as well as to the German _laufer_ (_landlaufer_), and Mexican +Spanish _galeofar_, and for this reason, that when the term first began +to be popular in 1834 or 1835, I can distinctly remember that it meant to +_pilfer_. Such, at least, is my earliest recollection, and of hearing +school boys ask one another in jest, of their acquisitions or gifts, +"Where did you loaf that from?" A petty pilferer was a loafer, but in a +very short time all of the tribe of loungers in the sun, and disreputable +pickers up of unconsidered trifles, now known as bummers, were called +loafers. On this point my memory is positive, and I call attention to +it, since the word in question has been the subject of much conjecture in +America. + +It is a very curious fact, that while the word _loot_ is unquestionably +Anglo-Indian, and only a recent importation into our English "slanguage," +it has always been at the same time English-Gipsy, although it never rose +to the surface. + +MAUNDER, to stroll about and beg, has been derived from _Mand_, the Anglo- +Saxon for a basket, but is quite as likely to have come from Maunder, the +Gipsy for "to beg." Mumper, a beggar, is also from the same source. + +MOKE, a donkey, is _said_ to be Gipsy, by Mr Hotten, but Gipsies +themselves do not use the word, nor does it belong to their usual +language. The proper Rommany word for an ass is _myla_. + +PARNY, a vulgar word for rain, is supposed to have come into England from +the "Anglo-Indian" source, but it is more likely that it was derived from +the Gipsy _panni_ or water. "Brandy pawnee" is undoubtedly an +Anglo-Indian word, but it is used by a very different class of people +from those who know the meaning of _Parny_. + +POSH, which has found its way into vulgar popularity, as a term for small +coins, and sometimes for money in general, is the diminutive of the Gipsy +word _pashero_ or _poshero_, a half-penny, from _pash_ a half, and +_haura_ or _harra_, a penny. + +QUEER, meaning across, cross, contradictory, or bad, is "supposed" to be +the German word _quer_, introduced by the Gipsies. In their own language +_atut_ means across or against, though to _curry_ (German and Turkish +Gipsy _kurava_), has some of the slang meaning attributed to _queer_. An +English rogue will say, "to shove the queer," meaning to pass counterfeit +money, while the Gipsy term would be to _chiv wafri lovvo_, or _lovey_. + +"RAGLAN, a married woman, originally _Gipsy_, but now a term with English +tramps" (_The Slang Dictionary_, _London_ 1865). In Gipsy, _raklo_ is a +youth or boy, and _rakli_, a girl; Arabic, _ragol_, a man. I am +informed, on good authority, that these words are known in India, though +I cannot find them in dictionaries. They are possibly transposed from +_Lurka_ a youth and _lurki_ a girl, such transpositions being common +among the lowest classes in India. + +RUMMY or RUMY, as applied to women, is simply the Gipsy word _romi_, a +contraction of _romni_, a wife; the husband being her _rom_. + +BIVVY for beer, has been derived from the Italian _bevere_, but it is +probably Gipsy, since in the old form of the latter language, Biava or +Piava, means to drink. To _pivit_, is still known among English Gipsies. + +RIGS--running one's rigs is said to be Gipsy, but the only meaning of +_rig_, so far as I am able to ascertain in Rommany, is _a side_ or _an +edge_. It is, however, possible that one's _side_ may in earlier times +have been equivalent to "face, or encounter." To _rikker_ or _rigger_ in +Gipsy, is to carry anything. + +MOLL, a female companion, is probably merely the nickname for Mary, but +it is worth observing, that _Mal_ in old Gipsy, or in German Gipsy, means +an associate, and Mahar a wife, in Hindustani. + +STASH, to be quiet, to stop, is, I think, a variation of the common Gipsy +word hatch, which means precisely the same thing, and is derived from the +older word _atchava_. + +STURABAN, a prison, is purely Gipsy. Mr Hotten says it is from the Gipsy +_distarabin_, but there is no such word beginning with _dis_, in the +English Rommany dialect. In German Gipsy a prison is called +_stillapenn_. + +TINY or TEENY has been derived from the Gipsy _tano_, meaning "little." + +TOFFER, a woman who is well dressed in new clean clothes, probably gets +the name from the Gipsy _tove_, to wash (German Gipsy _Tovava_). She is, +so to speak, freshly washed. To this class belong Toff, a dandy; +_Tofficky_, dressy or gay, and _Toft_, a dandy or swell. + +TOOL as applied to stealing, picking pockets, and burglary, is, like +_tool_, to drive with the reins; derived beyond doubt from the Gipsy word +_tool_, to take or hold. In all the Continental Rommany dialects it is +_Tulliwawa_. + +PUNCH, it is generally thought, is Anglo-Indian, derived directly from +the Hindustani _Pantch_ or five, from the five ingredients which enter +into its composition, but it may have partially got its name from some +sporting Gipsy in whose language the word for _five_ is the same as in +Sanskrit. There have been thousands of "swell" Rommany chals who have +moved in sporting circles of a higher class than they are to be found in +at the present day. + +"VARDO formerly was _Old Cant_ for a waggon" (_The Slang Dictionary_). It +may be added that it is pure Gipsy, and is still known at the present day +to every Rom in England. In Turkish Gipsy, _Vordon_ means a vehicle, in +German Gipsy, _Wortin_. + +"Can you VOKER Rommany?" is given by Mr Hotten as meaning "Can you speak +Gipsy,"--but there is no such word in Rommany as _voker_. He probably +meant "Can you _rakker_"--pronounced very often _Roker_. Continental +Gipsy _Rakkervava_. Mr Hotten derives it from the Latin _Vocare_! + +I do not know the origin of WELCHER, a betting cheat, but it is worthy of +remark that in old Gipsy a _Walshdo_ or Welsher meant a Frenchman (from +the German Walsch) or any foreigner of the Latin races. + +YACK, a watch, probably received its name from the Gipsy _Yak_ an eye, in +the old times when watches were called bull's eyes. + +LUSHY, to be tipsy, and LUSH, are attributed for their origin to the name +of Lushington, a once well-known London brewer, but when we find _Losho_ +and _Loshano_ in a Gipsy dialect, meaning jolly, from such a Sanskrit +root as _Lush_; as Paspati derives it, there seems to be some ground for +supposing the words to be purely Rommany. Dr Johnson said of lush that +it was "opposite to pale," and this curiously enough shows its first +source, whether as a "slang" word or as indicative of colour, since one +of its early Sanskrit meanings is _light_ or _radiance_. This identity +of the so regarded vulgar and the refined, continually confronts us in +studying Rommany. + +"To make a MULL of anything," meaning thereby to spoil or confuse it, if +it be derived, as is said, from the Gipsy, must have come from _Mullo_ +meaning _dead_, and the Sanskrit _Mara_. There is, however, no such +Gipsy word as mull, in the sense of entangling or spoiling. + +PROSS is a theatrical slang word, meaning to instruct and train a tyro. +As there are several stage words of manifest Gipsy origin, I am inclined +to derive this from the old Gipsy _Priss_, to read. In English Gipsy +_Prasser_ or _Pross_ means to ridicule or scorn. Something of this is +implied in the slang word _Pross_, since it also means "to sponge upon a +comrade," &c., "for drink." + +TOSHERS are in English low language, "men who steal copper from ship's +bottoms." I cannot form any direct connection between this word and any +in English Gipsy, but it is curious that in Turkish Gipsy _Tasi_ is a +cup, and in Turkish Persian it means, according to Paspati, a copper +basin used in the baths. It is as characteristic of English Gipsy as of +any of its cognate dialects, that we often find lurking in it the most +remarkable Oriental fragments, which cannot be directly traced through +the regular line of transmission. + +UP TO TRAP means, in common slang, intelligent. It is worth observing, +that in Gipsy, _drab_ or _trap_ (which words were pronounced alike by the +first Gipsies who came from Germany to England), is used for medicine or +poison, and the employment of the latter is regarded, even at the +present, as the greatest Rommany secret. Indeed, it is only a few days +since a Gipsy said to me, "If you know _drab_, you're up to everything; +for there's nothing goes above that." With _drab_ the Gipsy secures +game, fish, pigs, and poultry; he quiets kicking horses until they can be +sold; and last, not least, kills or catches rats and mice. As with the +Indians of North America, _medicine_--whether to kill or cure--is to the +Gipsy the art of arts, and those who affect a knowledge of it are always +regarded as the most intelligent. It is, however, remarkable, that the +Gipsy, though he lives in fields and woods, is, all the world over, far +inferior to the American Indian as regards a knowledge of the properties +of herbs or minerals. One may pick the first fifty plants which he sees +in the woods, and show them to the first Indian whom he meets, with the +absolute certainty that the latter will give him a name for every one, +and describe in detail their qualities and their use as remedies. The +Gipsy seldom has a name for anything of the kind. The country people in +America, and even the farmers' boys, have probably inherited by tradition +much of this knowledge from the aborigines. + +BARNEY, a mob or crowd, may be derived from the Gipsy _baro_, great or +many, which sometimes takes the form of _barno_ or _barni_, and which +suggests the Hindustani Bahrna "to increase, proceed, to gain, to be +promoted;" and Bharna, "to fill, to satisfy, to be filled, &c."--(Brice's +"Hindustani and English Dictionary." London, Trubner & Co., 1864). + +BEEBEE, which the author of the Slang Dictionary declares means a lady, +and is "Anglo-Indian," is in general use among English Gipsies for aunt. +It is also a respectful form of address to any middle-aged woman, among +friends. + +CULL or CULLY, meaning a man or boy, in Old English cant, is certainly of +Gipsy origin. _Chulai_ signifies man in Spanish Gipsy (Borrow), and +_Khulai_ a gentleman, according to Paspati; in Turkish Rommany--a +distinction which the word _cully_ often preserves in England, even when +used in a derogatory sense, as of a dupe. + +JOMER, a sweetheart or female favourite, has probably some connection in +derivation with choomer, a kiss, in Gipsy. + +BLOKE, a common coarse word for a man, may be of Gipsy origin; since, as +the author of the Slang Dictionary declares, it may be found in +Hindustani, as Loke. "_Lok_, people, a world, region."--("Brice's Hind. +Dictionary.") _Bala' lok_, a gentleman. + +A DUFFER, which is an old English cant term, expressive of contempt for a +man, may be derived from the Gipsy _Adovo_, "that," "that man," or "that +fellow there." _Adovo_ is frequently pronounced almost like "a duffer," +or "_a duvva_." + +NIGGLING, which means idling, wasting time, doing anything slowly, may be +derived from some other Indo-European source, but in English Gipsy it +means to go slowly, "to potter along," and in fact it is the same as the +English word. That it is pure old Rommany appears from the fact that it +is to be found as _Niglavava_ in Turkish Gipsy, meaning "I go," which is +also found in _Nikliovava_ and _Nikavava_, which are in turn probably +derived from the Hindustani _Nikalna_, "To issue, to go forth or out," +&c. (Brice, Hind. Dic.) _Niggle_ is one of the English Gipsy words +which are used in the East, but which I have not been able to find in the +German Rommany, proving that here, as in other countries, certain old +forms have been preserved, though they have been lost where the +vocabulary is far more copious, and the grammar much more perfect. + +MUG, a face, is derived by Mr Wedgwood from the Italian MOCCA, a mocking +or apish mouth (Dictionary of English Etymology), but in English Gipsy we +have not only _mui_, meaning the face, but the _older_ forms from which +the English word was probably taken, such as Mak'h (Paspati), and finally +the Hindustani _Mook_ and the Sanskrit _Mukha_, mouth or face +(Shakespeare, Hind. Dic., p. 745). In all cases where a word is so +"slangy" as mug, it seems more likely that it should have been derived +from Rommany than from Italian, since it is only within a few years that +any considerable number of the words of the latter language was imparted +to the lower classes of London. + +BAMBOOZLE, BITE, and SLANG are all declared by the author of the Slang +Dictionary to be Gipsy, but, with the exception of the last word, I am +unable to verify their Rommany origin. Bambhorna does indeed mean in +Hindustani (Brice), "to bite or to worry," and bamboo-bakshish to deceive +by paying with a whipping, while _swang_, as signifying mimicking, +acting, disguise and sham, whether of words or deeds, very curiously +conveys the spirit of the word slang. As for _bite_ I almost hesitate to +suggest the possibility of a connection between it and _Bidorna_, to +laugh at. I offer not only these three suggested derivations, but also +most of the others, with every reservation. For many of these words, as +for instance _bite_, etymologists have already suggested far more +plausible and more probable derivations, and if I have found a place for +Rommany "roots," it is simply because what is the most plausible, and +apparently the most probable, is not always the true origin. But as I +firmly believe that there is much more Gipsy in English, especially in +English slang and cant, than the world is aware of, I think it advisable +to suggest what I can, leaving to abler philologists the task of testing +its value. + +Writers on such subjects err, almost without an exception, in insisting +on one accurately defined and singly derived source for every word, when +perhaps three or four have combined to form it. The habits of thought +and methods of study followed by philologists render them especially open +to this charge. They wish to establish every form as symmetrical and +mathematical, where nature has been freakish and bizarre. Some years ago +when I published certain poems in the broken English spoken by Germans, +an American philologist, named Haldemann, demonstrated to his own +satisfaction that the language which I had put into Hans Breitmann's +mouth was inaccurate, because I had not reduced it to an uniform dialect, +making the same word the same in spelling and pronunciation on all +occasions, when the most accurate observation had convinced me, as it +must any one, that those who have only partially learned a language +continually vary their methods of uttering its words. + +That some words have come from one source and been aided by another, is +continually apparent in English Gipsy, as for instance in the word for +reins, "guiders," which, until the Rommany reached England, was voidas. +In this instance the resemblance in sound between the words undoubtedly +conduced to an union. Gibberish may have come from the Gipsy, and at the +same time owe something to _gabble_, _jabber_, and the old Norse or +Icelandic _gifra_. _Lush_ may owe something to Mr Lushington, something +to the earlier English _lush_, or rosy, and something to the Gipsy and +Sanskrit. It is not at all unlikely that the word _codger_ owes, through +_cadger_, a part of its being to _kid_, a basket, as Mr Halliwell +suggests (Dictionary of Archaic and Provincial Words, 1852), and yet come +quite as directly from _gorger_ or _gorgio_. "The cheese" probably has +the Gipsy-Hidustani _chiz_ for a father, and the French _chose_ for a +mother, while both originally sprung thousands of years ago in the great +parting of the Aryan nations, to be united after so long a separation in +a distant island in the far northern seas. + +The etymologist who hesitates to adopt this principle of joint sources of +derivation, will find abundant instances of something very like it in +many English Gipsy words themselves, which, as belonging to a language in +extreme decay, have been formed directly from different, but somewhat +similarly sounding, words, in the parent German or Eastern Rommany. Thus, +_schukker_, pretty; _bi-shukker_, slow; _tschukko_, dry, and +_tschororanes_, secretly, have in England all united in _shukar_, which +expresses all of their meanings. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. PROVERBS AND CHANCE PHRASES. + + +An Old Gipsy Proverb--Common Proverbs in Gipsy Dress--Quaint +Sayings--Characteristic Rommany Picture-Phrases. + +Every race has not only its peculiar proverbs, sayings, and catch-words, +but also idiomatic phrases which constitute a characteristic chiaroscuro, +if not colour. The Gipsies in England have of course borrowed much from +the Gorgios, but now and then something of their own appears. In +illustration of all this, I give the following expressions noted down +from Gipsy conversation:-- + +_Tacho like my dad_. True like my father. + +_Kushto like my dad_. Good like my father. + +This is a true Gipsy proverb, used as a strongly marked indication of +approbation or belief. + +_Kushto bak_. Good luck! + +As the Genoese of old greeted their friends with the word _Guadagna_! or +"Gain!" indicating as Rabelais declares, their sordid character, so the +Gipsy, whose life is precarious, and who depends upon chance for his +daily bread, replies to "Sarishan!" (good day!) with "Kushto bak!" or +"Good luck to you!" The Arabic "Baksheesh" is from the same root as bak, +_i.e_., bacht. + +_When there's a boro bavol_, _huller the tan parl the waver rikk pauli +the bor_. When the wind is high, move the tent to the other side of the +hedge behind it. + +That is to say, change sides in an emergency. + +"_Hatch apre! Hushti! The prastramengro's wellin! Jal the graias +avree! Prastee_!" + +"Jump up! Wide awake there! The policeman's coming! Run the horses +off! Scamper!" + +This is an alarm in camp, and constitutes a sufficiently graphic picture. +The hint to run the horses off indicates a very doubtful title to their +possession. + +_The prastramengro pens me mustn't hatch acai_. + +The policeman says we mustn't stop here. + +No phrase is heard more frequently among Gipsies, who are continually in +trouble with the police as to their right to stop and pitch their tents +on commons. + +_I can hatch apre for pange_ (_panj_) _divvuses_. + +I can stop here for five days. + +A common phrase indicating content, and equivalent to, "I would like to +sit here for a week." + +_The graias have taddered at the kas-stoggus_--_we must jal an +durer_--_the gorgio's dicked us_! + +The horses have been pulling at the hay-stack--we must hurry away--the +man has seen us! + +When Gipsies have remained over night on a farm, it sometimes happens +that their horses and asses--inadvertently of course--find their way to +the haystacks or into a good field. _Humanum est errare_! + +_Yeck mush can lel a grai ta panni_, _but twenty cant kair him pi_. + +One man can take a horse to water, but twenty can't make him drink. + +A well-known proverb. + +_A chirrico 'dree the mast is worth dui_ '_dree the bor_. + +A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush (hedge). + +_Never kin a pong dishler nor lel a romni by momeli dood_. + +Never buy a handkerchief nor choose a wife by candle-light. + +_Always jal by the divvus_. + +Always go by the day. + +_Chin tutes chuckko by tute's kaum_. + +Cut your coat according to your fancy. This is a Gipsy variation of an +old proverb. + +_Fino ranyas kair fino trushnees_. + +Nice reeds make nice baskets. + +_He can't tool his kokerus togetherus_ (_kettenus_). + +He can't hold himself together. Spoken of an infirm old man. + +_Too boot of a mush for his kokero_. + +Too much of a man for himself; _i.e_., he thinks too much of himself. + +_He_'s _too boot of a mush to rakker a pauveri chavo_. + +He's too proud too speak to a poor man. This was used, not in +depreciation of a certain nobleman, whom the Gipsy who gave it to me had +often seen, but admiringly, as if such _hauteur_ were a commendable +quality. + +_More_ (_koomi_) _covvas the well_. + +There are more things to come. Spoken of food on a table, and equivalent +to "Don't go yet." _The_ appears to be used in this as in many other +instances, instead of _to_ for the sake of euphony. + +_The jivaben has jawed avree out of his gad_. + +The life has gone out of his shirt, _i.e_., body. This intimates a long +and close connection between the body and the under garment. "Avree out +of," a phrase in which the Gipsy word is immediately followed by its +English equivalent, is a common form of expression for the sake of +clearness. + +_I toves my own gad_. + +I wash my own shirt. + +A saying indicating celibacy or independence. + +_Mo rakkerfor a pennis when tute can't lel it_. + +Don't ask for a thing when you can't get it. + +_The wongurs kairs the grasni jal_. + +Money makes the mare go. + +_It's allers the boro matcho that pet-a-lay 'dree the panni_. + +It is always the largest fish that falls back into the water. + +_Bengis your see_! _Beng in tutes bukko_! + +The devil in your heart. The devil in your body, or bowels. + +This is a common form of imprecation among Gipsies all over the world. + +_Jawin sar a mush mullerin adree the boro naflo-ker_. + +Going like a man dying in the hospital. + +_Rikker it adree tute's kokero see an' kek'll jin_. + +Keep it a secret in your own heart, and nobody will know it. + +_Del sar mush a sigaben to hair his jivaben_. Give every man a chance to +make his living. + +_It's sim to a choomer, kushti for kek till it's pordered atween dui_. + +It's like a kiss, good for nothing until it is divided between two. + +_A cloudy sala often purabens to a fino divvus_. + +A cloudy morning often changes to a fine day. + +_Iuzhiou panni never jalled avree from a chickli tan_. + +Clean water never came out from a dirty place. + +_Sar mush must jal to the cangry, yeck divvus or the waver_. + +Every man must go to the church (_i.e_., be buried) some day or other. + +_Kek mush ever lelled adusta mongur_. + +No man ever got money enough. + +_Pale the wafri bak jals the kushti bak_. + +Behind bad luck comes good luck. + +_Saw mushis ain't got the sim kammoben as wavers_. + +All men have not the same tastes. + +_Lel the tacho pirro, an' it's pash kaired_. + +Well begun is half done. + +_Whilst tute's rakkerin the cheiruses jal_. + +While you are talking the _times_ (hours) fly. + +_Wafri bak in a boro ker_, _sim's adree a bitti her_. + +There may be adversity in a large house as well as in a small one. + +_The kushtiest covvas allers jal avree siggest_. + +The best is soonest gone. + +_To dick a puro pal is as cammoben as a kushti habben_. + +To see an old friend is as agreeable as a good meal. + +_When tuti's pals chinger yeck with a waver_, _don't tute jal adoi_. + +When your brothers quarrel don't you meddle. + +_Pet up with the rakkerin an' mor pen chichi_. + +Endure the chattering and say nothing. + +_When a mush dels tute a grai tute man dick 'dree lester's mui_. + +When a man gives you a horse you must not look in his mouth. + +_Man jal atut the puvius_. + +Do not go across the field. Intimating that one should travel in the +proper road. + +_There's a kushti sovaben at the kunsus of a duro drum_. + +There is a sweet sleep at the end of a long road. + +_Kair the cammodearer_. + +Make the best of it. + +_Rikker dovo adree tute's see_. + +Keep that a secret. + +_The koomi foki the tacho_. + +The more the merrier. + +_The pishom kairs the gudlo_. + +The bee makes the honey. _Id est_, each does his own work. + +_The pishom lels the gudlo avree the roozhers_. + +The bee gets honey from flowers. _Id est_, seeks it in the right place. + +_Hatch till the dood wells apre_. + +Wait till the moon rises. A very characteristic Gipsy saying. + +_Can't pen shukker atut lendy_. + +You cannot say aught against them. + +_He's boccalo ajaw to haw his chokkas_. + +He's hungry enough to eat his shoes. + +_The puro beng is a fino mush_! + +The devil is a nice character. + +_Mansha tu pal_! + +Cheer up, brother. Be a man! Spoken to any one who seems dejected. This +corresponds partially to the German Gipsy _Manuschwari_! which is, +however, rather an evil wish and a curse, meaning according to Dr Liebich +(_Die Zigeuner_) the gallows, dire need, and epilepsy. Both in English +and German it is, however, derived from Manusch, a man. + +_He's a hunnalo nakin mush_. + +He is an avaricious man. Literally, a spiteful nosed man. + +_Tute can hair a covva ferridearer if you jal shukar_. + +You can do a thing better if you go about it secretly. + +_We're lullero adoi we don't jin the jib_. + +We are dumb where we do not understand the language. + +_Chucked_ (_chivved_) _saw the habben avree_. + +He threw all the victuals about. A melancholy proverb, meaning that +state of irritable intoxication when a man comes home and abuses his +family. + +_A myla that rikkers tute is kushtier to kistur than a grai that chivs +you apre_. + +An ass that carries you is better than a horse that throws you off. + +_The juva_, _that sikkers her burk will sikker her bull_. + +"Free of her lips, free of her hips." + +_He sims mandy dree the mui_--_like a puvengro_. + +He resembles me--like a potato. + +_Yeck hotchewitchi sims a waver as yeck bubby sims the waver_. + +One hedgehog is as like another as two peas. + +_He mored men dui_. + +He killed both of us. A sarcastic expression. + +_I dicked their stadees an langis sherros_. + +I saw their hats on their heads. Apropos of amazement at some very +ordinary thing. + +_When you've tatti panni and rikker tutes kokero pash matto you can jal +apre the wen sar a grai_. + +When you have brandy (spirits), and keep yourself half drunk, you can go +through the winter like a horse. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. INDICATIONS OF THE INDIAN ORIGIN OF THE GIPSIES. + + +Boro Duvel, or "Great God," an Old Gipsy term for Water--Bishnoo or +Vishnu, the Rain-God--The Rain, called God's Blood by Gipsies--The Snow, +"Angel's Feathers."--Mahadeva--Buddha--The Simurgh--The Pintni or +Mermaid--The Nag or Blind-Worm--Nagari and Niggering--The Nile--Nats and +Nautches, Naubat and Nobbet--A Puncher--Pitch, Piller and +Pivlibeebee--Quod--Kishmet or Destiny--The Koran in England--"Sass"-- +Sherengro--Sarserin--Shali or Rice--The Shaster in England--The Evil +Eye--Sikhs--Stan, Hindostan, Iranistan--The true origin of Slang--Tat, +the Essence of Being--Bahar and Bar--The Origin of the Words Rom and +Romni.--Dom and Domni--The Hindi tem--Gipsy and Hindustani points of +the Compass--Salaam and Shulam--Sarisham!--The Cups--Women's treading +on objects--Horseflesh--English and Foreign Gipsies--Bohemian and +Rommany. + +A learned Sclavonian--Michael von Kogalnitschan--has said of Rommany, +that he found it interesting to be able to study a Hindu dialect in the +heart of Europe. He is quite right; but as mythology far surpasses any +philology in interest, as regards its relations to poetry, how much more +wonderful is it to find--to-day in England--traces of the tremendous +avatars, whose souls were gods, long ago in India. And though these +traces be faint, it is still apparent enough that they really exist. + +One day an old Gipsy, who is said to be more than usually "deep" in +Rommany, and to have had unusual opportunity for acquiring such knowledge +from Gipsies older and deeper than himself, sent word to me, to know if +"the rye" was aware that Boro Duvel, or the Great God, was an old Rommany +expression for water? I thought that this was a singular message to come +from a tent at Battersea, and asked my special Gipsy _factotum_, why God +should be called water, or water, God? And he replied in the following +words: + +"Panni is the Boro Duvel, and it is Bishnoo or Vishnoo, because it pells +alay from the Boro Duvel. '_Vishnu is the Boro Duvel then_?'--Avali. +There can't be no stretch adoi--can there, rya? Duvel is Duvel all the +world over--but by the right _formation_, Vishnoo is the Duvel's ratt. +I've shuned adovo but dusta cheiruses. An' the snow is poris, that jals +from the angels' winguses. And what I penned, that Bishnoo is the +Duvel's ratt, is puro Rommanis, and jinned by saw our foki." {110} + +Now in India, Vishnu and Indra are the gods of the rain. + +The learned, who insist that as there ought to be, so there must be, but +a single source of derivation for every word, ignoring the fact that a +dozen causes may aid in its formation, will at once declare that, as +Bishnoo or Vishnoo is derived from the old Gipsy Brishni or Brschindo, +and this from the Hindu Barish, and the Sanscrit Varish or Prish, there +can be "no rational ground" for connecting the English Gipsy word with +the Hindu god. But who can tell what secret undercurrents of dim +tradition and vague association may have come down to the present day +from the olden time. That rain should be often called God's blood, and +water bearing the name of Vishnu be termed God, and that this should be +regarded as a specially curious bit of Gipsy lore, is at any rate +remarkable enough. + +As for the Gipsies in question ever having heard of Vishnu and other gods +(as a friend suggests to me), save in this dim tradition, I can only say, +that I doubt whether either of them ever heard even of the apostles; and +I satisfied myself that the one who brought the secret had never heard of +Joseph, was pitiably ignorant of Potiphar's wife, and only knew of +"Mozhus" or Moses, that he "once heerd he was on the bulrushes." + +Mahadeva, or Mahadev, exists apparently in the mouth of every English +Gipsy in the phrase "Maduveleste!" or, God bless you. This word Maduvel +is often changed to Mi--duvel, and is generally supposed to mean "My +God;" but I was once assured, that the _old_ and correct form was Ma, +meaning great, and that it only meant great in connection with Duvel. + +A curious illustration of a lost word returning by chance to its original +source was given one day, when I asked a Gipsy if he knew such a word as +Buddha? He promptly replied, "Yes; that a booderi or boodha mush was an +_old_ man;" and pointing to a Chinese image of Buddha, said: "That is a +Boohda." He meant nothing more than that it represented an aged person, +but the coincidence was at least remarkable. Budha in Hindustani really +signifies an old man. + +The same Gipsy, observing on the chimney-piece a quaint image of a +Chinese griffin--a hideous little goblin with wings--informed me that the +Gipsy name for it was a Seemor or Seemorus, and further declared that the +same word meant a dolphin. "But a dolphin has no wings," I remarked. +"Oh, hasn't it?" rejoined the Gipsy; "its _fins_ are its wings, if it +hadn't wings it could not be a Seemor." I think I recognise in this +Seemor, the Simurgh or Griffin of Persian fable. {112} I could learn +nothing more than this, that the Gipsy had always regarded a dolphin as +resembling a large-headed winged monster, which he called a Seemor. + +NAG is a snake in Hindustani. The English Gipsies still retain this +primaeval word, but apply it only to the blind-worm. It is, however, +remarkable that the Nag, or blind-worm, is, in the opinion of the +Rommany, the most mysterious of creatures. I have been told that "when a +nag mullers it's hardus as a kosh, and you can pogger it like a swagler's +toov," "When a blind-worm dies it is as hard as a stick, and you can +break it like a pipe-stem." They also believe that the Nag is gifted, so +far as his will goes, with incredible malignity, and say of him-- + + "If he could dick sim's he can shoon, + He wouldn't mukk mush or grai jal an the drum." + +"If he could see as well as he can hear, he would not allow man or horse +to go on the road." + +The Hindi alphabet Deva Nagari, "the writing of the gods," is commonly +called Nagari. A common English Gipsy word for writing is "niggering." +"He niggered sar he could pooker adree a chinamangree." The resemblance +between _nagari_ and _nigger_ may, it is true, be merely accidental, but +the reader, who will ascertain by examination of the vocabulary the +proportion of Rommany words unquestionably Indian, will admit that the +terms have probably a common origin. + +From Sanskrit to English Gipsy may be regarded as a descent "from the +Nile to a street-gutter," but it is amusing at least to find a passable +parallel for this simile. _Nill_ in Gipsy is a rivulet, a river, or a +gutter. Nala is in Hindustani a brook; nali, a kennel: and it has been +conjectured that the Indian word indicates that of the great river of +Egypt. + +All of my readers have heard of the Nautch girls, the so-called +_bayaderes_ or dancing-girls of India; but very few, I suppose, are aware +that their generic name is remotely preserved in several English Gipsy +words. Nachna in Hindustani means to dance, while the Nats, who are a +kind of Gipsies, are generally jugglers, dancers, and musicians. A +_natua_ is one of these Nats, and in English Gipsy _nautering_ means +going about with music. Other attractions may be added, but, as I have +heard a Gipsy say, "it always takes music to go _a-nauterin_' or +_nobbin_'." + +_Naubat_ in the language of the Hindu Nats signifies "time, turn, and +instruments of music sounding at the gate of a great man, at certain +intervals." "Nobbet," which is a Gipsy word well known to all itinerant +negro minstrels, means to go about with music to get money. "To nobbet +round the tem, bosherin'." It also implies time or turn, as I inferred +from what I was told on inquiry. "You can shoon dovo at the wellgooras +when yeck rakkers the waver, You jal and nobbet." "You can hear that at +the fairs when one says to the other, You go and nobbet," meaning, "It is +your turn to play now." + +_Nachna_, to dance (Hindustani), appears to be reflected in the English +Gipsy "nitchering," moving restlessly, fidgeting and dancing about. +Nobbeting, I was told, "_is_ nauterin'--it's all one, rya!" + +_Paejama_ in India means very loose trousers; and it is worth noting that +Gipsies call loose leggings, trousers, or "overalls," peajamangris. This +may be Anglo-Indian derived from the Gorgios. Whether "pea-jacket" +belongs in part to this family, I will not attempt to decide. + +Living constantly among the vulgar and uneducated, it is not to be +wondered at that the English Gipsies should have often given a vulgar +English and slangy term to many words originally Oriental. I have found +that, without exception, there is a disposition among most people to +promptly declare that all these words were taken, "of course," from +English slang. Thus, when I heard a Gipsy speak of his fist as a +"puncher," I naturally concluded that he did so because he regarded its +natural use to be to "punch" heads with. But on asking him why he gave +it that name, he promptly replied, "Because it takes pange (five) fingers +to make a fist." And since _panja_ means in Hindustani a hand with the +five fingers extended, it is no violent assumption to conclude that even +_puncher_ may owe quite as much to Hindustani as to English, though I +cheerfully admit that it would perhaps never have existed had it not been +for English associations. Thus a Gipsy calls a pedlar a _packer_ or +_pack-mush_. Now, how much of this word is due to the English word pack +or packer, and how much to _paikar_, meaning in Hindustani a pedlar? I +believe that there has been as much of the one as of the other, and that +this doubly-formative influence, or _influence of continuation_, should +be seriously considered as regards all Rommany words which resemble in +sound others of the same meaning, either in Hindustani or in English. It +should also be observed that the Gipsy, while he is to the last degree +inaccurate and a blunderer as regards _English_ words (a fact pointed out +long ago by the Rev. Mr Crabb), has, however, retained with great +persistence hundreds of Hindu terms. Not being very familiar with +peasant English, I have generally found Gipsies more intelligible in +Rommany than in the language of their "stepfather-land," and have often +asked my principal informant to tell me in Gipsy what I could not +comprehend in "Anglo-Saxon." + +"To pitch together" does not in English mean to stick together, although +_pitch_ sticks, but it does in Gipsy; and in Hindustani, _pichchi_ means +sticking or adhering. I find in all cases of such resemblance that the +Gipsy word has invariably a closer affinity as regards meaning to the +Hindu than to the English, and that its tendencies are always rather +Oriental than Anglo-Saxon. As an illustration, I may point out _piller_ +(English Gipsy) to attack, having an affinity in _pilna_ (Hindustani), +with the same meaning. Many readers will at once revert to _pill_, +_piller_, and _pillage_--all simply _implying_ attack, but really meaning +to _rob_, or robbery. But _piller_ in English Gipsy also means, as in +Hindustani, to assault indecently; and this is almost conclusive as to +its Eastern origin. + +It is remarkable that the Gipsies in England, or all the world over, +have, like the Hindus, a distinctly descriptive expression for every +degree of relationship. Thus a _pivli beebee_ in English Gipsy, or +_pupheri bahim_ in Hindustani, is a father's sister's daughter. This in +English, as in French or German, is simply a cousin. + +_Quod_, imprisonment, is an old English cant and Gipsy word which Mr +Hotten attempts to derive from a college quadrangle; but when we find +that the Hindu _quaid_ also means confinement, the probability is that it +is to it we owe this singular term. + +There are many words in which it is evident that the Hindu Gipsy meaning +has been shifted from a cognate subject. Thus _putti_, the hub of a +wheel in Gipsy, means the felly of a wheel in Hindustani. _Kaizy_, to +rub a horse down, or scrape him, in the original tongue signifies "to tie +up a horse's head by passing the bridle to his tail," to prevent his +kicking while being rubbed or 'scraped. _Quasur_, or _kasur_, is in +Hindustani flame: in English Gipsy _kessur_ signifies smoke; but I have +heard a Gipsy more than once apply the same term to flame and smoke, just +as _miraben_ stands for both life and death. + +Very Oriental is the word kismet, or destiny, as most of my readers are +probably aware. It is also English Gipsy, and was explained to me as +follows: "A man's _kismut_ is what he's bound to kair--it's the kismut of +his see. Some men's kismut is better'n wavers, 'cos they've got more +better chiv. Some men's kismut's to bikin grais, and some to bikin +kanis; but saw foki has their kismut, an' they can't pen chichi elsus." +In English, "A man's destiny is what he is bound to do--it is the fate of +his soul (life). Some men's destiny is better than others, because they +have more command of language. Some are fated to sell horses, and others +to sell hens; but all people have their mission, and can do nothing +else." + +_Quran_ in the East means the Koran, and quran uthara to take an oath. In +English Gipsy kurran, or kurraben, is also an oath, and it seems strange +that such a word from such a source should exist in England. It is, +however, more interesting as indicating that the Gipsies did not leave +India until familiarised with Mohammedan rule. "He kaired his kurran pre +the Duvel's Bavol that he would jal 'vree the tem for a besh." "He swore +his oath upon God's Breath (the Bible) that he would leave the country +for a year." Upon inquiring of the Gipsy who uttered this phrase why he +called the Bible "God's Breath," he replied naively, "It's sim to the +Duvel's jivaben, just the same as His breathus." "It is like God's life, +just the same as His breath." + +It is to be observed that _nearly all the words which Gipsies claim as +Gipsy_, _notwithstanding their resemblance to English_, _are to be found +in Hindustani_. Thus _rutter_, to copulate, certainly resembles the +English _rut_, but it is quite as much allied to _rutana_ (Hindustani), +meaning the same thing. "Sass," or sauce, meaning in Gipsy, bold, +forward impudence, is identical with the same English word, but it agrees +very well with the Hindu _sahas_, bold, and was perhaps born of the +latter term, although it has been brought up by the former. + +Dr A. F. Pott remarks of the German Gipsy word _schetra_, or violin, that +he could nowhere find in Rommany a similar instrument with an Indian +name. Surrhingee, or sarunghee, is the common Hindu word for a violin; +and the English Gipsies, on being asked if they knew it, promptly replied +that it was "an old word for the neck or head of a fiddle." It is true +they also called it sarengro, surhingro, and shorengro, the latter word +indicating that it might have been derived from sherro-engro--_i.e_., +"head-thing." But after making proper allowance for the Gipsy tendency, +or rather passion, for perverting words towards possible derivations, it +seems very probable that the term is purely Hindu. + +Zuhru, or Zohru, means in the East Venus, or the morning star; and it is +pleasant to find a reflection of the rosy goddess in the Gipsy _soor_, +signifying "early in the morning." I have been told that there is a +Rommany word much resembling _soor_, meaning the early star, but my +informant could not give me its exact sound. _Dood of the sala_ is the +common name for Venus. Sunrise is indicated by the eccentric term of +"_kam-left the panni_" or sun-left the water. "It wells from the waver +tem you jin," said my informant, in explanation. "The sun comes from a +foreign country, and first leaves that land, and then leaves the sea, +before it gets here." + +When a Gipsy is prowling for hens, or any other little waifs, and wishes +to leave a broken trail, so that his tracks may not be identified, he +will walk with the feet interlocked--one being placed outside the +other--making what in America is very naturally termed a snake-trail. +This he calls _sarserin_, and in Hindu _sarasana_ means to creep along +like a snake. + +Supposing that the Hindu word for rice, _shali_, could hardly have been +lost, I asked a Gipsy if he knew it, and he at once replied, "_Shali giv_ +is small grain-corn, werry little grainuses indeed." + +_Shalita_ in Hindustani is a canvas sack in which a tent is carried. The +English Gipsy has confused this word with _shelter_, and yet calls a +small or "shelter" tent a shelter _gunno_, or bag. "For we rolls up the +big tent in the shelter tent, to carry it." A tent cloth or canvas is in +Gipsy a _shummy_, evidently derived from the Hindu shumiyana, a canopy or +awning. + +It is a very curious fact that the English Gipsies call the Scripture or +Bible the _Shaster_, and I record this with the more pleasure, since it +fully establishes Mr Borrow as the first discoverer of the word in +Rommany, and vindicates him from the suspicion with which his assertion +was received by Dr Pott. On this subject the latter speaks as follows:-- + +"Eschastra de Moyses, l. ii. 22; [Greek text], M.; Sanskrit, castra; +Hind., shastr, m. Hindu religious books, Hindu law, Scripture, +institutes of science (Shakespeare). In proportion to the importance of +the real existence of this word among the Gipsies must be the suspicion +with which we regard it, when it depends, as in this instance, only on +Borrow's assertion, who, in case of need, to supply a non-existing word, +may have easily taken one from the Sanskrit."--_Die Zigeuner_, vol. ii. +p. 224. + +The word _shaster_ was given to me very distinctly by a Gipsy, who +further volunteered the information, that it not only meant the +Scriptures, but also any written book whatever, and somewhat marred the +dignity of the sublime association of the Bible and Shaster, by adding +that "any feller's bettin'-book on the race-ground was a _shasterni lil_, +'cos it's written." + +I have never heard of the evil eye among the lower orders of English, but +among Gipsies a belief in it is as common as among Hindus, and both +indicate it by the same word, _seer_ or _sihr_. In India _sihr_, it is +true, is applied to enchantment or magic in general, but in this case the +whole may very well stand for a part. I may add that my own +communications on the subject of the _jettatura_, and the proper means of +averting it by means of crab's claws, horns, and the usual sign of the +fore and little finger, were received by a Gipsy auditor with great faith +and interest. + +To show, teach, or learn, is expressed in Gipsy by the word _sikker_, +_sig_, or _seek_. The reader may not be aware that the Sikhs of India +derive their name from the same root, as appears from the following +extract from Dr Paspati's _etudes_: "_Sikava_, v. prim. 1 cl. 1 conj. +part, siklo', montrer, apprendre. Sanskrit, s'iks', to learn, to acquire +science; siksaka, adj., a learner, a teacher. Hindustani, seek'hna, +v.a., to learn, to acquire; seek'h, s.f., admonition." I next inquired +why they were called Seeks, and they told me it was a word borrowed from +one of the commandments of their founder, which signifies 'learn thou,' +and that it was adopted to distinguish the sect soon after he +disappeared. The word, as is well known, has the same import in the +Hindoovee" ("Asiatic Researches," vol. i. p. 293, and vol. ii. p. 200). +This was a noble word to give a name to a body of followers supposed to +be devoted to knowledge and truth. + +The English Gipsy calls a mermaid a _pintni_; in Hindu it is _bint ool +buhr_, a maid of the sea. Bero in Gipsy is the sea or a ship, but the +Rommany had reduced the term to the original _bint_, by which a girl is +known all over the East. + + "Ya bint' Eeskendereyeh." + +_Stan_ is a word confounded by Gipsies with both _stand_, a place at the +races or a fair, and _tan_, a stopping-place, from which it was probably +derived. But it agrees in sound and meaning with the Eastern _stan_, "a +place, station," and by application "country," so familiar to the reader +in Hindustan, Iranistan, Beloochistan, and many other names. It is +curious to find in the Gipsy tan not only the root-word of a tent, but +also the "Alabama," or "here we rest," applied by the world's early +travellers to so many places in the Morning Land. + +_Slang_ does _not_ mean, as Mr Hotten asserts, the secret language of the +Gipsies, but is applied by them to acting; to speaking theatrical +language, as in a play; to being an acrobat, or taking part in a show. It +is a very old Gipsy word, and indicates plainly enough the origin of the +cant word "slang." Using other men's words, and adopting a conventional +language, strikes a Gipsy as _artificial_; and many men not Gipsies +express this feeling by speaking of conventional stage language as +"theatrical slang." Its antiquity and origin appear in the Hindu swangi, +an actor; swang, mockery, disguise, sham; and swang lena, to imitate. As +regards the sound of the words, most English Gipsies would call swang +"slang" as faithfully as a Cockney would exchange _hat_ with '_at_. + +Deepest among deep words in India is _tat_, an element, a principle, the +essence of being; but it is almost amusing to hear an English Gipsy say +"that's the tatto (or tat) of it," meaning thereby "the thing itself," +the whole of it. And thus the ultimate point of Brahma, and the infinite +depth of all transcendental philosophy, may reappear in a cheap, +portable, and convenient form, as a declaration that the real meaning of +some mysterious transaction was that it amounted to a sixpenny swindle at +thimble-rig; for to such base uses have the Shaster and the Vedas come in +England. + +It is, however, pleasant to find the Persian _bahar_, a garden, recalling +Bahar Danush, the garden of knowledge (Hindustani, bagh), reappearing in +the English Gipsy _bar_. "She pirryed adree the bar lellin ruzhers." +"She walked in the garden plucking flowers." And it is also like old +times and the Arabian Nights at home, to know that bazaar is a Gipsy +word, though it be now quite obsolete, and signifies no longer a public +street for shops, but an open field. + +But of all words which identify the Gipsies with the East, and which +prove their Hindu origin, those by which they call themselves Rom and +Romni are most conclusive. In India the Dom caste is one of the lowest, +whose business it is for the men to remove carcasses, while the Domni, or +female Dom, sings at weddings. Everything known of the Dom identifies +them with Gipsies. As for the sound of the word, any one need only ask +the first Gipsy whom he meets to pronounce the Hindu _d_ or the word Dom, +and he will find it at once converted into _l_ or _r_. There are, it is +true, other castes and classes in India, such as Nats, the roving +Banjaree, Thugs, &c., all of which have left unmistakable traces on the +Gipsies, from which I conclude that at some time when these pariahs +became too numerous and dangerous there was a general expulsion of them +from India. {124} + +I would call particular attention to my suggestion that the Corn of India +is the true parent of the Rom, because all that is known of the former +caste indicates an affinity between them. The Dom pariahs of India who +carry out or touch dead bodies, also eat the bodies of animals that have +died a natural death, as do the Gipsies of England. The occupation of +the Domni and Romni, dancing and making music at festivals, are +strikingly allied. I was reminded of this at the last opera which I +witnessed at Covent Garden, on seeing stage Gipsies introduced as part of +the fete in "La Traviata." + +A curious indication of the Indian origin of the Gipsies may be found in +the fact that they speak of every foreign country beyond sea as the Hindi +tem, Hindi being in Hindustani their own word for Indian. Nothing was +more natural than that the Rommany on first coming to England should +speak of far-away regions as being the same as the land they had left, +and among such ignorant people the second generation could hardly fail to +extend the term and make it generic. At present an Irishman is a _Hindi +tem mush_, or Hindu; and it is rather curious, by the way, that a few +years ago in America everything that was _anti_-Irish or native American +received the same appellation, in allusion to the exclusive system of +castes. + +Although the Gipsies have sadly confounded the Hindu terms for the +"cardinal points," no one can deny that their own are of Indian origin. +Uttar is north in Hindustani, and Utar is west in Rommany. As it was +explained to me, I was told that "Utar means west and wet too, because +the west wind is wet." _Shimal_ is also north in Hindu; and on asking a +Gipsy what it meant, he promptly replied, "It's where the snow comes +from." _Poorub_ is the east in Hindustani; in Gipsy it is changed to +porus, and means the west. + +This confusion of terms is incidental to every rude race, and it must be +constantly borne in mind that it is very common in Gipsy. Night suggests +day, or black white, to the most cultivated mind; but the Gipsy confuses +the name, and calls yesterday and to-morrow, or light and shadow, by the +same word. More than this, he is prone to confuse almost all opposites +on all occasions, and wonders that you do not promptly accept and +understand what his own people comprehend. This is not the case among +the Indians of North America, because oratory, involving the accurate use +of words, is among them the one great art; nor are the negroes, despite +their heedless ignorance, so deficient, since they are at least very fond +of elegant expressions and forcible preaching. I am positive and +confident that it would be ten times easier to learn a language from the +wildest Indian on the North American continent than from any real English +Gipsy, although the latter may be inclined with all his heart and soul to +teach, even to the extent of passing his leisure days in "skirmishing" +about among the tents picking up old Rommany words. Now the Gipsy has +passed his entire life in the busiest scenes of civilisation, and is +familiar with all its refined rascalities; yet notwithstanding this, I +have found by experience that the most untutored Kaw or Chippewa, as +ignorant of English as I was ignorant of his language, and with no means +of intelligence between us save signs, was a genius as regards ability to +teach language when compared to most Gipsies. + +Everybody has heard of the Oriental _salaam_! In English Gipsy _shulam_ +means a greeting. "Shulam to your kokero!" is another form of +_sarishan_! the common form of salutation. The Hindu _sar i sham_ +signifies "early in the evening," from which I infer that the Dom or Rom +was a nocturnal character like the Night-Cavalier of Quevedo, and who +sang when night fell, "Arouse ye, then, my merry men!" or who said "Good- +evening!" just as we say (or used to say) "Good-day!" {127} + +A very curious point of affinity between the Gipsies and Hindus may be +found in a custom which was described to me by a Rom in the following +words:-- + +"When a mush mullers, an' the juvas adree his ker can't _kair habben_ +because they feel so naflo 'bout the rom being gone, or the chavi or +juvalo mush, or whoever it may be, then their friends for trin divvuses +kairs their habben an' bitchers it a lende. An' that's tacho Rommanis, +an' they wouldn't be dessen Rommany chuls that wouldn't kair dovo for +mushis in sig an' tukli." + +"When a man dies, and the women in his house cannot prepare food +(literally, make food) as they feel so badly because the man is gone (or +the girl, or young man, or whoever it may be), then their friends for +three days prepare their food and send it to them. And that is real +Rommany (custom), and they would not be decent Rommany fellows who would +not do that for people in sorrow and distress." + +Precisely the same custom prevails in India, where it is characterised by +a phrase strikingly identical with the English Gipsy term for it. In +England it is to _kair habben_, in Hindustani (Brice, Hin. Dict.) "karwa +khana is the food that is sent for three days from relations to a family +in which one of the members has died." The Hindu karwana, to make or to +cause to do, and kara, to do, are the origin of the English Gipsy _kair_ +(to make or cook), while from khana, or 'hana, to eat, comes _haw_ and +_habben_, or food. + +The reader who is familiar with the religious observances of India is +probably aware of the extraordinary regard in which the cup is held by +many sects. In Germany, as Mr Liebich declares, drinking-cups are kept +by the Gipsies with superstitious regard, the utmost care being taken +that they never fall to the ground. "Should this happen, the cup is +_never_ used again. By touching the ground it becomes sacred, and should +no more be used. When a Gipsy cares for nothing else, he keeps his +drinking-cup under every circumstance." I have not been able to +ascertain whether this species of regard for the cup ever existed in +England, but I know of many who could not be induced to drink from a +white cup or bowl, the reason alleged being the very frivolous and +insufficient one, that it reminded them of a blood-basin. It is almost +needless to say that this could never have been the origin of the +antipathy. No such consideration deters English peasants from using +white crockery drinking-vessels. + +In Germany, among the Gipsies, if a woman has trodden on any object, or +if the skirt of her dress has swept over or touched it, it is either +destroyed, or if of value, is disposed of or never used again. I found +on inquiry that the same custom still prevails among the old Gipsy +families in England, and that if the object be a crockery plate or cup, +it is at once broken. For this reason, even more than for convenience, +real Gipsies are accustomed to hang every cooking utensil, and all that +pertains to the table, high up in their waggons. It is almost needless +to point out how closely these ideas agree with those of many Hindus. The +Gipsy eats every and any thing except horseflesh. Among themselves, +while talking Rommany, they will boast of having eaten _mullo baulors_, +or pigs that have died a natural death, and _hotchewitchi_, or hedgehog, +as did the belle of a Gipsy party to me at Walton-on-Thames in the summer +of 1872. They can give no reason whatever for this inconsistent +abstinence. But Mr Simson in his "History of the Gipsies" has adduced a +mass of curious facts, indicating a special superstitious regard for the +horse among the Rommany in Scotland, and identifying it with certain +customs in India. It would be a curious matter of research could we +learn whether the missionaries of the Middle Ages, who made abstinence +from horse-flesh a point of salvation (when preaching in Germany and in +Scandinavia), derived their superstition, in common with the Gipsies, +from India. + +There can be no doubt that in seeking for the Indian origin of many Gipsy +words we are often bewildered, and that no field in philology presents +such opportunity for pugnacious critics to either attack or defend the +validity of the proofs alleged. The very word for "doubtful" or +"ambiguous," _dubeni_ or _dub'na_, is of this description. Is it derived +from the Hindu _dhoobd'ha_, which every Gipsy would pronounce _doobna_, +or from the English _dubious_, which has been made to assume the Gipsy- +Indian termination _na_? Of this word I was naively told, "If a juva's +bori (girl is big), that's _dub'ni_; and if she's shuvalo (swelled up), +_that's_ dubni: for it may pen (say) she's kaired a tikno (is +_enceinte_), and it may pen she hasn't." But when we find that the +English Gipsy also employs the word _dukkeni_ for "doubtful," and compare +it with the Hindustani _dhokna_ or _dukna_, the true derivation becomes +apparent. + +Had Dr Pott or Dr Paspati had recourse to the plan which I adopted of +reading a copious Hindustani dictionary entirely through, word by word, +to a patient Gipsy, noting down all which he recognised, and his +renderings of them, it is very possible that these learned men would in +Germany and Turkey have collected a mass of overwhelming proof as to the +Indian origin of Rommany. At present the dictionary which I intend shall +follow this work shows that, so far as the Rommany dialects have been +published, that of England contains a far greater number of almost +unchanged Hindu words than any other, a fact to which I would especially +call the attention of all who are interested in this curious language. +And what is more, I am certain that the supply is far from being +exhausted, and that by patient research among old Gipsies, the +Anglo-Rommany vocabulary might be increased to possibly five or six +thousand words. + +It is very possible that when they first came from the East to Europe the +Gipsies had a very copious supply of words, for there were men among them +of superior intelligence. But in Turkey, as in Germany, they have not +been brought into such close contact with the _Gorgios_ as in England: +they have not preserved their familiarity with so many ideas, and +consequently their vocabulary has diminished. Most of the Continental +Gipsies are still wild, black wanderers, unfamiliar with many things for +which the English Gipsy has at least a name, and to which he has +continued to apply old Indian words. Every one familiar with the subject +knows that the English Gipsies in America are far more intelligent than +their German Rommany cousins. A few years ago a large party of the +latter appeared at an English racecourse, where they excited much +attention, but greatly disgusted the English Roms, not as rivals, but +simply from their habits. "They couldn't do a thing but beg," said my +informant. "They jinned (knew) nothing else: they were the dirtiest +Gipsies I ever saw; and when the juvas suckled the children, they +sikkered their burks (showed their breasts) as I never saw women do +before foki." Such people would not, as a rule, know so many words as +those who looked down on them. + +The conclusion which I have drawn from studying Anglo-Rommany, and +different works on India, is that the Gipsies are the descendants of a +vast number of Hindus, of the primitive tribes of Hindustan, who were +expelled or emigrated from that country early in the fourteenth century. +I believe they were chiefly of the primitive tribes, because evidence +which I have given indicates that they were identical with the two castes +of the Doms and Nats--the latter being, in fact, at the present day, the +real Gipsies of India. Other low castes and outcasts were probably +included in the emigration, but I believe that future research will prove +that they were all of the old stock. The first Pariahs of India may have +consisted entirely of those who refused to embrace the religion of their +conquerors. + +It has been coolly asserted by a recent writer that Gipsies are not +proved to be of Hindu origin because "a few" Hindu words are to be found +in their language. What the proportion of such words really is may be +ascertained from the dictionary which will follow this work. But +throwing aside all the evidence afforded by language, traditions, +manners, and customs, one irrefutable proof still remains in the physical +resemblance between Gipsies all the world over and the natives of India. +Even in Egypt, the country claimed by the Gipsies themselves as their +remote great-grandfather-land, the native Gipsy is not Egyptian in his +appearance but Hindu. The peculiar brilliancy of the eye and its +expression in the Indian is common to the Gipsy, but not to the Egyptian +or Arab; and every donkey-boy in Cairo knows the difference between the +_Rhagarin_ and the native as to personal appearance. I have seen both +Hindus in Cairo and Gipsies, and the resemblance to each other is as +marked as their difference from Egyptians. + +A few years ago an article on the Rommany language appeared in the +"Atlantic Magazine" (Boston, U.S., America), in which the writer declared +that Gipsy has very little affinity with Hindustani, but a great deal +with Bohemian or Chech--in fact, he maintained, if I remember right, that +a Chech and a Rom could understand one another in either of their +respective tongues. I once devoted my time for several months to +unintermitted study of Chech, and consequently do not speak in entire +ignorance when I declare that true Rommany contains scores of Hindu words +to one of Bohemian. {133} + + + + +CHAPTER IX. MISCELLANEA. + + +Gipsies and Cats.--"Christians."--Christians not "Hanimals."--Green, Red, +and Yellow.--The Evil Eye.--Models and Morals.--Punji and +Sponge-cake.--Troubles with a Gipsy Teacher.--Pilferin' and +Bilberin'.--Khapana and Hopper.--Hoppera-glasses.--The little wooden +Bear.--Huckeny Ponkee, Hanky Panky, Hocus-pocus, and Hokkeny +Baro.--Burning a Gipsy Witch alive in America.--Daniel in the Lions' +Den.--Gipsy Life in Summer.--The Gavengroes.--The Gipsy's Story of Pitch- +and-Toss.--"You didn't fight your Stockings off?"--The guileless and +venerable Gipsy.--The Gipsy Professor of Rommany and the Police.--His +Delicacy of Feeling.--The old Gipsy and the beautiful Italian Models.--The +Admired of the Police.--Honesty strangely illustrated.--Gipsies willing +or unwilling to communicate Rommany.--Romance and Eccentricity of Gipsy +Life and Manners.--The Gipsy Grandmother and her Family.--A fine Frolic +interrupted.--The Gipsy Gentleman from America.--No such Language as +Rommany.--Hedgehogs.--The Witch Element in Gipsy Life.--Jackdaws and +Dogs.--Their Uses.--Lurchers and Poachers.--A Gipsy Camp.--The Ancient +Henry.--I am mistaken for a Magistrate or Policeman.--Gipsies of Three +Grades.--The Slangs.--Jim and the Twigs.--Beer rained from +Heaven.--Fortune-telling.--A golden Opportunity to live at my +Ease.--Petulamengro.--I hear of a New York Friend.--The Professor's +Legend of the Olive-leaf and the Dove, "A wery tidy little Story."--The +Story of Samson as given by a Gipsy.--The great Prize-fighter who was +hocussed by a Fancy Girl.--The Judgment Day.--Passing away in Sleep or +Dream to God.--A Gipsy on Ghosts.--Dogs which can kill Ghosts.--Twisted- +legged Stealing.--How to keep Dogs away from a Place.--Gipsies avoid +Unions.--A Gipsy Advertisement in the "Times."--A Gipsy Poetess and a +Rommany Song. + +It would be a difficult matter to decide whether the superstitions and +odd fancies entertained by the Gipsies in England are derived from the +English peasantry, were brought from India, or picked up on the way. This +must be left for ethnologists more industrious and better informed than +myself to decide. In any case, the possible common Aryan source will +tend to obscure the truth, just as it often does the derivation of +Rommany words. But nothing can detract from the inexpressibly quaint +spirit of Gipsy originality in which these odd _credos_ are expressed, or +surpass the strangeness of the reasons given for them. If the spirit of +the goblin and elfin lingers anywhere on earth, it is among the Rommany. + +One day I questioned a Gipsy as to cats, and what his opinion was of +black ones, correctly surmising that he would have some peculiar ideas on +the subject, and he replied-- + +"Rommanys never lel kaulo matchers adree the ker, 'cause they're mullos, +and beng is covvas; and the puro beng, you jin, is kaulo, an' has shtor +herros an' dui mushis--an' a sherro. But pauno matchers san kushto, for +they're sim to pauno ghosts of ranis." + +Which means in English, "Gipsies never have black cats in the house, +because they are unearthly creatures, and things of the devil; and the +old devil, you know, is black, and has four legs and two arms--and a +head. But white cats are good, for they are like the white ghosts of +ladies." + +It is in the extraordinary reason given for liking white cats that the +subtle Gipsyism of this cat-commentary consists. Most people would +consider a resemblance to a white ghost rather repulsive. But the Gipsy +lives by night a strange life, and the reader who peruses carefully the +stories which are given in this volume, will perceive in them a +familiarity with goblin-land and its denizens which has become rare among +"Christians." + +But it may be that I do this droll old Gipsy great wrong in thus +apparently classing him with the heathen, since he one day manifested +clearly enough that he considered he had a right to be regarded as a true +believer--the only drawback being this, that he was apparently under the +conviction that all human beings were "Christians." And the way in which +he declared it was as follows: I had given him the Hindustani word +_janwur_, and asked him if he knew such a term, and he answered-- + +"Do I jin sitch a lav (know such a word) as _janwur_ for a hanimal? Avo +(yes); it's _jomper_--it's a toadus" (toad). + +"But do you jin the lav (know the word) for an _animal_?" + +"Didn't I just pooker tute (tell you) it was a jomper? for if a toad's a +hanimal, _jomper_ must be the lav for hanimal." + +"But don't you jin kek lav (know a word) for sar the covvas that have +jivaben (all living things)--for jompers, and bitti matchers (mice), and +gryas (horses)? You and I are animals." + +"Kek, rya, kek (no, sir, no), we aren't hanimals. _Hanimals_ is critters +that have something queer about 'em, such as the lions an' helephants at +the well-gooroos (fairs), or cows with five legs, or won'ful piebald +grais--_them's_ hanimals. But Christins aint hanimals. Them's _mushis_" +(men). + +To return to cats: it is remarkable that the colour which makes a cat +desirable should render a bowl or cup objectionable to a true Gipsy, as I +have elsewhere observed in commenting on the fact that no old-fashioned +Rommany will drink, if possible, from white crockery. But they have +peculiar fancies as to other colours. Till within a few years in Great +Britain, as at the present day in Germany, their fondness for green coats +amounted to a passion. In Germany a Gipsy who loses caste for any +offence is forbidden for a certain time to wear green, so that _ver non +semper viret_ may be truly applied to those among them who bloom too +rankly. + +The great love for red and yellow among the Gipsies was long ago pointed +out by a German writer as a proof of Indian origin, but the truth is, I +believe, that all dark people instinctively choose these hues as agreeing +with their complexion. A brunette is fond of amber, as a blonde is of +light blue; and all true _kaulo_ or dark Rommany _chals_ delight in a +bright yellow _pongdishler_, or neckerchief, and a red waistcoat. The +long red cloak of the old Gipsy fortune-teller is, however, truly dear to +her heart; she feels as if there were luck in it--that _bak_ which is +ever on Gipsy lips; for to the wanderers, whose home is the roads, and +whose living is precarious, Luck becomes a real deity. I have known two +old fortune-telling sisters to expend on new red cloaks a sum which +seemed to a lady friend very considerable. + +I have spoken in another chapter of the deeply-seated faith of the +English Gipsies in the evil eye. Subsequent inquiry has convinced me +that they believe it to be peculiar to themselves. One said in my +presence, "There was a kauli juva that dicked the evil yack ad mandy the +sala--my chavo's missis--an' a'ter dovo I shooned that my chavo was +naflo. A bongo-yacki mush kairs wafro-luckus. _Avali_, the Gorgios +don't jin it--it's saw Rommany." + +_I.e_., "There was a dark woman that looked the evil eye at me this +morning--my son's wife--and after that I heard that my son was ill. A +squint-eyed man makes bad-luck. Yes, the Gorgios don't know it--it's all +Rommany." + +The Gipsy is of an eminently social turn, always ready when occasion +occurs to take part in every conversation, and advance his views. One +day my old Rom hearing an artist speak of having rejected some uncalled- +for advice relative to the employment of a certain model, burst out in a +tone of hearty approbation with-- + +"That's what _I_ say. Every man his own juva (every man his own girl), +an' every painter his own _morals_." + +If it was difficult in the beginning for me to accustom the Gipsy mind to +reply clearly and consistently to questions as to his language, the +trouble was tenfold increased when he began to see his way, as he +thought, to my object, and to take a real interest in aiding me. For +instance, I once asked-- + +"Puro! do you know such a word as _punji_? It's the Hindu for capital." + +(Calmly.) "Yes, rya; that's a wery good word for capital." + +"But is it Rommany?" + +(Decidedly.) "It'll go first-rateus into Rommany." + +"But can you make it out? Prove it!" + +(Fiercely.) "Of course I can make it out. _Kushto_. Suppose a man +sells 'punge-cake, would'nt that be his capital? _Punje_ must be +capital." + +But this was nothing to what I endured after a vague fancy of the meaning +of seeking a derivation of words had dimly dawned on his mind, and he +vigorously attempted to aid me. Possessed with the crude idea that it +was a success whenever two words could be forced into a resemblance of +any kind, he constantly endeavoured to Anglicise Gipsy words--often, +alas! an only too easy process, and could never understand why it was I +then rejected them. By the former method I ran the risk of obtaining +false Hindustani Gipsy words, though I very much doubt whether I was ever +caught by it in a single instance; so strict were the tests which I +adopted, the commonest being that of submitting the words to other +Gipsies, or questioning him on them some days afterwards. By the latter +"aid" I risked the loss of Rommany words altogether, and undoubtedly did +lose a great many. Thus with the word _bilber_ (to entice or allure), he +would say, in illustration, that the girls _bilbered_ the gentleman into +the house to rob him, and then cast me into doubt by suggesting that the +word must be all right, "'cause it looked all the same as _pilferin_'." + +One day I asked him if the Hindustani word khapana (pronounced almost +hopana) (to make away with) sounded naturally to his ears. + +"Yes, rya; that must be _happer_, _habber_, or _huvver_. To hopper +covvas away from the tan (_i.e_., to _hopper_ things from the place), is +when you rikker 'em awayus (carry them away, steal them), and gaverit +(hide _it_) tally your chuckko (under your coat). An' I can pen you a +waver covva (I can tell you another thing) that's _hopper_--them's the +glasses that you look through--_hoppera_-glasses." + +And here in bounding triumph he gave the little wooden bear a drink of +ale, as if it had uttered this chunk of solid wisdom, and then treated +himself to a good long pull. But the glance of triumph which shot from +his black-basilisk eyes, and the joyous smile which followed these feats +of philology, were absolutely irresistible. All that remained for me to +do was to yield in silence. + +One day we spoke of _huckeny pokee_, or _huckeny ponkee_, as it is +sometimes called. It means in Rommany "sleight of hand," and also the +adroit substitution of a bundle of lead or stones for another containing +money or valuables, as practised by Gipsy women. The Gipsy woman goes to +a house, and after telling the simple-minded and credulous housewife that +there is a treasure buried in the cellar, persuades her that as "silver +draws silver," she must deposit all her money or jewels in a bag near the +place where the treasure lies. This is done, and the Rommany _dye_ +adroitly making up a parcel resembling the one laid down, steals the +latter, leaving the former. + +Mr Barrow calls this _hokkeny baro_, the great swindle. I may remark, by +the way, that among jugglers and "show-people" sleight of hand is called +_hanky panky_. "Hocus-pocus" is attributed by several writers to the +Gipsies, a derivation which gains much force from the fact, which I have +never before seen pointed out, that _hoggu bazee_, which sounds very much +like it, means in Hindustani legerdemain. English Gipsies have an +extraordinary fancy for adding the termination _us_ in a most irregular +manner to words both Rommany and English. Thus _kettene_ (together) is +often changed to _kettenus_, and _side_ to _sidus_. In like manner, +_hoggu_ (_hocku_ or _honku_) _bazee_ could not fail to become _hocus +bozus_, and the next change, for the sake of rhyme, would be to hocus-po- +cus. + +I told my ancient rambler of an extraordinary case of "huckeny pokee" +which had recently occurred in the United States, somewhere in the west, +the details of which had been narrated to me by a lady who lived at the +time in the place where the event occurred. + +"A Gipsy woman," I said, "came to a farmhouse and played huckeny pokee on +a farmer's wife, and got away all the poor woman's money." + +"Did she indeed, rya?" replied my good old friend, with a smile of joy +flashing from his eyes, the unearthly Rommany light just glinting from +their gloom. + +"Yes," I said impressively, as a mother might tell an affecting story to +a child. "All the money that that poor woman had, that wicked Gipsy +woman took away, and utterly ruined her." + +This was the culminating point; he burst into an irrepressible laugh; he +couldn't help it--the thing had been done too well. + +"But you haven't heard all yet," I added. "There's more covvas to well." + +"Oh, I suppose the Rummany chi prastered avree (ran away), and got off +with the swag?" + +"No, she didn't." + +"Then they caught her, and sent her to starabun" (prison). + +"No," I replied. + +"And what did they do?" + +"THEY BURNT HER ALIVE!" + +His jaw fell; a glossy film came over his panther-eyes. For a long time +he had spoken to me, had this good and virtuous man, of going to America. +Suddenly he broke out with this vehement answer-- + +"I won't go to that country--_s'up mi duvel_! I'll never go to America." + +It is told of a certain mother, that on showing her darling boy a picture +in the Bible representing Daniel in the lions' den, she said, "And there +is good Daniel, and there are those naughty lions, who are going to eat +him all up." Whereupon the dear boy cried out, "O mother, look at that +poor little lion in the corner--he won't get any." + +It is from this point of view that such affairs are naturally regarded by +the Rommany. + +There is a strange goblinesque charm in Gipsydom--something of nature, +and green leaves, and silent nights--but it is ever strangely commingled +with the forbidden; and as among the Greeks of old with Mercury amid the +singing of leafy brooks, there is a tinkling of, at least, petty larceny. +Witness the following, which came forth one day from a Gipsy, in my +presence, as an entirely voluntary utterance. He meant it for something +like poetry--it certainly was suggested by nothing, and as fast as he +spoke I wrote it down:-- + +"It's kushto in tattoben for the Rommany chals. Then they can jal langs +the drum, and hatch their tan acai and odoi pre the tem. We'll lel moro +habben acai, and jal andurer by-an'-byus, an' then jal by ratti, so's the +Gorgios won't dick us. I jins a kushti puv for the graias; we'll hatch +'pre in the sala, before they latcher we've been odoi, an' jal an the +drum an' lel moro habben." + +"It is pleasant for the Gipsies in the summer-time. Then they can go +along the road, and pitch their tent here and there in the land. We'll +take our food here, and go further on by-and-by, and then go by night, so +that the Gorgios won't see us. I know a fine field for the horses; we'll +stop there in the morning, before they find we have been there, and go on +the road and eat our food." + +"I suppose that you often have had trouble with the _gavengroes_ (police) +when you wished to pitch your tent?" + +Now it was characteristic of this Gipsy, as of many others, that when +interested by a remark or a question, he would reply by bursting into +some picture of travel, drawn from memory. So he answered by saying-- + +"They hunnelo'd the choro puro mush by pennin' him he mustn't hatch odoi. +'What's tute?' he pens to the prastramengro; 'I'll del you thrin bar to +lel your chuckko offus an' koor mandy. You're a ratfully jucko an' a +huckaben.'" + +_English_--They angered the poor old man by telling him he must not stop +there. "What are you?" he said to the policeman, "I'll give you three +pounds to take your coat off and fight me. You're a bloody dog and a +lie" (liar). + +"I suppose you have often taken your coat off?" + +"Once I lelled it avree an' never chivved it apre ajaw." + +(_I.e_., "Once I took it off and never put it on again.") + +"How was that?" + +"Yeckorus when I was a tano mush, thirty besh kenna--rummed about pange +besh, but with kek chavis--I jalled to the prasters of the graias at +Brighton. There was the paiass of wussin' the pasheros apre for wongur, +an' I got to the pyass, an' first cheirus I lelled a boro bittus--twelve +or thirteen bar. Then I nashered my wongur, an' penned I wouldn't pyass +koomi, an' I'd latch what I had in my poachy. Adoi I jalled from the +gudli 'dree the toss-ring for a pashora, when I dicked a waver mush, an' +he putched mandy, 'What bak?' and I penned pauli, 'Kek bak; but I've got +a bittus left.' So I wussered with lester an' nashered saw my covvas--my +chukko, my gad, an' saw, barrin' my rokamyas. Then I jalled kerri with +kek but my rokamyas an--I borried a chukko off my pen's chavo. + +"And when my juva dickt'omandy pash-nango, she pens, 'Dovo's tute's +heesis?' an' I pookered her I'd been a-koorin'. But she penned, 'Why, +you haven't got your hovalos an; you didn't koor tute's hovalos avree?' +'No,' I rakkered; 'I taddered em offus. (The mush played me with a dui- +sherro poshero.) + +"But dree the sala, when the mush welled to lel avree the jucko (for I'd +nashered dovo ajaw), I felt wafrodearer than when I'd nashered saw the +waver covvas. An' my poor juva ruvved ajaw, for she had no chavo. I had +in those divvuses as kushti coppas an' heesus as any young Gipsy in +Anglaterra--good chukkos, an' gads, an' pongdishlers. + +"An' that mush kurried many a geero a'ter mandy, but he never lelled no +bak. He'd chore from his own dadas; but he mullered wafro adree East +Kent." + +"Once when I was a young man, thirty years ago (now)--married about five +years, but with no children--I went to the races at Brighton. There was +tossing halfpence for money, and I took part in the game, and at first +(first time) I took a good bit--twelve or thirteen pounds. Then I lost +my money, and said I would play no more, and would keep what I had in my +pocket. Then I went from the noise in the toss-ring for half an hour, +when I saw another man, and he asked me, 'What luck?' and I replied, 'No +luck; but I've a little left yet.' So I tossed with him and lost all my +things--my coat, my shirt, and all, except my breeches. Then I went home +with nothing but my breeches on--I borrowed a coat of my sister's boy. + +"And when my wife saw me half-naked, she _says_, 'Where are your +clothes?' and I told her I had been fighting. But she said, 'Why, you +have not your stockings on; you didn't fight your stockings off!' 'No,' +I said; 'I drew them off.' (The man played me with a two-headed +halfpenny.) + +"But in the morning when the man came to take away the dog (for I had +lost that too), I felt worse than when I lost all the other things. And +my poor wife cried again, for she had no child. I had in those days as +fine clothes as any young Gipsy in England--good coats, and shirts, and +handkerchiefs. + +"And that man hurt many a man after me, but he never had any luck. He'd +steal from his own father; but he died miserably in East Kent." + +It was characteristic of the venerable wanderer who had installed himself +as my permanent professor of Rommany, that although almost every phrase +which he employed to illustrate words expressed some act at variance with +law or the rights of property, he was never weary of descanting on the +spotlessness, beauty, and integrity of his own life and character. These +little essays on his moral perfection were expressed with a touching +artlessness and child-like simplicity which would carry conviction to any +one whose heart had not been utterly hardened, or whose eye-teeth had not +been remarkably well cut, by contact with the world. In his delightful +_naivete_ and simple earnestness, in his ready confidence in strangers +and freedom from all suspicion--in fact, in his whole deportment, this +Rommany elder reminded me continually of one--and of one man only--whom I +had known of old in America. Need I say that I refer to the excellent --- +---? + +It happened for many days that the professor, being a man of early +habits, arrived at our rendezvous an hour in advance of the time +appointed. As he resolutely resisted all invitation to occupy the room +alone until my arrival, declaring that he had never been guilty of such a +breach of etiquette, and as he was, moreover, according to his word, the +most courteous man of the world in it, and I did not wish to "contrary" +him, he was obliged to pass the time in the street, which he did by +planting himself on the front steps or expanding himself on the railings +of an elderly and lonely dame, who could not endure that even a mechanic +should linger at her door, and was in agony until the milkman and baker +had removed their feet from her steps. Now, the appearance of the +professor (who always affected the old Gipsy style), in striped corduroy +coat, leather breeches and gaiters, red waistcoat, yellow +neck-handkerchief, and a frightfully-dilapidated old white hat, was not, +it must be admitted, entirely adapted to the exterior of a highly +respectable mansion. "And he had such a vile way of looking, as if he +were a-waitin' for some friend to come out o' the 'ouse." It is almost +needless to say that this apparition attracted the police from afar off +and all about, or that they gathered around him like buzzards near a +departed lamb. I was told by a highly intelligent gentleman who +witnessed the interviews, that the professor's kindly reception of these +public characters--the infantile smile with which he courted their +acquaintance, and the good old grandfatherly air with which he listened +to their little tales--was indescribably delightful. "In a quarter of an +hour any one of them would have lent him a shilling;" and it was soon +apparent that the entire force found a charm in his society. The lone +lady herself made a sortie against him once; but one glance at the +amiable smile, "which was child-like and bland," disarmed her, and it was +reported that she subsequently sent him out half-a-pint of beer. + +It is needless to point out to the reader accustomed to good society that +the professor's declining to sit in a room where valuable and small +objects abounded, in the absence of the owner, was dictated by the most +delicate feeling. Not less remarkable than his strict politeness was the +mysterious charm which this antique nomad unquestionably exercised on the +entire female sex. Ladies of the highest respectability and culture, old +or young, who had once seen him, invariably referred to him as "that +charming old Gipsy." + +Nor was his sorcery less potent on those of low degree. Never shall I +forget one morning when the two prettiest young Italian model-girls in +all London were poseeing to an artist friend while the professor sat and +imparted to me the lore of the Rommany. The girls behaved like moral +statues till he appeared, and like quicksilver imps and devilettes for +the rest of the sitting. Something of the wild and weird in the mountain +Italian life of these ex-contadine seemed to wake like unholy fire, and +answer sympathetically to the Gipsy wizard-spell. Over mountain and sea, +and through dark forests with legends of _streghe_ and Zingari, these +semi-outlaws of society, the Neapolitan and Rommany, recognised each +other intuitively. The handsomest young gentleman in England could not +have interested these handsome young sinners as the dark-brown, +grey-haired old vagabond did. Their eyes stole to him. Heaven knows +what they talked, for the girls knew no English, but they whispered; they +could not write little notes, so they kept passing different objects, to +which Gipsy and Italian promptly attached a meaning. Scolding them +helped not. It was "a pensive sight." + +To impress me with a due sense of his honesty and high character, the +professor informed me one day that he was personally acquainted, as he +verily believed, with every policeman in England. "You see, rya," he +remarked, "any man as is so well known couldn't never do nothing wrong +now,--could he?" + +Innocent, unconscious, guileless air--and smile! I shall never see its +equal. I replied-- + +"Yes; I think I can see you, Puro, walking down between two lines of +hundreds of policemen--every one pointing after you and saying, 'There +goes that good honest --- the honestest man in England!'" + +"Avo, rya," he cried, eagerly turning to me, as if delighted and +astonished that I had found out the truth. "That's just what they all +pens of me, an' just what I seen 'em a-doin' every time." + +"You know all the police," I remarked. "Do you know any turnkeys?" + +He reflected an instant, and then replied, artlessly-- + +"I don't jin many o' them. But I can jist tell you a story. Once at +Wimbledown, when the _kooroo-mengroes_ were _odoi_ (when the troopers +were there), I used to get a pound a week carryin' things. One day, when +I had well on to two stun on my _dumo_ (back), the chief of police sees +me an' says, 'There's that old scoundrel again! that villain gives the +police more trouble than any other man in the country!' 'Thank you, +sir,' says I, wery respectable to him. 'I'm glad to see you're earnin' a +'onest livin' for once,' says he. 'How much do you get for carryin' that +there bundle?' 'A sixpence, rya!' says I. 'It's twice as much as you +ought to have,' says he; 'an' I'd be glad to carry it myself for the +money.' 'All right, sir,' says I, touchin' my hat and goin' off, for he +was a wery nice gentleman. Rya," he exclaimed, with an air of placid +triumph, "do you think the head-police his selfus would a spoke in them +wery words to me if he hadn't a thought I was a good man?" + +"Well, let's get to work, old Honesty. What is the Rommanis for to +hide?" + +"To _gaverit_ is to hide anything, rya. _Gaverit_." And to illustrate +its application he continued-- + +"They penned mandy to gaver the gry, but I nashered to keravit, an' the +mush who lelled the gry welled alangus an' dicked it." + +("They told me to hide the horse, but I forgot to do it, and the man who +_owned_ the horse came by and saw it.") + +It is only a few hours since I heard of a gentleman who took incredible +pains to induce the Gipsies to teach him their language, but never +succeeded. I must confess that I do not understand this. When I have +met strange Gipsies, it has often greatly grieved me to find that they +spoke their ancient tongue very imperfectly, and were ignorant of certain +Rommany words which I myself, albeit a stranger, knew very well, and +would fain teach them. But instead of accepting my instructions in a +docile spirit of ignorant humility, I have invariably found that they +were eagerly anxious to prove that they were not so ignorant as I +assumed, and in vindication of their intelligence proceeded to pour forth +dozens of words, of which I must admit many were really new to me, and +which I did not fail to remember. + +The scouting, slippery night-life of the Gipsy; his familiarity with deep +ravine and lonely wood-path, moonlight and field-lairs; his use of a +secret language, and his constant habit of concealing everything from +everybody; his private superstitions, and his inordinate love of +humbugging and selling friend and foe, tend to produce in him that +goblin, elfin, boyish-mischievous, out-of-the-age state of mind which is +utterly indescribable to a prosaic modern-souled man, but which is +delightfully piquant to others. Many a time among Gipsies I have felt, I +confess with pleasure, all the subtlest spirit of fun combined with +picture-memories of Hayraddin Maugrabin--witch-legends and the +"Egyptians;" for in their ignorance they are still an unconscious race, +and do not know what the world writes about them. They are not +attractive from the outside to those who have no love for quaint +scholarship, odd humours, and rare fancies. A lady who had been in a +camp had nothing to say of them to me save that they were "dirty--dirty, +and begged." But I ever think, when I see them, of Tieck's Elves, and of +the Strange Valley, which was so grim and repulsive from without, but +which, once entered, was the gay forecourt of goblin-land. + +The very fact that they hide as much as they can of their Gipsy life and +nature from the Gorgios would of itself indicate the depths of +singularity concealed beneath their apparent life--and this reminds me of +incidents in a Sunday which I once passed beneath a Gipsy roof. I was, +_en voyage_, at a little cathedral town, when learning that some Gipsies +lived in a village eight miles distant, I hired a carriage and rode over +to see them. I found my way to a neat cottage, and on entering it +discovered that I was truly enough among the Rommany. By the fire sat a +well-dressed young man; near him was a handsome, very dark young woman, +and there presently entered a very old woman,--all gifted with the +unmistakable and peculiar expression of real Gipsies. + +The old woman overwhelmed me with compliments and greetings. She is a +local celebrity, and is constantly visited by the most respectable ladies +and gentlemen. This much I had learned from my coachman. But I kept a +steady silence, and sat as serious as Odin when he visited the Vala, +until the address ceased. Then I said in Rommany-- + +"Mother, you don't know me. I did not come here to listen to fortune- +telling." + +To which came the prompt reply, "I don't know what the gentleman is +saying." I answered always in Rommany. + +"You know well enough what I am saying. You needn't be afraid of me--I'm +the nicest gentleman you ever saw in all your life, and I can talk +Rommany as fast as ever you ran away from a policeman." + +"What language is the gentleman talking?" cried the old dame, but +laughing heartily as she spoke. + + "Oh dye--miri dye, + Don't tute jin a Rommany rye? + Can't tu rakker Rommany jib, + Tachipen and kek fib?" + +"Avo, my rye; I can understand you well enough, but I never saw a Gipsy +gentleman before." + +[Since I wrote that last line I went out for a walk, and on the other +side of Walton Bridge, which legend says marks the spot where Julius +Caesar crossed, I saw a tent and a waggon by the hedge, and knew by the +curling blue smoke that a Gipsy was near. So I went over the bridge, and +sure enough there on the ground lay a full-grown Petulamengro, while his +brown _juva_ tended the pot. And when I spoke to her in Rommany she +could only burst out into amazed laughter as each new sentence struck her +ear, and exclaim, "Well! well! that ever I should live to hear this! Why, +the gentleman talks just like one of _us_! '_Bien apropos_,' sayde ye +ladye."] + +"Dye," quoth I to the old Gipsy dame, "don't be afraid. I'm _tacho_. And +shut that door if there are any Gorgios about, for I don't want them to +hear our _rakkerben_. Let us take a drop of brandy--life is short, and +here's my bottle. I'm not English--I'm a _waver temmeny mush_ (a +foreigner). But I'm all right, and you can leave your spoons out. +Tacho." + + "The boshno an' kani + The rye an' the rani; + Welled acai 'pre the boro lun pani. + Rinkeni juva hav acai! + Del a choomer to the rye!" + +"_Duveleste_!" said the old fortune-teller, "that ever I should live to +see a rye like you! A boro rye rakkerin' Rommanis! But you must have +some tea now, my son--good tea." + +"I don't pi muttermengri dye ('drink tea,' but an equivoque). It's +muttermengri with you and with us of the German jib." + +"Ha! ha! but you must have food. You won't go away like a Gorgio without +tasting anything?" + +"I'll eat bread with you, but tea I haven't tasted this five-and-twenty +years." + +"Bread you shall have, rya." And saying this, the daughter spread out a +clean white napkin, and placed on it excellent bread and butter, with +plate and knife. I never tasted better, even in Philadelphia. Everything +in the cottage was scrupulously neat--there was even an approach to +style. The furniture and ornaments were superior to those found in +common peasant houses. There was a large and beautifully-bound +photograph album. I found that the family could read and write--the +daughter received and read a note, and one of the sons knew who and what +Mr Robert Browning was. + +But behind it all, when the inner life came out, was the wild Rommany and +the witch-_aura_--the fierce spirit of social exile from the world in +which they lived (the true secret of all the witch-life of old), and the +joyous consciousness of a secret tongue and hidden ways. To those who +walk in the darkness of the dream, let them go as deep and as windingly +as they will, and into the grimmest gloom of goblin-land, there will +never be wanting flashes of light, though they be gleams diavoline, +corpse-candlelights, elfin sparkles, and the unearthly blue lume of the +eyes of silent night-hags wandering slow. In the forgotten grave of the +sorcerer burns steadily through long centuries the Rosicrucian lamp, and +even to him whose eyes are closed, sparkle, on pressure, phosphorescent +rings. So there was Gipsy laughter; and the ancient _wicca_ and Vala +flashed out into that sky-rocketty joyousness and Catherine-wheel gaiety, +which at eighty or ninety, in a woman, vividly reminds one of the Sabbat +on the Brocken, of the ointment, and all things terrible and unearthly +and forbidden. + +I do not suppose that there are many people who can feel or understand +that among the fearfully dirty dwellers in tents and caravans, +cock-shysters and dealers in dogs of doubtful character, there can be +anything strange, and quaint, and deeply tinged with the spirit of which +I have spoken. As well might one attempt to persuade the twenty-stone +half-illiterate and wholly old-fashioned rural magistrate of the last +century that the poor devil of a hen-stealing Gipsy dragged before him +knew that which would send thrills of joy through the most learned +philologist in Europe, and cause the great band of scholars to sing for +joy. Life, to most of us, is nothing without its humour; and to me a +whilome German student illustrating his military marauding by phrases +from Fichte, or my friend Pauno the Rommany urging me with words to be +found in the Mahabahrata and Hafiz to buy a terrier, is a charming +experience. + +I believe that my imagination has neither been led nor driven, when it +has so invariably, in my conversing with Gipsy women, recalled Faust, and +all I have ever read in Wierus, Bodinus, Bekker, Mather, or Glanvil, of +the sorceress and _sortilega_. And certainly on this earth I never met +with such a perfect _replica_ of Old Mother Baubo, the mother of all the +witches, as I once encountered at a certain race. Swarthy, black-eyed, +stout, half-centuried, fiercely cunning, and immoderately sensual, her +first salutation was expressed in a phrase such as a Corinthian soul +might be greeted with on entering that portion of the after-world devoted +to the fastest of the fair. With her came a tall, lithe, younger +sorceress; and verily the giant fat sow for her majesty, and the broom +for the attendant, were all that was wanting. + +To return to the cottage. Our mirth and fun grew fast and furious; the +family were delighted with my anecdotes of the Rommany in other +lands--German, Bohemian, and Spanish,--not to mention the _gili_. And we +were just in the gayest centre of it all, "whin,--och, what a pity!--this +fine tay-party was suddenly broken up," as Patrick O'Flanegan remarked +when he was dancing with the chairs to the devil's fiddling, and his wife +entered. For in rushed a Gipsy boy announcing that Gorgios (or, as I may +say, "wite trash") were near at hand, and evidently bent on entering. +That this irruption of the enemy gave a taci-turn to our riotry and +revelling will be believed. I tossed the brandy in the cup into the +fire; it flashed up, and with it a quick memory of the spilt and blazing +witch-brew in "Faust." I put the tourist-flask in my pocket, and in a +trice had changed my seat and assumed the air of a chance intruder. In +they came, two ladies--one decidedly pretty--and three gentlemen, all of +the higher class, as they indicated by their manner and language. They +were almost immediately followed by a Gipsy, the son of my hostess, who +had sent for him that he might see me. + +He was a man of thirty, firmly set, and had a stern hard countenance, in +which shone two glittering black eyes, which were serpent-like even among +the Rommany. Nor have I ever seen among his people a face so expressive +of self-control allied to wary suspicion. He was neatly dressed, but in +a subdued Gipsy style, the principal indication being that of a pair of +"cords," which, however, any gentleman might have worn--in the field. His +English was excellent--in fact, that of an educated man; his sum total +that of a very decided "character," and one who, if you wronged him, +might be a dangerous one. + +We entered into conversation, and the Rommany rollicking seemed all at +once a vapoury thing of the dim past; it was the scene in a witch-revel +suddenly shifted to a drawing-room in May Fair. We were all, and all at +once, so polite and gentle, and so readily acquainted and +cosmo-polite--quite beyond the average English standard; and not the +least charming part of the whole performance was the skill with which the +minor parts were filled up by the Gipsies, who with exquisite tact +followed our lead, seeming to be at once hosts and guests. I have been +at many a play, but never saw anything better acted. + +But under it all burnt a lurid though hidden flame; and there was a +delightful _diablerie_ of concealment kept up among the Rommany, which +was the more exquisite because I shared in it. Reader, do you remember +the scene in George Borrow's "Gipsies in Spain," in which the woman +blesses the child in Spanish, and mutters curses on it meanwhile in +Zincali? So it was that my dear old hostess blessed the sweet young +lady, and "prodigalled" compliments on her; but there was one instant +when her eye met mine, and a soft, quick-whispered, wicked Rommany +phrase, unheard by the ladies, came to my ear, and in the glance and word +there was a concentrated anathema. + +The stern-eyed Gipsy conversed well, entertaining his guests with ease. +After he had spoken of the excellent behaviour and morals of his +tribe--and I believe that they have a very high character in these +respects--I put him a question. + +"Can you tell me if there is really such a thing as a Gipsy language? one +hears such differing accounts, you know." + +With the amiable smile of one who pitied my credulity, but who was +himself superior to all petty deception or vulgar mystery, he replied-- + +"That is another of the absurd tales which people have invented about +Gipsies. As if we could have kept such a thing a secret!" + +"It does, indeed, seem to me," I replied, "that if you _had_, some people +who were not Gipsies _must_ have learned it." + +"Of course," resumed the Gipsy, philosophically, "all people who keep +together get to using a few peculiar terms. Tailors and shoemakers have +their own words. And there are common vagabonds who go up and down +talking thieves' slang, and imposing it on people for Gipsy. But as for +any Gipsy tongue, I ought to know it" ("So I should think," I mentally +ejaculated, as I contemplated his brazen calmness); "and I don't know +three words of it." + +And we, the Gorgios, all smiled approval. At least that humbug was +settled; and the Rommany tongue was done for--dead and buried--if, +indeed, it ever existed. Indeed, as I looked in the Gipsy's face, I +began to realise that a man might be talked out of a belief in his own +name, and felt a rudimentary sensation to the effect that the language of +the Black Wanderers was all a dream, and Pott's Zigeuner the mere +tinkling of a pot of brass, Paspati a jingling Turkish symbol, and all +Rommany a _praeterea nihil_ without the _vox_. To dissipate the +delusion, I inquired of the Gipsy-- + +"You have been in America. Did you ever hunt game in the west?" + +"Yes; many a time. On the plains." + +"Of course--buffalo--antelope--jack rabbits. And once" (I said this as +if forgetfully)--"I once ate a hedgehog--no, I don't mean a hedgehog, but +a porcupine." + +A meaning glance shot from the Gipsy's eye. I uttered a first-class +password, and if he had any doubt before as to who the Rommany rye might +be, there was none now. But with a courteous smile he replied-- + +"It's quite the same, sir--porcupine or hedgehog. I know perfectly well +what you mean." + +"Porcupines," I resumed, "are very common in America. The Chippeways +call them _hotchewitchi_." + +This Rommany word was a plumper for the Gipsy, and the twinkle of his +eye--the smallest star of mirth in the darkest night of gravity I ever +beheld in my life--was lovely. I had trumped his card at any rate with +as solemn gravity as his own; and the Gorgios thought our reminiscences +of America were very entertaining. + + "He had more tow upon his distaffe + Than Gervais wot of." + +But there was one in the party--and I think only one--who had her own +private share in the play. That one was the pretty young lady. Through +all the conversation, I observed from time to time her eyes fixed on my +face, as if surmising some unaccountable mystery. I understood it at +once. The bread and butter on the table, partly eaten, and the +snow-white napkin indicated to a feminine eye that some one not of the +household had been entertained, and that I was the guest. Perhaps she +had seen the old woman's quick glance at me, but it was evident that she +felt a secret. What she divined I do not know. Should this work ever +fall into her hands, she will learn it all, and with it the fact that +Gipsies can talk double about as well as any human beings on the face of +the earth, and enjoy fun with as grave a face as any Ojib'wa of them all. + +The habits of the Gipsy are pleasantly illustrated by the fact that the +collection of "animated books," which no Rommany gentleman's library +should be without, generally includes a jackdaw. When the foot of the +Gorgio is heard near the tent, a loud "_wa-awk_" from the wary bird +(sounding very much like an alarm) at once proclaims the fact; and on +approaching, the stranger finds the entire party in all probability +asleep. Sometimes a dog acts as sentinel, but it comes to the same +thing. It is said you cannot catch a weasel asleep: I am tempted to add +that you can never find a Gipsy awake--but it means precisely the same +thing. + +Gipsies are very much attached to their dogs, and in return the dogs are +very much attached to their masters--so much so that there are numerous +instances, perfectly authenticated, of the faithful animals having been +in the habit of ranging the country alone, at great distances from the +tent, and obtaining hares, rabbits, or other game, which they carefully +and secretly brought by night to their owners as a slight testimonial of +their regard and gratitude. As the dogs have no moral appreciation of +the Game Laws, save as manifested in gamekeepers, no one can blame them. +Gipsies almost invariably prefer, as canine manifesters of devotion, +lurchers, a kind of dog which of all others can be most easily taught to +steal. It is not long since a friend of mine, early one morning between +dark and dawn, saw a lurcher crossing the Thames with a rabbit in his +mouth. Landing very quietly, the dog went to a Gipsy _tan_, deposited +his burden, and at once returned over the river. + +Dogs once trained to such secret hunting become passionately fond of it, +and pursue it unweariedly with incredible secrecy and sagacity. Even +cats learn it, and I have heard of one which is "good for three rabbits a +week." Dogs, however, bring everything home, while puss feeds herself +luxuriously before thinking of her owner. But whether dog or cat, cock +or jackdaw, all animals bred among Gipsies do unquestionably become +themselves Rommanised, and grow sharp, and shrewd, and mysterious. A +writer in the _Daily News_ of October 19, 1872, speaks of having seen +parrots which spoke Rommany among the Gipsies of Epping Forest. A Gipsy +dog is, if we study him, a true character. Approach a camp: a black +hound, with sleepy eyes, lies by a tent; he does not bark at you or act +uncivilly, for that forms no part of his master's life or plans, but +wherever you go those eyes are fixed on you. By-and-by he disappears--he +is sure to do so if there are no people about the _tan_--and then +reappears with some dark descendant of the Dom and Domni. I have always +been under the impression that these dogs step out and mutter a few words +in Rommany--their deportment is, at any rate, Rommanesque to the highest +degree, indicating a transition from the barbarous silence of doghood to +Christianly intelligence. You may persuade yourself that the Gipsies do +not mind your presence, but rest assured that though he may lie on his +side with his back turned, the cunning _jucko_ is carefully noting all +you do. The abject and humble behaviour of a poor negro's dog in America +was once proverbial: the quaint shrewdness, the droll roguery, the demure +devilry of a real Gipsy dog are beyond all praise. + +The most valuable dogs to the Gipsies are by no means remarkable for size +or beauty, or any of the properties which strike the eye; on the +contrary, an ugly, shirking, humble-looking, two-and-sixpenny-countenanced +cur, if he have but intellect, is much more their _affaire_. Yesterday +morning, while sitting among the tents of "ye Egypcians," I overheard +a knot of men discussing the merits of a degraded-looking doglet, who +seemed as if he must have committed suicide, were he only gifted with +sense enough to know how idiotic he looked. "Would you take seven pounds +for him?" asked one. "Avo, I would take seven bar; but I wouldn't take +six, nor six an' a half neither." + +The stranger who casts an inquisitive eye, though from afar off, into a +Gipsy camp, is at once noted; and if he can do this before the wolf--I +mean the Rom--sees him, he must possess the gift of fern-seed and walk +invisible, as was illustrated by the above-mentioned yesterday visit. +Passing over the bridge, I paused to admire the scene. It was a fresh +sunny morning in October, the autumnal tints were beautiful in golden +brown or oak red, while here and there the horse-chestnuts spread their +saffron robes, waving in the embraces of the breeze like hetairae of the +forest. Below me ran the silver Thames, and above a few silver +clouds--the belles of the air--were following its course, as if to watch +themselves in the watery winding mirror. And near the reedy island, at +the shadowy point always haunted by three swans, whom I suspect of having +been there ever since the days of Odin-faith, was the usual punt, with +its elderly gentlemanly gudgeon-fishers. But far below me, along the +dark line of the hedge, was a sight which completed the English character +of the scene--a real Gipsy camp. Caravans, tents, waggons, asses, +smouldering fires; while among them the small forms of dark children +could be seen frolicking about. One Gipsy youth was fishing in the +stream from the bank, and beyond him a knot of busy basketmakers were +visible. + +I turned the bridge, adown the bank, and found myself near two young men +mending chairs. They greeted me civilly; and when I spoke Rommany, they +answered me in the same language; but they did not speak it well, nor did +they, indeed, claim to be "Gipsies" at all, though their complexions had +the peculiar hue which indicates some other than Saxon admixture of +blood. Half Rommany in their knowledge, and yet not regarded as such, +these "travellers" represented a very large class in England, which is as +yet but little understood by our writers, whether of fact or fiction. +They laughed while telling me anecdotes of gentlemen who had mistaken +them for real Rommany chals, and finally referred me to "Old Henry," +further down, who "could talk with me." This ancient I found a hundred +yards beyond, basketing in the sun at the door of his tent. He greeted +me civilly enough, but worked away with his osiers most industriously, +while his comrades, less busy, employed themselves vigorously in looking +virtuous. One nursed his infant with tender embraces, another began to +examine green sticks with a view to converting them into clothes-pegs--in +fact I was in a model community of wandering Shakers. + +I regret to say that the instant I uttered a Rommany word, and was +recognised, this discipline of decorum was immediately relaxed. It was +not complimentary to my moral character, but it at least showed +confidence. The Ancient Henry, who bore, as I found, in several respects +a strong likeness to the Old Harry, had heard of me, and after a short +conversation confided the little fact, that from the moment in which I +had been seen watching them, they were sure I was a _gav-mush_, or police +or village authority, come to spy into their ways, and to at least order +them to move on. But when they found that I was not as one having +authority, but, on the contrary, came talking Rommany with the firm +intention of imparting to them three pots of beer just at the thirstiest +hour of a warm day, a great change came over their faces. A chair was +brought to me from a caravan at some distance, and I was told the latest +news of the road. + +"Matty's got his slangs," observed Henry, as he inserted a _ranya_ or +osier-withy into his basket, and deftly twined it like a serpent to right +and left, and almost as rapidly. Now a _slang_ means, among divers +things, a hawker's licence. + +"I'm glad to hear it," I remarked. There was deep sincerity in this +reply, as I had more than once contributed to the fees for the aforesaid +_slangs_, which somehow or other were invariably refused to the +applicant. At last, however, the slangs came; and his two boys, provided +with them (at ten shillings per head), were now, in their sphere of life, +in the position of young men who had received an education or been amply +established in business, and were gifted with all that could be expected +from a doting father. In its way this bit of intelligence meant as much +to the basketmaker as, "Have you heard that young Fitz-Grubber has just +got the double-first at Oxford?" or, "Do you know that old Cheshire has +managed that appointment in India for his boy?--splendid independence, +isn't it?" And I was shrewdly suspected by my audience, as the question +implied, that I had had a hand in expanding this magnificent opening for +the two fortunate young men. + +"_Dick adoi_!" cried one, pointing up the river. "Look there at Jim!" + +I looked and saw a young man far off, shirking along the path by the +river, close to the hedge. + +"He thinks you're a _gav-mush_," observed Henry; "and he's got some +sticks, an' is tryin' to hide them 'cause he daren't throw 'em away. Oh, +aint he scared?" + +It was a pleasing spectacle to see the demi-Gipsy coming in with his poor +little green sticks, worth perhaps a halfpenny, and such as no living +farmer in all North America would have grudged a cartload of to anybody. +Droll as it really seemed, the sight touched me while I laughed. Oh, if +charity covereth a multitude of sins, what should not poverty do? I care +not through which door it comes--nay, be it by the very portal of Vice +herself--when sad and shivering poverty stands before me in humble form, +I can only forgive and forget. And this child-theft was to obtain the +means of work after all. And if you ask me why I did not at once proceed +to the next magistrate and denounce the criminal, I can only throw myself +for excuse on the illustrious example of George the Fourth, head of +Church and State, who once in society saw a pickpocket remove from a +gentleman's fob his gold watch, winking at the king as he did so. "Of +course I couldn't say anything," remarked the good-natured monarch, "for +the rascal took me into his confidence." + +Jim walked into camp amid mild chaff, to be greeted in Rommany by the +suspected policeman, and to accept a glass of the ale, which had rained +as it were from heaven into this happy family. These basketmakers were +not real Gipsies, but _churdi_ or half-bloods, though they spoke with +scorn of the two chair-menders, who, working by themselves at the +extremity of the tented town (and excluded from a share in the beer), +seemed to be a sort of pariahs unto these higher casters. + +I should mention, _en passant_, that when the beer-bearer of the camp +was sent for the three pots, he was told to "go over to Bill and borrow +his two-gallon jug--and be very careful not to let him find out what it +was for." I must confess that I thought this was deeply unjust to the +imposed-upon and beerless William; but it was another case of confidence, +and he who sits among Gipsies by hedgerows green must not be +over-particular. _Il faut heurler avec les loups_. "Ain't it wrong to +steal dese here chickens?" asked a negro who was seized with scruples +while helping to rob a hen-roost. "Dat, Cuff, am a great moral question, +an' we haint got time to discuss it--so jist hand down anoder pullet." + +I found that Henry had much curious knowledge as to old Rommany ways, +though he spoke with little respect of the Gipsy of the olden time, who, +as he declared, thought all he needed in life was to get a row of silver +buttons on his coat, a pair of high boots on his feet, and +therewith--_basta_! He had evidently met at one time with Mr George +Borrow, as appeared by his accurate description of that gentleman's +appearance, though he did not know his name. "Ah! he could talk the jib +first-rateus," remarked my informant; "and he says to me, 'Bless you! +you've all of you forgotten the real Gipsy language, and don't know +anything about it at all.' Do you know Old Frank?" he suddenly inquired. + +"Avo," I replied. "He's the man who has been twice in America." + +"But d'ye know how rich he is? He's got money in bank. And when a man +gets money in bank, _I_ say there is somethin' in it. An' how do you +suppose he made that money?" he inquired, with the air of one who is +about to "come down with a stunner." "He did it _a-dukkerin_'." {171} +But he pronounced the word _durkerin_'; and I, detecting at once, as I +thought, an affinity with the German "turkewava," paused and stared, lost +in thought. My pause was set down to amazement, and the Ancient Henry +repeated-- + +"Fact. By _durkerin_'. I don't wonder you're astonished. Tellin' +fortunes just like a woman. It isn't every man who could do that. But I +suppose you could," he continued, looking at me admiringly. "You know +all the ways of the Gorgios, an' could talk to ladies, an' are up to high +life; ah, you could make no end of money. Why don't you do it?" + +Innocent Gipsy! was this thy idea of qualification for a seer and a +reader of dark lore? What wouldst thou say could I pour into thy brain +the contents of the scores of works on "occult nonsense," from Agrippa to +Zadkiel, devoured with keen hunger in the days of my youth? Yes, in +solemn sadness, out of the whole I have brought no powers of divination; +and in it all found nothing so strange as the wondrous tongue in which we +spoke. In this mystery called Life many ways have been proposed to me of +alleviating its expenses; as, for instance, when the old professor +earnestly commended that we two should obtain (I trust honestly) a donkey +and a _rinkni juva_, who by telling fortunes should entirely contribute +to our maintenance, and so wander cost-free, and _kost-frei_ over merrie +England. But I threw away the golden opportunity--ruthlessly rejected +it--thereby incurring the scorn of all scientific philologists (none of +whom, I trow, would have lost such a chance). It was for doing the same +thing that Matthew Arnold immortalised a clerke of Oxenforde: though it +may be that "since Elizabeth" such exploits have lost their prestige, as +I knew of two students at the same university who a few years ago went +off on a six weeks' lark with two Gipsy girls; but who, far from desiring +to have the fact chronicled in immortal rhyme, were even much afraid lest +it should get into the county newspaper! + +Leaving the basketmakers (among whom I subsequently found a +grand-daughter of the celebrated Gipsy Queen, Charlotte Stanley), I went +up the river, and there, above the bridge, found, as if withdrawn in +pride, two other tents, by one of which stood a very pretty little girl +of seven or eight years with a younger brother. While talking to the +children, their father approached leading a horse. I had never seen him +before, but he welcomed me politely in Rommany, saying that I had been +pointed out to him as the Rommany rye, and that his mother, who was +proficient in their language, was very desirous of meeting me. He was +one of the smiths--a Petulengro or Petulamengro, or master of the horse- +shoe, a name familiar to all readers of Lavengro. + +This man was a full Gipsy, but he spoke better English, as well as better +Rommany, than his neighbours, and had far more refinement of manner. And +singularly enough, he appeared to be simpler hearted and more unaffected, +with less Gipsy trickery, and more of a disposition for honest labour. +His brother and uncle were, indeed, hard at work among the masons in a +new building not far off, though they lived like true Gipsies in a tent. +Petulamengro, as the name is commonly given at the present day, was +evidently very proud of his Rommany, and talked little else: but he could +not speak it nearly so well nor so fluently as his mother, who was of +"the old sort," and who was, I believe, sincerely delighted that her +skill was appreciated by me. All Gipsies are quite aware that their +language is very old and curious, but they very seldom meet with Gorgios +who are familiar with the fact, and manifest an interest in it. + +While engaged in conversation with this family, Petulamengro asked me if +I had ever met in America with Mr ---, adding, "He is a brother-in-law of +mine." + +I confess that I was startled, for I had known the gentleman in question +very well for many years. He is a man of considerable fortune, and +nothing in his appearance indicates in the slightest degree any affinity +with the Rommany. He is not the only real or partial Gipsy whom I know +among the wealthy and highly cultivated, and it is with pleasure I +declare that I have found them all eminently kind-hearted and hospitable. + +It may be worth while to state, in this connection, that Gipsy blood +intermingled with Anglo-Saxon when educated, generally results in +intellectual and physical vigour. The English Gipsy has greatly changed +from the Hindoo in becoming courageous, in fact, his pugnacity and pluck +are too frequently carried to a fault. + +My morning's call had brought me into contact with the three types of the +Gipsy of the roads. Of the half-breeds, and especially of those who have +only a very slight trace of the dark blood or _kalo ratt_, there are in +Great Britain many thousands. Of the true stock there are now only a few +hundreds. But all are "Rommany," and all have among themselves an +"understanding" which separates them from the "Gorgios." + +It is difficult to define what this understanding is--suffice it to say, +that it keeps them all in many respects "peculiar," and gives them a +feeling of free-masonry, and of guarding a social secret, long after they +leave the roads and become highly reputable members of society. But they +have a secret, and no one can know them who has not penetrated it. + +* * * * * + +One day I mentioned to my old Rommany, what Mr Borrow has said, that no +English Gipsy knows the word for a leaf, or _patrin_. He admitted that +it was true; but after considering the subject deeply, and dividing the +deliberations between his pipe and a little wooden bear on the table--his +regular oracle and friend--he suddenly burst forth in the following +beautiful illustration of philology by theology:-- + +"Rya, I pens you the purodirus lav for a leaf--an' that's a _holluf_. +(Don't you jin that the holluf was the firstus leaf? so holluf must be +the Rommany lav, sense Rommanis is the purodirest jib o' saw.) For when +the first mush was kaired an' created in the tem adree--and that was the +boro Duvel himself, I expect--an' annered the tem apre, he was in the +bero, an' didn't jin if there was any puvius about, so he bitchered the +chillico avree. An' the chillico was a dove, 'cause dove-us is like +Duvel, an' pash o' the Duvel an' Duvel's chillico. So the dove mukkered +avree an' jalled round the tem till he latchered the puvius; for when he +dickered a tan an' lelled a holluf-leaf, he jinned there was a tem, an' +hatched the holluf apopli to his Duvel. An' when yuv's Duvel jinned +there was a tem, he kaired bitti tiknos an' foki for the tem--an' I don't +jin no more of it. Kekoomi. An' that is a wery tidy little story of the +leaf, and it sikkers that the holluf was the first leaf. Tacho." + +"Sir, I will tell you the oldest word for a leaf--and that is an olive. +(Don't you know that the olive was the first leaf? so olive must be the +Rommany word, since Rommanis is the oldest language of all.) For when +the first man was made and created in the world--and that was the great +God himself, I expect--and brought the land out, he was in the ship, and +didn't know if there was any earth about him, so he sent the bird out. +And the bird was a dove, because _dove_ is like _Duvel_ (God), and half +God and God's bird. So the dove flew away and went around the world till +he found the earth; for when he saw a place and took an olive-leaf, he +knew there was a country (land), and took the olive-leaf back to his +Lord. And when his Lord knew there was land, he made little children and +people for it--and I don't know anything more about it. And that is a +very tidy little story of the leaf, and it shows that the olive was the +first leaf." + +Being gratified at my noting down this original narrative from his own +lips, my excellent old friend informed me, with cheerfulness not +unmingled with the dignified pride characteristic of erudition, and of +the possession of deep and darksome lore, that he also knew the story of +Samson. And thus spake he:-- + +"Samson was a boro mush, wery hunnalo an' tatto at koorin', so that he +nashered saw the mushis avree, an' they were atrash o' lester. He was so +surrelo that yeckorus when he poggered avree a ker, an' it had a boro +sasterni wuder, he just pet it apre his dumo, an' hookered it avree, an' +jalled kerri an' bikin'd it. + +"Yeck divvus he lelled some weshni juckals, an' pandered yagni-trushnees +to their poris and mukked 'em jal. And they nashered avree like puro +bengis, sig in the sala, when sar the mushis were sutto, 'unsa parl the +giv puvius, and hotchered sar the giv. + +"Then the krallis bitchered his mushis to lel Samson, but he koshered +'em, an' pash mored the tat of 'em; they couldn't kurry him, and he +sillered 'em to praster for their miraben. An' 'cause they couldn't +serber him a koorin', they kaired it sidd pre the chingerben drum. Now +Samson was a seehiatty mush, wery cammoben to the juvas, so they got a +wery rinkeni chi to kutter an' kuzzer him. So yuv welled a laki to a +worretty tan, an' she hocussed him with drab till yuv was pilfry o' +sutto, an his sherro hungered hooper side a lacker; an' when yuv was +selvered, the mushis welled and chinned his ballos apre an' chivved him +adree the sturaben. + +"An' yeck divvus the foki hitchered him avree the sturaben to kair pyass +for 'em. And as they were gillerin' and huljerin' him, Samson chivved +his wasters kettenus the boro chongurs of the sturaben, and bongered his +kokerus adree, an sar the ker pet a lay with a boro gudli, an' sar the +pooro mushis were mullered an' the ker poggered to bitti cutters." + +"Samson was a great man, very fierce and expert at fighting, so that he +drove all men away, and they were afraid of him. He was so strong that +once when he broke into a house, and it had a great iron door, he just +put it on his back, and carried it away and went home and sold it. + +"One day he caught some foxes, and tied firebrands to their tails and let +them go. And they ran away like old devils, early in the morning, when +all the people were asleep, across the field, and burned all the wheat. + +"Then the king sent his men to take Samson, but he hurt them, and half +killed the whole of them; they could not injure him, and he compelled +them to run for life. And because they could not capture him by +fighting, they did it otherwise by an opposite way. Now Samson was a man +full of life, very fond of the girls, so they got a very pretty woman to +cajole and coax him. And he went with her to a lonely house, and she +'hocussed' him with poison till he was heavy with sleep, and his head +drooped by her side; and when he was poisoned, the people came and cut +his hair off and threw him into prison. + +"And one day the people dragged him out of prison to make sport for them. +And as they were making fun of him and teasing him, Samson threw his +hands around the great pillars of the prison, and bowed himself in, and +all the house fell down with a great noise, and all the poor men were +killed and the house broken to small pieces. + +"And so he died." + +"Do you know what the judgment day is, Puro?" + +"Avo, rya. The judgment day is when you _soves alay_ (go in sleep, or +dream away) to the boro Duvel." + +I reflected long on this reply of the untutored Rommany. I had often +thought that the deepest and most beautiful phrase in all Tennyson's +poems was that in which the impassioned lover promised his mistress to +love her after death, ever on "into the dream beyond." And here I had +the same thought as beautifully expressed by an old Gipsy, who, he +declared, for two months hadn't seen three nights when he wasn't as drunk +as four fiddlers. And the same might have been said of Carolan, the +Irish bard, who lived in poetry and died in whisky. + +The soul sleeping or dreaming away to God suggested an inquiry into the +Gipsy idea of the nature of spirits. + +"You believe in _mullos_ (ghosts), Puro. Can everybody see them, I +wonder?" + +"Avo, rya, avo. Every mush can dick mullos if it's their cammoben to be +dickdus. But 'dusta critters can dick mullos whether the mullos kaum it +or kek. There's grais an' mylas can dick mullos by the ratti; an' +yeckorus I had a grai that was trasher 'dree a tem langs the rikkorus of +a drum, pash a boro park where a mush had been mullered. He prastered a +mee pauli, but pash a cheirus he welled apopli to the wardos. A chinned +jucko or a wixen can hunt mullos. Avali, they chase sperits just the sim +as anything 'dree the world--dan'r 'em, koor 'em, chinger 'em--'cause the +dogs can't be dukkered by mullos." + +In English: "Yes, sir, yes. Every man can see ghosts if it is their will +to be seen. But many creatures can see ghosts whether the ghosts wish it +or not. There are horses and asses (which) can see ghosts by the night; +and once I had a horse that was frightened in a place by the side of a +road, near a great park where a man had been murdered. He ran a mile +behind, but after a while came back to the waggons. A cut (castrated) +dog or a vixen can hunt ghosts. Yes, they chase spirits just the same as +anything in the world--bite 'em, fight 'em, tear 'em--because dogs cannot +be hurt by ghosts." + +"Dogs," I replied, "sometimes hunt men as well as ghosts." + +"Avo; but men can fool the juckals avree, and men too, and mullos can't." + +"How do they kair it?" + +"If a choramengro kaums to chore a covva when the snow is apre the +puvius, he jals yeck piro, palewavescro. If you chiv tutes piros pal-o- +the-waver--your kusto piro kaired bongo, jallin' with it a rikkorus, an' +the waver piro straightus--your patteran'll dick as if a bongo-herroed +mush had been apre the puvius. (I jinned a mush yeckorus that had a dui +chokkas kaired with the dui tachabens kaired bongo, to jal a-chorin' +with.) But if you're pallered by juckals, and pet lully dantymengro +adree the chokkas, it'll dukker the sunaben of the juckos. + +"An' if you chiv lully dantymengro where juckos kair panny, a'ter they +soom it they won't jal adoi chichi no moreus, an' won't mutter in dovo +tan, and you can keep it cleanus." + +That is, "If a thief wants to steal a thing when the snow is on the +ground, he goes with one foot behind the other. If you put your feet one +behind the other--your right foot twisted, going with it to one side, and +the other foot straight--your trail will look as if a crooked-legged man +had been on the ground. (I knew a man once that had a pair of shoes made +with the two heels reversed, to go a-thieving with.) But if you are +followed by dogs, and put red pepper in your shoes, it will spoil the +scent of the dogs. + +"And if you throw red pepper where dogs make water, they will not go +there any more after they smell it, and you can keep it clean." + +"Well," I replied, "I see that a great many things can be learned from +the Gipsies. Tell me, now, when you wanted a night's lodging did you +ever go to a union?" + +"Kek, rya; the tramps that jal langs the drum an' mang at the unions are +kek Rommany chals. The Rommany never kair dovo--they'd sooner besh in +the bavol puv firstus. We'd putch the farming rye for mukkaben to hatch +the ratti adree the granja,but we'd sooner suv under the bor in the +bishnoo than jal adree the chuvveny-ker. The Rommany chals aint sim to +tramps, for they've got a different drum into 'em." + +In English: "No, sir; the tramps that go along the road and beg at the +unions are not Gipsies. The Rommany never do that--they'd sooner stay in +the open field (literally, air-field). We would ask the farmer for leave +to stop the night in the barn, but we'd sooner sleep under the hedge in +the rain than go in the poorhouse. Gipsies are not like tramps, for they +have a different _way_." + +The reader who will reflect on the extreme misery and suffering incident +upon sleeping in the open air, or in a very scanty tent, during the +winter in England, and in cold rains, will appreciate the amount of manly +pride necessary to sustain the Gipsies in thus avoiding the union. That +the wandering Rommany can live at all is indeed wonderful, since not only +are all other human beings less exposed to suffering than many of them, +but even foxes and rabbits are better protected in their holes from +storms and frost. The Indians of North America have, without exception, +better tents; in fact, one of the last Gipsy _tans_ which I visited was +merely a bit of ragged canvas, so small that it could only cover the +upper portion of the bodies of the man and his wife who slept in it. +Where and how they packed their two children I cannot understand. + +The impunity with which any fact might be published in English Rommany, +with the certainty that hardly a soul in England not of the blood could +understand it, is curiously illustrated by an incident which came within +my knowledge. The reader is probably aware that there appear +occasionally in the "Agony" column of the _Times_ (or in that devoted to +"personal" advertisements) certain sentences apparently written in some +very strange foreign tongue, but which the better informed are aware are +made by transposing letters according to the rules of cryptography or +secret writing. Now it is estimated that there are in Great Britain at +least one thousand lovers of occult lore and quaint curiosa, decipherers +of rebuses and adorers of anagrams, who, when one of these delightful +puzzles appears in the _Times_, set themselves down and know no rest +until it is unpuzzled and made clear, being stimulated in the pursuit by +the delightful consciousness that they are exploring the path of +somebody's secret, which somebody would be very sorry to have made known. + +Such an advertisement appeared one day, and a friend of mine, who had a +genius for that sort of thing, sat himself down early one Saturday +morning to decipher it. + +First of all he ascertained which letter occurred most frequently in the +advertisement, for this must be the letter _e_ according to rules made +and provided by the great Edgar A. Poe, the American poet-cryptographer. +But to reveal the secret in full, I may as well say, dear reader, that +you must take printers' type in their cases, _and follow the proportions +according to the size of the boxes_. By doing this you cannot fail to +unrip the seam of any of these transmutations. + +But, alas! this cock would not fight--it was a dead bird in the pit. My +friend at once apprehended that he had to deal with an old hand--one of +those aggravating fellows who are up to cryp--a man who can write a +sentence, and be capable of leaving the letter _e_ entirely out. For +there _are_ people who will do this. + +So he went to work afresh upon now hypotheses, and pleasantly the hours +fled by. Quires of paper were exhausted; he worked all day and all the +evening with no result. That it was not in a foreign language my friend +was well assured. + + "For well hee knows the Latine and the Dutche; + Of Fraunce and Toscanie he hath a touche." + +Russian is familiar to him, and Arabic would not have been an unknown +quantity. So he began again with the next day, and had been breaking the +Sabbath until four o'clock in the afternoon, when I entered, and the +mystic advertisement was submitted to me. I glanced at it, and at once +read it into English, though as I read the smile at my friend's lost +labour vanished in a sense of sympathy for what the writer must have +suffered. It was as follows, omitting names:-- + + "MANDY jins of --- ---. Patsa mandy, te bitcha lav ki tu shan. Opray + minno lav, mandy'l kek pukka til tute muks a mandi. Tute's di's see + se welni poggado. Shom atrash tuti dad'l jal divio. Yov'l fordel + sor. For miduvel's kom, muk lesti shoon choomani." + +In English: "I know of ---. Trust me, and send word where you are. On +my word, I will not tell till you give me leave. Your mother's heart is +wellnigh broken. I am afraid your father will go mad. He will forgive +all. For God's sake, let him know something." + +This was sad enough, and the language in which it was written is good +English Rommany. I would only state in addition, that I found that in +the very house in which I was living, and at the same time, a lady had +spent three days in vainly endeavouring to ascertain the meaning of these +sentences. + +It is possible that many Gipsies, be they of high or low degree, in +society or out of it, may not be pleased at my publishing a book of their +language, and revealing so much of what they fondly cherish as a secret. +They need be under no apprehension, since I doubt very much whether, even +with its aid, a dozen persons living will seriously undertake to study +it--and of this dozen there is not one who will not be a philologist; and +such students are generally aware that there are copious vocabularies of +all the other Gipsy dialects of Europe easy to obtain from any +bookseller. Had my friend used the works of Pott or Paspati, Ascoli or +Grellman, he would have found it an easy thing to translate this +advertisement. The truth simply is, that for _scholars_ there is not a +single secret or hidden word in English Gipsy or in any other Rommany +dialect, and none except scholars will take pains to acquire it. Any man +who wished to learn sufficient Gipsy to maintain a conversation, and +thereby learn all the language, could easily have done so half a century +ago from the vocabularies published by Bright and other writers. A +secret which has been for fifty years published in very practical detail +in fifty books, is indeed a _secret de Ponchinelle_. + +I have been asked scores of times, "Have the Gipsies an alphabet of their +own? have they grammars of their language, dictionaries, or books?" Of +course my answer was in the negative. I have heard of vocabularies in +use among crypto-Rommanies, or those who having risen from the roads live +a secret life, so to speak, but I have never seen one. But they have +songs; and one day I was told that in my neighbourhood there lived a +young Gipsy woman who was a poetess and made Rommany ballads. "She can't +write," said my informant; "but her husband's a _Gorgio_, and he can. If +you want them, I'll get you some." The offer was of course accepted, and +the Gipsy dame, flattered by the request, sent me the following. The +lyric is without rhyme, but, as sung, not without rhythm. + + + +"GILLI OF A RUMMANY JUVA. + + + "Die at the gargers (Gorgios), + The gargers round mandy! + Trying to lel my meripon, + My meripon (meripen) away. + + I will care (kair) up to my chungs (chongs), + Up to my chungs in Rat, + All for my happy Racler (raklo). + + My mush is lelled to sturribon (staripen), + To sturribon, to sturribon; + Mymush is lelled to sturribon, + To the Tan where mandy gins (jins)." + + + +TRANSLATION. + + +"Look at the Gorgios, the Gorgios around me! trying to take my life away. + +"I will wade up to my knees in blood, all for my happy boy. + +"My husband is taken to prison, to prison, to prison; my husband is taken +to prison, to the place of which I know." + + + + +CHAPTER X. GIPSIES IN EGYPT. + + +Difficulty of obtaining Information.--The Khedive on the Gipsies.--Mr +Edward Elias.--Mahomet introduces me to the Gipsies.--They call +themselves Tataren.--The Rhagarin or Gipsies at Boulac.--Cophts.--Herr +Seetzen on Egyptian Gipsies.--The Gipsy with the Monkey in Cairo.--Street- +cries of the Gipsy Women in Egypt. Captain Newbold on the Egyptian +Gipsies. + +Since writing the foregoing pages, and only a day or two after one of the +incidents therein described, I went to Egypt, passing the winter in Cairo +and on the Nile. While waiting in the city for the friend with whom I +was to ascend the mysterious river, it naturally occurred to me, that as +I was in the country which many people still believe is the original land +of the Gipsies, it would be well worth my while to try to meet with some, +if any were to be found. + +It is remarkable, that notwithstanding my inquiries from many gentlemen, +both native and foreign, including savans and beys, the only educated +person I ever met in Egypt who was able to give me any information on the +subject of its Gipsies was the Khedive or Viceroy himself, a fact which +will not seem strange to those who are aware of the really wonderful +extent of his knowledge of the country which he rules. I had been but a +few days in Cairo when, at an interview with the Khedive, Mr Beardsley, +the American Consul, by whom I was presented, mentioned to his Highness +that I was interested in the subject of the Gipsies, upon which the +Khedive said that there were in Egypt many people known as "_Rhagarin_" +(Ghagarin), who were probably the same as the "Bohemiens" or Gipsies of +Europe. His words were, as nearly as I can remember, as follows:-- + +"They are wanderers who live in tents, and are regarded with contempt +even by the peasantry. Their women tell fortunes, tattoo, {189} and sell +small-wares; the men work in iron (_quincaillerie_). They are all adroit +thieves, and noted as such. The men may sometimes be seen going around +the country with monkeys; in fact, they appear to be in all respects the +same people as the Gipsies of Europe." + +This was all that I could learn for several days; for though there were +Gipsies--or "Egypcians"--in Egypt, I had almost as much trouble to find +them as Eilert Sundt had to discover their brethren in Norway. In +speaking of the subject to Mr Edward Elias, a gentleman well known in +Egypt, he most kindly undertook to secure the aid of the chief of police, +who in turn had recourse to the Shekh of the Gipsies. But the Shekh I +was told was not himself a Gipsy, and there were none of his subjects in +Cairo. After a few days, three wanderers, supposed to be Rommany, were +arrested; but on examination they proved to be ignorant of any language +except Arabic. Their occupation was music and dancing "with a stick;" in +fact, they were performers in those curious and extremely ancient +Fescennine farces, or _Atellanae_, which are depicted on ancient vases, +and are still acted on the roads in Egypt as they were in Greece before +the days of Thespis. Then I was informed that Gipsies were often +encamped near the Pyramids, but research in this direction was equally +fruitless. + +Remembering what his Highness had told me, that Gipsies went about +exhibiting monkeys, I one day, on meeting a man bearing an ape, +endeavoured to enter into conversation with him. Those who know Cairo +can imagine with what result! In an instant we were surrounded by fifty +natives of the lower class, jabbering, jeering, screaming, and +begging--all intent, as it verily seemed, on defeating my object. I gave +the monkey-bearer money; instead of thanking me, he simply clamoured for +more, while the mob became intolerable, so that I was glad to make my +escape. + +At last I was successful. I had frequently employed as donkey-driver an +intelligent and well-behaved man named Mahomet, who spoke English well, +and who was familiar with the byways of Cairo. On asking him if he could +show me any Rhagarin, he replied that every Saturday there was a fair or +market held at Boulac, where I would be sure to meet with women of the +tribe. The men, I was told, seldom ventured into the city, because they +were subject to much insult and ill-treatment from the common people. On +the day appointed I rode to the market, which was extremely interesting. +There were thousands of blue-shirted and red-tarbouched or white-turbaned +Egyptians, buying or selling, or else merely amusing themselves; dealers +in sugar-cane, pipe-pedlars, and vendors of rosaries; jugglers and +minstrels. At last we came to a middle-aged woman seated on the ground +behind a basket containing beads, glass armlets, and similar trinkets. +She was dressed like any Arab woman of the lower class, but was not +veiled, and on her chin blue lines were tattooed. Her features and whole +expression were, however, evidently Gipsy. + +I spoke to her in Rommany, using such words as would have been +intelligible to any of the race in England, Germany, or Turkey; but she +did not understand me, and declared that she could speak nothing but +Arabic. At my request Mahomet explained to her that I had travelled from +a distant country in "Orobba," where there were many Rhagarin who +declared that their fathers came from Egypt, and that I wished to know if +any in the latter country could speak the old language. She replied that +the Rhagarin of "Montesinos" could still speak it, but that her people in +Egypt had lost the tongue. Mahomet declared that Montesinos meant Mount +Sinai or Syria. I then asked her if the Rhagarin had no peculiar name +for themselves, and she replied, "Yes, we call ourselves Tataren." + +This was at least satisfactory. All over Southern Germany and in Norway +the Rommany are sailed Tataren; and though the word means Tartars, and is +simply a misapplied term, it indicates a common race. The woman seemed +to be very much gratified at the interest I manifested in her people. I +gave her a double piastre, and asked for its value in blue-glass armlets. +She gave me two pair, and as I turned to depart called me back, and with +a good-natured smile handed me four more as a present. This generosity +was very Gipsy-like, and very unlike the usual behaviour of any common +Egyptian. + +While on the Nile, I inquired of people in different towns if they had +ever seen Gipsies where they lived, and was invariably answered in the +negative. Remembering to have read in some book a statement that the +Ghawazi or dancing-girls formed a tribe by themselves, and spoke a +peculiar language, I asked an American who has lived for many years in +Egypt if he thought they could be Gipsies. He replied that an English +lady of title, who had also been for a long time in the country, had +formed this opinion. But when I questioned dancing-girls myself, I found +them quite ignorant of any language except Arabic, and knowing nothing +relating to the Rommany. Two Ghawazi whom I saw had, indeed, the +peculiarly brilliant eyes and general expression of Gipsies. The rest +appeared to be Egyptian-Arab; and I found on inquiry that one of the +latter had really been a peasant girl who till within seven months had +worked in the fields, while two others were occupied alternately with +field-work and dancing. + +At the market in Boulac, Mahomet took me to a number of _Rhagarin_. They +all resembled the one whom I have described, and were all occupied in +selling exactly the same class of articles. They all differed slightly, +as I thought, from the ordinary Egyptians in their appearance, and were +decidedly unlike them, in being neither importunate for money nor +disagreeable in their manners. But though they were certainly Gipsies, +none of them would speak Rommany, and I doubt very much if they could +have done so. + +Bonaventura Vulcanius, who in 1597 first gave the world a specimen of +Rommany in his curious book "De Literis et Lingua Getarum" (which +specimen, by the way, on account of its rarity, I propose to republish in +another work), believed that the Gipsies were Nubians; and others, +following in his track, supposed they were really Cophtic Christians +(Pott, "Die Zigeuner," &c., Halle, 1844, p. 5). And I must confess that +this recurred forcibly to my memory when, at Minieh, in Egypt, I asked a +Copht scribe if he were Muslim, and he replied, "_La_, _ana Gipti_" ("No, +I am a Copht"), pronouncing the word _Gipti_, or Copht, so that it might +readily be taken for "Gipsy." And learning that _romi_ is the Cophtic +for a man, I was again startled; and when I found _tema_ (tem, land) and +other Rommany words in ancient Egyptian (_vide_ Brugsch, "Grammaire," +&c.), it seemed as if there were still many mysteries to solve in this +strange language. + +Other writers long before me attempted to investigate Egyptian Gipsy, but +with no satisfactory result. A German named Seetzen ascertained that +there were Gipsies both in Egypt and Syria, and wrote (1806) on the +subject a MS., which Pott ("Die Zigeuner," &c.) cites largely. Of these +Roms he speaks as follows: "Gipsies are to be found in the entire Osmanli +realm, from the limits of Hungary into Egypt. The Turks call them +Tschinganih; but the Syrians and Egyptians, as well as themselves, +_Nury_, in the plural _El Nauar_. It was on the 24th November 1806 when +I visited a troop of them, encamped with their black tents in an olive +grove, to the west side of Naplos. They were for the greater part of a +dirty yellow complexion, with black hair, which hung down on the side +from where it was parted in a short plait, and their lips are mulatto- +like." (Seetzen subsequently remarks that their physiognomy is precisely +like that of the modern Egyptians.) "The women had their under lips +coloured dark blue, like female Bedouins, and a few eaten-in points +around the mouth of like colour. They, and the boys also, wore earrings. +They made sieves of horse-hair or of leather, iron nails, and similar +small ironware, or mended kettles. They appear to be very poor, and the +men go almost naked, unless the cold compels them to put on warmer +clothing. The little boys ran about naked. Although both Christians and +Mahometans declared that they buried their dead in remote hill corners, +or burned them, they denied it, and declared they were good Mahometans, +and as such buried their dead in Mahometan cemeteries." (This +corresponds to their custom in Great Britain in the past generation, and +the earnestness which they display at present to secure regular burial +like Christians.) "But as their instruction is even more neglected than +that of the Bedouins, their religious information is so limited that one +may say of them, they have either no religion at all, or the simplest of +all. As to wine, they are less strict than most Mahometans. They +assured me that in Egypt there were many _Nury_." + +The same writer obtained from one of these Syrian-Egyptian Gipsies a not +inconsiderable vocabulary of their language, and says: "I find many +Arabic, Turkish, and some Greek words in it; it appears to me, however, +that they have borrowed from a fourth language, which was perhaps their +mother-tongue, but which I cannot name, wanting dictionaries." The words +which he gives appear to me to consist of Egyptian-Arabic, with its usual +admixture from other sources, simply made into a gibberish, and sometimes +with one word substituted for another to hide the meaning--the whole +probably obtained through a dragoman, as is seen, for instance, when he +gives the word _nisnaszeha_, a fox, and states that it is of unknown +origin. The truth is, _nisnas_ means a monkey, and, like most of +Seetzen's "Nuri" words, is inflected with an _a_ final, as if one should +say "monkeyo." I have no doubt the Nauar may talk such a jargon; but I +should not be astonished, either, if the Shekh who for a small pecuniary +consideration eagerly aided Seetzen to note it down, had "sold" him with +what certainly would appear to any Egyptian to be the real babble of the +nursery. There are a very few Rommany words in this vocabulary, but then +it should be remembered that there are some Arabic words in Rommany. + +The street-cry of the Gipsy women in Cairo is [ARABIC TEXT which cannot +be reproduced] "_Neduqq wanetahir_!" "We tattoo and circumcise!" a +phrase which sufficiently indicates their calling. In the "Deutscher +Dragoman" of Dr Philip Wolff, Leipzig, 1867, I find the following under +the word Zigeuner:-- + +"Gipsy--in Egypt, Gagri" (pronounced more nearly 'Rh'agri), "plural +_Gagar_; in Syria, _Newari_, plural _Nawar_. When they go about with +monkeys, they are called _Kurudati_, from _kird_, ape. The Gipsies of +Upper Egypt call themselves Saaideh--_i.e_., people from Said, or Upper +Egypt (_vide_ Kremer, i. 138-148). According to Von Gobineau, they are +called in Syria Kurbati, [ARABIC TEXT which cannot be reproduced] (_vide_ +'Zeitschrift der D. M. G.,' xi. 690)." + +More than this of the Gipsies in Egypt the deponent sayeth not. He has +interrogated the oracles, and they were dumb. That there are Roms in the +land of Mizr his eyes have shown, but whether any of them can talk +Rommany is to him as yet unknown. + +* * * * * + +Since the foregoing was printed, I have found in the _Journal of the +Royal Asiatic Society_ (Vol. XVI., Part 2, 1856, p. 285), an article on +The Gipsies in Egypt, by the late Captain Newbold, F.R.S., which gives +much information on this mysterious subject. The Egyptian Gipsies, as +Captain Newbold found, are extremely jealous and suspicious of any +inquiry into their habits and mode of life, so that he had great +difficulty in tracing them to their haunts, and inducing them to +unreserved communication. + +These Gipsies are divided into three kinds, the Helebis, Ghagars +(Rhagarin), and Nuris or Nawer. Of the Rhagars there are sixteen +thousand. The Helebi are most prosperous of all these, and their women, +who are called Fehemis, are the only ones who practice fortune-telling +and sorcery. The male Helebis are chiefly ostensible dealers in horses +and cattle, but have a bad character for honesty. Some of them are to be +found in every official department in Egypt, though not known to be +Gipsies--(a statement which casts much light on the circumstance that +neither the chief of police himself nor the Shekh of the Rhagarin, with +all their alleged efforts, could find a single Gipsy for me). The +Helebis look down on the Rhagarin, and do not suffer their daughters to +intermarry with them, though they themselves marry Rhagarin girls. The +Fehemi, or Helebi women, are noted for their chastity; the Rhagarin are +not. The men of the Rhagarin are tinkers and blacksmiths, and sell cheap +jewellery or instruments of iron and brass. Many of them are athletes, +mountebanks, and monkey-exhibitors; the women are rope-dancers and +musicians. They are divided into classes, bearing the names of Romani, +Meddahin, Ghurradin, Barmeki (Barmecides), Waled Abu Tenna, Beit er +Rafai, Hemmeli, &c. The Helebis and Rhagarin are distinctly different in +their personal appearance from the other inhabitants of Egypt, having the +eyes and expression peculiar to all Gipsies. Captain Newbold, in fact, +assumes that any person "who remains in Egypt longer than the ordinary +run of travellers, and roams about the streets and environs of the large +towns, can hardly fail to notice the strange appearance of certain +females, whose features at once distinguish them from the ordinary Fellah +Arabs and Cophts of the country." + +"The Nuris or Nawers are hereditary thieves, but are now (1856) employed +as police and watchmen in the Pacha's country estates. In Egypt they +intermarry with the Fellahin or Arabs of the soil, from whom, in physical +appearance and dress, they can hardly be distinguished. Outwardly they +profess Mohammedanism, and have little intercourse with the Helebis and +Ghagars (or Rhagarin)." + +Each of these tribes or classes speak a separate and distinct dialect or +jargon. That of the Rhagarin most resembles the language spoken by the +Kurbats, or Gipsies of Syria. "It seems to me probable," says Captain +Newbold, "that the whole of these tribes had one common origin in India, +or the adjacent countries on its Western frontier, and that the +difference in the jargons they now speak is owing to their sojourn in the +various countries through which they have passed. _This is certain_, +_that the Gipsies are strangers in the land of Egypt_." + +I am not astonished, on examining the specimens of these three dialects +given by Captain Newbold, with the important addition made by Mr W. +Burckhardt Barker, that I could not converse with the Rhagarin. That of +the Nawers does not contain a single word which would be recognised as +Rommany, while those which occur in the other two jargons are, if not +positively either few and far between, strangely distorted from the +original. A great number are ordinary vulgar Arabic. It is very curious +that while in England such a remarkably large proportion of Hindustani +words have been preserved, they have been lost in the East, in countries +comparatively near the fatherland--India. + +I would, in conclusion to this work, remark that numbers of Rommany +words, which are set down by philologists as belonging to Greek, +Slavonian, and other languages, were originally Hindu, and have only +changed their form a little because the wanderers found a resemblance to +the old word in a new one. I am also satisfied that much may be learned +as to the origin of these words from a familiar acquaintance with the +vulgar dialects of Persia, and such words as are not put down in +dictionaries, owing to their provincial character. I have found, on +questioning a Persian gentleman, that he knew the meaning of many Rommany +words from their resemblance to vulgar Persian, though they were not in +the Persian dictionary which I used. + + + + +ROMMANI GUDLI; OR, GIPSY STORIES AND FABLES. + + +The Gipsy to whom I was chiefly indebted for the material of this book +frequently narrated to me the _Gudli_ or small stories current among his +people, and being a man of active, though child-like imagination, often +invented others of a similar character. Sometimes an incident or saying +would suggest to me the outline of a narrative, upon which he would +eagerly take it up, and readily complete the tale. But if I helped him +sometimes to evolve from a hint, a phrase, or a fact, something like a +picture, it was always the Gipsy who gave it Rommany characteristics and +conferred colour. It was often very difficult for him to distinctly +recall an old story or clearly develop anything of the kind, whether it +involved an effort of memory or of the imagination, and here he required +aid. I have never in my life met with any man whose mind combined so +much simplicity, cunning, and grotesque fancy, with such an entire +incapacity to appreciate either humour or "poetry" as expressed in the +ordinary language of culture. The metre and rhyme of the simplest ballad +made it unintelligible to him, and I was obliged to repeat such poetry +several times before he could comprehend it. Yet he would, while I was +otherwise occupied than with him, address to his favourite wooden image +of a little bear on the chimneypiece, grotesque soliloquies which would +have delighted a Hoffman, or conduct with it dialogues which often +startled me. With more education, he would have become a Rommany Bid- +pai; and since India is the fatherland of the fable, he may have derived +his peculiar faculty for turning morals and adorning tales legitimately +from that source. + +I may state that those stories, which were made entirely; as a few were; +or in part, by my assistant and myself, were afterwards received with +approbation by ordinary Gipsies as being thoroughly Rommany. As to the +_language_ of the stories, it is all literally and faithfully that of a +Gipsy, word by word, written down as he uttered it, when, after we had +got a _gudlo_ into shape, he told it finally over, which he invariably +did with great eagerness, ending with an improvised moral. + + + +GUDLO I. HOW A GIPSY SAVED A CHILD'S LIFE BY BREAKING A WINDOW. + + +'Pre yeck divvus (or yeckorus) a Rommany chal was kairin' pyass with the +koshters, an' he wussered a kosh 'pre the hev of a boro ker an' poggered +it. Welled the prastramengro and penned, "Tu must pooker (or pessur) for +the glass." But when they jawed adree the ker, they lastered the kosh +had mullered a divio juckal that was jawan' to dant the chavo. So the +rani del the Rommany chal a sonnakai ora an' a fino gry. + +But yeck koshter that poggers a hev doesn't muller a juckal. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +On a day (or once) a Gipsy was playing at cockshy, and he threw a stick +through the window of a great house and broke the glass. Came the +policeman and said, "You must answer (or pay) for the glass." But when +they went into the house, they found the stick had killed a mad dog that +was going to bite the child (boy). So the lady gave the Gipsy a gold +watch and a good horse. + +But every stick that breaks a window does not kill a dog. + + + +GUDLO II. THE GIPSY STORY OF THE BIRD AND THE HEDGEHOG. + + +'Pre yeck divvus a hotchewitchi dicked a chillico adree the puv, and the +chillico pukkered lesco, "Mor jal pauli by the kushto wastus, or the +hunters' graias will chiv tute adree the chick, mullo; an' if you jal the +waver rikk by the bongo wast, dovo's a Rommany tan adoi, and the Rommany +chals will haw tute." Penned the hotchewitchi, "I'd rather jal with the +Rommany chals, an' be hawed by foki that kaum mandy, than be pirraben +apre by chals that dick kaulo apre mandy." + +It's kushtier for a tacho Rom to be mullered by a Rommany pal than to be +nashered by the Gorgios. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +On a day a hedgehog met a bird in the field, and the bird told him, "Do +not go around by the right hand, or the hunters' horses will trample you +dead in the dirt; and if you go around by the left hand, there's a Gipsy +tent, and the Gipsies will eat you." Said the hedgehog, "I'd rather go +with the Gipsies, and be eaten by folk that like me, than be trampled on +by people that despise (literally, look black upon) me." + +It is better for a real Gipsy to be killed by a Gipsy brother than to be +hung by Gorgios. + + + +GUDLO III. A STORY OF A FORTUNE-TELLER. + + +Yeckorus a tano Gorgio chivved apre a shubo an' jalled to a puri Rommany +dye to get dukkered. And she pookered lester, "Tute'll rummorben a Fair +Man with kauli yakkas." Then the raklo delled laki yeck shukkori an' +penned, "If this shukkori was as boro as the hockaben tute pukkered +mandy, tute might porder sar the bongo tem with rupp." But, hatch a +wongish!--maybe in a divvus, maybe in a curricus, maybe a dood, maybe a +besh, maybe waver divvus, he rummorbend a rakli by the nav of Fair Man, +and her yakkas were as kaulo as miri juva's. + +There's always dui rikk to a dukkerben. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a little Gorgio put on a woman's gown and went to an old Gipsy +mother to have his fortune told. And she told him, "You'll marry a Fair +Man with black eyes." Then the young man gave her a sixpence and said, +"If this sixpence were as big as the lie you told me, you could fill all +hell with silver." But, stop a bit! after a while--maybe in a week, +maybe a month, maybe in a year, maybe the other day--he married a girl by +the name of Fair Man, and her eyes were as black as my sweetheart's. + +There are always two sides to a prediction. + + + +GUDLO IV. HOW THE ROYSTON ROOK DECEIVED THE ROOKS AND PIGEONS. + + +'Pre yeck divvus a Royston rookus jalled mongin the kaulo chiriclos, an' +they putched (pootschered) him, "Where did tute chore tiro pauno chukko?" +And yuv pookered, "Mandy chored it from a biksherro of a pigeon." Then +he jalled a-men the pigeons an' penned, "Sarishan, pals?" And they +putched lesti, "Where did tute lel akovo kauli rokamyas te byascros?" And +yuv penned, "Mandy chored 'em from those wafri mushis the rookuses." + +Pash-ratis pen their kokeros for Gorgios mongin Gorgios, and for Rommany +mongin Rommany chals. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +On a day a Royston rook {206} went among the crows (black birds), and +they asked him, "Where did you steal your white coat?" And he told +(them), "I stole it from a fool of a pigeon." Then he went among the +pigeons and said, "How are you, brothers?" And they asked him, "Where +did you get those black trousers and sleeves?" And he said, "I stole 'em +from those wretches the rooks." + +Half-breeds call themselves Gorgio among Gorgios, and Gipsy among +Gipsies. + + + +GUDLO V. THE GIPSY'S STORY OF THE GORGIO AND THE ROMMANY CHAL. + + +Once 'pre a chairus (or chyrus) a Gorgio penned to a Rommany chal, "Why +does tute always jal about the tem ajaw? There's no kushtoben in what +don't hatch acai." Penned the Rommany chal, "Sikker mandy tute's +wongur!" And yuv sikkered him a cutter (cotter?), a bar, a pash-bar, a +pash-cutter, a pange-cullo (caulor?) bittus, a pash-krooner (korauna), a +dui-cullos bittus, a trin-mushi, a shuckori, a stor'oras, a trin'oras, a +dui'oras, a haura, a poshero, a lulli, a pash-lulli. Penned the Rommany +chal, "Acovo's sar wafri wongur." "Kek," penned the Gorgio; "se sar +kushto an' kirus. Chiv it adree tute's wast and shoon it ringus." "Avo," +penned the Rommany chal. "Tute pookered mandy that only wafri covvas +keep jallin', te 'covo wongur has jalled sar 'pre the 'tem adusta timei +(or timey)." + +Sar mushis aren't all sim ta rukers (rukkers.) Some must pirraben, and +can't besh't a lay. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once upon a time a Gorgio said to a Gipsy, "Why do you always go about +the country so? There is 'no good' in what does not rest (literally, +stop here)." Said the Gipsy, "Show me your money!" And he showed him a +guinea, a sovereign, a half-sovereign, a half-guinea, a five-shilling +piece, a half-crown, a two-shilling piece, a shilling, a sixpence, a +fourpenny piece, a threepence, a twopence, a penny, a halfpenny, a +farthing, a half-farthing. Said the Gipsy, "This is all bad money." +"No," said the other man; "it is all good and sound. Toss it in your +hand and hear it ring!" "Yes," replied the Gipsy. "You told me that +only bad things _keep going_, and this money has gone all over the +country many a time." + +All men are not like trees. Some must travel, and cannot keep still. + + + +GUDLO VI. HOW THE GIPSY BRIBED THE POLICEMAN. + + +Once apre a chairus a Rommany chal chored a rani chillico (or chiriclo), +and then jalled atut a prastramengro 'pre the drum. "Where did tute +chore adovo rani?" putchered the prastramengro. "It's kek rani; it's a +pauno rani that I kinned 'dree the gav to del tute." "Tacho," penned the +prastramengro, "it's the kushtiest pauno rani mandy ever dickdus. Ki did +tute kin it?" + +Avali, many's the chairus mandy's tippered a trinmushi to a prastramengro +ta mukk mandy hatch my tan with the chavvis. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once on a time a Gipsy stole a turkey, and then met a policeman on the +road. "Where did you steal that turkey?" asked the policeman. "It's no +turkey; it's a goose that I bought in the town to give you." "Fact," +said the policeman, "it _is_ the finest goose I ever saw. Where _did_ +you buy it?" + +Yes, many's the time I have given a shilling (three fourpence) to a +policeman to let me pitch my tent with the children. {209} + + + +GUDLO VII. HOW A GIPSY LOST THREEPENCE. + + +Yeckorus a choro mush besht a lay ta kair trin horras-worth o' peggi for +a masengro. There jessed alang's a rye, who penned, "Tool my gry, an' +I'll del tute a shukori." While he tooled the gry a rani pookered him, +"Rikker this trushni to my ker, an' I'll del tute a trin grushi." So he +lelled a chavo to tool the gry, and pookered lester, "Tute shall get pash +the wongur." Well, as yuv was rikkinin' the trushnee an' siggerin burry +ora bender the drum, he dicked a rye, who penned, "If tute'll jaw to the +ker and hatch minni's juckal ta mandy, mi'll del tute a pash-korauna." So +he got a waver chavo to rikker the trushnee for pash the wongur, whilst +he jalled for the juckal. Wellin' alangus, he dicked a barvelo givescro, +who penned, "'Avacai an' husker mandy to lel my guruvni (_gruvni_) avree +the ditch, and I'll del you pange cullos" (caulos). So he lelled it. But +at the kunsus of the divvus, sa yuv sus kennin apre sustis wongurs, he +penned, "How wafro it is mandy nashered the trinoras I might have lelled +for the mass-koshters!" + +A mush must always pet the giv in the puv before he can chin the harvest. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a poor man sat down to make threepence-worth of skewers {210} for a +butcher. There came along a gentleman, who said, "Hold my horse, and +I'll give you a sixpence." While he held the horse a lady said to him, +"Carry this basket to my house, and I'll give you a shilling." So he got +a boy to hold the horse, and said to him, "You shall have half the +money." Well, as he was carrying the basket and hurrying along fast +across the road he saw a gentleman, who said, "If you'll go to the house +and bring my dog to me, I will give you half-a-crown." So he got another +boy to carry the basket for half the money, while he went for the dog. +Going along, he saw a rich farmer, who said, "Come and help me here to +get my cow out of the ditch, and I'll give you five shillings." So he +got it. But at the end of the day, when he was counting his money, he +said, "What a pity it is I lost the threepence I might have got for the +skewers!" (literally, meat-woods.) + +A man must always put the grain in the ground before he can cut the +harvest. + + + +GUDLO VIII. THE STORY OF THE GIPSY'S DOG. + + +'Pre yeck divvus a choro mush had a juckal that used to chore covvas and +hakker them to the ker for his mush--mass, wongur, horas, and rooys. A +rye kinned the juckal, an' kaired boot dusta wongur by sikkerin' the +juckal at wellgooras. + +Where barvelo mushis can kair wongur tacho, chori mushis have to loure. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +On a day a poor man had a dog that used to steal things and carry them +home for his master--meat, money, watches, and spoons. A gentleman +bought the dog, and made a great deal of money by showing him at fairs. + +Where rich men can make money honestly, poor men have to steal. + + + +GUDLO IX. A STORY OF THE PRIZE-FIGHTER AND THE GENTLEMAN. + + +'Pre yeck chairus a cooromengro was to coor, and a rye rakkered him, +"Will tute mukk your kokero be koored for twenty bar?" Penned the +cooromengro, "Will tute mukk mandy pogger your herry for a hundred bar?" +"Kek," penned the rye; "for if I did, mandy'd never pirro kushto ajaw." +"And if I nashered a kooraben," penned the engro, "mandy'd never praster +kekoomi." + +Kammoben is kushtier than wongur. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +On a time a prize-fighter was to fight, and a gentleman asked him, "Will +you sell the fight" (_i.e_., let yourself be beaten) "for twenty pounds?" +Said the prize-fighter, "Will you let me break your leg for a hundred +pounds?" "No," said the gentleman; "for if I did, I should never walk +well again." "And if I lost a fight," said the prize-fighter (literally, +master, doer), "I could never 'run' again." + +Credit is better than money. + + + +GUDLO X. OF THE GENTLEMAN AND THE OLD GIPSY WOMAN. + + +Pre yeck chairus a Rommany dye adree the wellgooro rakkered a rye to del +laker trin mushi for kushto bak. An' he del it, an' putchered laki, "If +I bitcher my wongur a-mukkerin' 'pre the graias, ki'll manni's bak be?" +"My fino rye," she penned, "the bak'll be a collos-worth with mandy and +my chavvis." + +Bak that's pessured for is saw (sar) adoi. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +On a time a Gipsy mother at the fair asked a gentleman to give her a +shilling for luck. And he gave it, and asked her, "If I lose my money a- +betting on the horses, where will my luck be?" "My fine gentleman," she +said, "the luck will be a shilling's worth with me and my children." + +Luck that is paid for is always somewhere (literally, there). + + + +GUDLO XI. THE GIPSY TELLS OF THE CAT AND THE HARE. + + +Yeckorus the matchka jalled to dick her kako's chavo the kanengro. An' +there welled a huntingmush, an' the matchka taddied up the choomber, pre +durer, pre a rukk, an' odoi she lastered a chillico's nest. But the +kanengro prastered alay the choomber, longodurus adree the tem. + + Wafri bak kairs + A choro mush ta jal alay, + But it mukks a boro mush + To chiv his kokero apre. {213} + + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once the cat went to see her cousin the hare. And there came a hunter, +and the cat scrambled up the hill, further up, up a tree, and there she +found a bird's nest. But the hare ran down the hill, far down into the +country. + +Bad luck sends a poor man further down, but it causes a great man to rise +still more. + + + +GUDLO XII. OF THE GIPSY WOMAN AND THE CHILD. + + +Pre yeck chairus a chi jalled adree a waver tem, an' she rikkered a gunno +pre laki dumo with a baulo adree. A rakli who was ladge of her tikno +chored the baulo avree the gunno and chivved the chavi adree. Pasch a +waver hora the chi shooned the tikno rov (ruvving), and dicked adree the +gunno in boro toob, and penned, "If the baulos in akovo tem puraben into +chavos, sa do the chavos puraben adree?" + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a woman went into a strange land, and she carried a bag on her back +with a pig in it. A girl who was ashamed of her child stole the pig from +the bag and put the baby in (its place). After an hour the woman heard +the child cry, and looked into the bag with great amazement, and said, +"If the pigs in this country change into children, into what do the +children change?" + + + +GUDLO XIII. OF THE GIRL THAT WAS TO MARRY THE DEVIL. + + +'Pre yeck divvus a Rommany dye dukkered a rakli, and pookered laki that a +kaulo rye kaumed her. But when the chi putchered her wongur, the rakli +penned, "Puri dye, I haven't got a poshero to del tute. But pen mandy +the nav of the kaulo rye." Then the dye shelled avree, very hunnalo, +"Beng is the nav of tute's pirryno, and yuv se kaulo adusta." + +If you chore puri juvas tute'll lel the beng. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +On a day a Gipsy mother told a girl's fortune, and said to her that a +dark (black) gentleman loved her. But when the woman demanded her money, +the girl said, "Old mother, I haven't got a halfpenny to give you. But +tell me the name of the dark gentleman." Then the mother roared out, +very angry, "Devil is the name of your sweetheart, and he is black +enough." + +If you cheat old women you will catch the devil. + + + +GUDLO XIV. OF THE GIPSY WHO STOLE THE HORSE. + + +Yeckorus a mush chored a gry and jalled him avree adree a waver tem, and +the gry and the mush jalled kushti bak kettenus. Penned the gry to his +mush, "I kaums your covvas to wearus kushtier than mandy's, for there's +kek chucknee or mellicus (pusimigree) adree them." "Kek," penned the +mush pauli; "the trash I lel when mandy jins of the prastramengro an' the +bitcherin' mush (krallis mush) is wafrier than any chucknee or busaha, +an' they'd kair mandy to praster my miramon (miraben) avree any divvus." + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a man stole a horse and ran him away into another country, and the +horse and the man became very intimate. Said the horse to the man, "I +like your things to wear better than I do mine, for there's no whip or +spur among them." "No," replied the man; "the fear I have when I think +of the policeman and of the judge (sending or "transporting" man, or +king's man) is worse than any whip or spur, and they would make me run my +life away any day." + + + +GUDLO XV. THE HALF-BLOOD GIPSY, HIS WIFE, AND THE PIG. + + +'Pre yeck divvus there was a mush a-piin' ma his Rommany chals adree a +kitchema, an' pauli a chairus he got pash matto. An' he penned about +mullo baulors, that _he_ never hawed kek. Kenna-sig his juvo welled +adree an' putched him to jal kerri, but yuv pookered her, "Kek--I won't +jal kenna." Then she penned, "Well alang, the chavvis got kek habben." +So she putchered him ajaw an' ajaw, an' he always rakkered her pauli +"Kek." So she lelled a mullo baulor ap her dumo and wussered it 'pre the +haumescro pre saw the foki, an' penned, "Lel the mullo baulor an' rummer +it, an' mandy'll dick pauli the chavos." + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once there was a man drinking with his Gipsy fellows in an alehouse, and +after a while he got half drunk. And he said of pigs that had died a +natural death, _he_ never ate any. By-and-by his wife came in and asked +him to go home, but he told her, "No--I won't go now." Then she said, +"Come along, the children have no food." So she entreated him again and +again, and he always answered "No." So she took a pig that had died a +natural death, from her back and threw it on the table before all the +people, and said, "Take the dead pig for a wife, and I will look after +the children." {218} + + + +GUDLO XVI. THE GIPSY TELLS THE STORY OF THE SEVEN WHISTLERS. + + +My raia, the gudlo of the Seven Whistlers, you jin, is adree the +Scriptures--so they pookered mandy. + +An' the Seven Whistlers (_Efta Shellengeri_) is seven spirits of ranis +that jal by the ratti, 'pre the bavol, parl the heb, like chillicos. An' +it pookers 'dree the Bible that the Seven Whistlers shell wherever they +praster atut the bavol. But aduro timeus yeck jalled avree an' got +nashered, and kenna there's only shove; but they pens 'em the Seven +Whistlers. An' that sims the story tute pookered mandy of the Seven +Stars. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Sir, the story of the Seven Whistlers, you know, is in the Scriptures--so +they told me. + +An' the Seven Whistlers are seven spirits of ladies that go by the night, +through the air, over the heaven, like birds. And it tells (us) in the +Bible that the Seven Whistlers whistle wherever they fly across the air. +But a long time ago one went away and got lost, and now there are only +six; but they call them the Seven Whistlers. And that is like the story +you told me of the Seven Stars. {219} + + + +GUDLO XVII. AN OLD STORY WELL KNOWN TO ALL GIPSIES. + + +A Rommany rakli yeckorus jalled to a ker a-dukkerin'. A'ter she jalled +avree, the rakli of the ker missered a plachta, and pookered the rye that +the Rommany chi had chored it. So the rye jalled aduro pauli the tem, +and latched the Rommany chals, and bitchered them to staruben. Now this +was adree the puro chairus when they used to nasher mushis for any bitti +covvo. And some of the Rommany chals were nashered, an' some pannied. +An' sar the gunnos, an' kavis, and covvas of the Rommanis were chivved +and pordered kettenus 'pre the bor adree the cangry-puv, an' kek mush +tooled 'em. An' trin dood (or munti) pauli, the rakli was kairin' the +baulors' habben at the kokero ker, when she latched the plachta they +nashered trin dood adovo divvus. So the rakli jalled with the plachta ta +laki rye, and penned, "Dick what I kaired on those chuvvenny, chori +Rommany chals that were nashered and pannied for adovo bitti covvo adoi!" + +And when they jalled to dick at the Rommanis' covvas pauli the bor adree +the cangry-puv, the gunnos were pordo and chivved adree, chingered saw to +cut-engroes, and they latched 'em full o' ruppeny covvos--rooys an' +churls of sonnakai, an' oras, curros an' piimangris, that had longed o' +the Rommany chals that were nashered an' bitschered padel. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +A Gipsy girl once went to a house to tell fortunes. After she went away, +the girl of the house missed a pudding-bag (literally, _linen cloth_), +and told the master the Gipsy girl had stolen it. So the master went far +about the country, and found the Gipsies, and sent them to prison. Now +this was in the old time when they used to hang people for any little +thing. And some of the Gipsies were hung, and some transported +(literally, _watered_). And all the bags, and kettles, and things of the +Gipsies were thrown and piled together behind the hedge in the +churchyard, and no man touched them. And three months after, the maid +was preparing the pigs' food at the same house, when she found the linen +cloth they lost three months (before) that day. So the girl went with +the cloth to her master, and said, "See what I did to those poor, poor +Gipsies that were hung and transported for that trifle (there)!" + +And when they went to look at the Gipsies' things behind the hedge in the +churchyard, the bags were full and burst, torn all to rags, and they +found them full of silver things--spoons and knives of gold, and watches, +cups and teapots, that had belonged to the Gipsies that were hung and +transported. {221a} + + + +GUDLO XVIII. HOW THE GIPSY WENT TO CHURCH. + + +Did mandy ever jal to kangry? Avali, dui koppas, and beshed a lay odoi. +I was adree the tale tem o' sar, an' a rye putched mandy to well to +kangry, an' I welled. And sar the ryas an' ranis dicked at mandy as I +jalled adree. {221b} So I beshed pukkenus mongin some geeros and dicked +upar again the chumure praller my sherro, and there was a deer and a +kanengro odoi chinned in the bar, an' kaired kushto. I shooned the +rashai a-rakkerin'; and when the shunaben was kerro, I welled avree and +jalled alay the drum to the kitchema. + +I latchered the raias mush adree the kitchema; so we got matto odoi, an' +were jallin' kerri alay the drum when we dicked the raias wardo +a-wellin'. So we jalled sig 'dusta parl the bor, an' gavered our kokeros +odoi adree the puv till the rye had jessed avree. + +I dicked adovo rye dree the sala, and he putched mandy what I'd kaired +the cauliko, pash kangry. I pookered him I'd pii'd dui or trin curros +levinor and was pash matto. An' he penned mandy, "My mush was matto sar +tute, and I nashered him." I pookered him ajaw, "I hope not, rya, for +such a bitti covvo as dovo; an' he aint cammoben to piin' levinor, he's +only used to pabengro, that don't kair him matto." But kek, the choro +mush had to jal avree. An' that's sar I can rakker tute about my jallin' +to kangry. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Did I ever go to church? Yes, twice, and sat down there. I was in the +lower land of all (Cornwall), and a gentleman asked me to go to church, +and I went. And all the ladies and gentlemen looked at me as I went in. +So I sat quietly among some men and looked up on the wall above my head, +and there were a deer and a rabbit cut in the stone, beautifully done. I +heard the clergyman speaking; and when the sermon was ended (literally, +made), I came out and went down the road to the alehouse. + +I found the gentleman's servant in the alehouse; so we got drunk there, +and were going home down the road when we saw the gentleman's carriage +coming. So we went quickly enough over the hedge, and hid ourselves +there in the field until the gentleman was gone. + +I saw the gentleman in the morning, and he asked me what I had done the +day before, after church. I told him I'd drunk two or three cups of ale +and was half tipsy. And he said, "My man was drunk as you, and I sent +him off." I told him then, "I hope not, sir, for such a little thing as +that; and he is not used to drink ale, he's only accustomed to cider, +that don't intoxicate him." But no, the poor man had to go away. _And +that's all I can tell you about my going to church_. + + + +GUDLO XIX. WHAT THE LITTLE GIPSY GIRL TOLD HER BROTHER. + + +Penned the tikni Rommani chavi laki pal, "More mor the pishom, 'cause +she's a Rommani, and kairs her jivaben jallin' parl the tem dukkerin' the +ruzhas and lellin' the gudlo avree 'em, sar moro dye dukkers the ranis. +An' ma wusser bars at the rookas, 'cause they're kaulos, an' kaulo ratt +is Rommany ratt. An' maun pogger the bawris, for yuv rikkers his tan pre +the dumo, sar moro puro dadas, an' so yuv's Rommany." + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Said the little Gipsy girl to her brother, "Don't kill the bee, because +she is a Gipsy, and makes her living going about the country telling +fortunes to the flowers and taking honey out of them, as our mother tells +fortunes to the ladies. And don't throw stones at the rooks, because +they are dark, and dark blood is Gipsy blood. And don't crush the snail, +for he carries his tent on his back, like our old father" (_i.e_., +carries his home about, and so he too is Rommany). + + + +GUDLO XX. HOW CHARLEY LEE PLAYED AT PITCH-AND-TOSS. + + +I jinned a tano mush yeckorus that nashered sar his wongur 'dree the toss- +ring. Then he jalled kerri to his dadas' kanyas and lelled pange bar +avree. Paul' a bitti chairus he dicked his dadas an' pookered lester +he'd lelled pange bar avree his gunnas. But yuv's dadas penned, "Jal an, +kair it ajaw and win some wongur againus!" So he jalled apopli to the +toss-ring an' lelled sar his wongur pauli, an' pange bar ferridearer. So +he jalled ajaw kerri to the tan, an' dicked his dadas beshtin' alay by +the rikk o' the tan, and his dadas penned, "Sa did you keravit, my +chavo?" "Kushto, dadas. I lelled sar my wongur pauli; and here's tute's +wongur acai, an' a bar for tute an' shtar bar for mi-kokero." + +An' that's tacho as ever you tool that pen in tute's waster--an' dovo +mush was poor Charley Lee, that's mullo kenna. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +I knew a little fellow once that lost all his money in the toss-ring +(_i.e_., at pitch-and-toss). Then he went home to his father's sacks and +took five pounds out. After a little while he saw his father and told +him he'd taken five pounds from his bags. But his father said, "Go on, +spend it and win some more money!" So he went again to the toss-ring and +got all his money back, and five pounds more. And going home, he saw his +father sitting by the side of the tent, and his father said, "How did you +succeed (_i.e_., _do it_), my son?" "Very well, father. I got all _my_ +money back; and here's _your_ money now, and a pound for you and four +pounds for myself." + +And that's true as ever you hold that pen in your hand--and that man was +poor Charley Lee, that's dead now. + + + +GUDLO XXI. OF THE TINKER AND THE KETTLE. + + +A petulamengro hatched yeck divvus at a givescro ker, where the rani del +him mass an' tood. While he was hawin' he dicked a kekavi sar chicklo +an' bongo, pashall a boro hev adree, an' he putchered, "Del it a mandy +an' I'll lel it avree for chichi, 'cause you've been so kushto an' +kammoben to mandy." So she del it a lester, an' he jalled avree for trin +cooricus, an' he keravit apre, an' kaired it pauno sar rupp. Adovo he +welled akovo drum pauli, an' jessed to the same ker, an' penned, "Dick +acai at covi kushti kekavi! I del shove trin mushis for it, an' tu shall +lel it for the same wongur, 'cause you've been so kushto a mandy." + +Dovo mush was like boot 'dusta mushis--wery cammoben to his kokero. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +A tinker stopped one day at a farmer's house, where the lady gave him +meat and milk. While he was eating he saw a kettle all rusty and bent, +with a great hole in it, and he asked, "Give it to me and I will take it +away for nothing, because you have been so kind and obliging to me." So +she gave it to him, and he went away for three weeks, and he repaired it +(the kettle), and made it as bright (white) as silver. Then he went that +road again, to the same house, and said, "Look here at this fine kettle! +I gave six shillings for it, and you shall have it for the same money, +because you have been so good to me." + +That man was like a great many men--very benevolent to himself. + + + +GUDLO XXII. THE STORY OF "ROMMANY JOTER." + + +If a Rommany chal gets nashered an' can't latch his drum i' the ratti, he +shells avree, "_Hup_, _hup_--_Rom-ma-ny_, _Rom-ma-ny jo-ter_!" When the +chavvis can't latch the tan, it's the same gudlo, "_Rom-ma-ny jo-ter_!" +Joter pens kett'nus. + +And yeck ratti my dadas, sixty besh kenna, was pirryin' par the weshes to +tan, an' he shooned a bitti gudlo like bitti ranis a rakkerin' puro tacho +Rommanis, and so he jalled from yeck boro rukk to the waver, and paul' a +cheirus he dicked a tani rani, and she was shellin' avree for her +miraben, "_Rom-ma-ny_, _Rom-ma-ny jo-ter_!" So my dada shokkered ajaw, +"_Rom-ma-ny chal_, _ak-ai_!" But as he shelled there welled a boro +bavol, and the bitti ranis an' sar prastered avree i' the heb like +chillicos adree a starmus, and all he shunned was a savvaben and "Rom-ma- +ny jo-ter!" shukaridir an' shukaridir, pash sar was kerro. + +An' you can dick by dovo that the kukalos, an' fairies, an' mullos, and +chovihans all rakker puro tacho Rommanis, 'cause that's the old 'Gyptian +jib that was penned adree the Scripture tem. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +If a Gipsy is lost and cannot find his way in the night, he cries out, +"Hup, hup--Rom-ma-ny, Rom-ma-ny jo-ter!" When the children cannot find +the tent, it is the same cry, "_Rom-ma-ny jo-ter_!" Joter means +together. + +And one night my father, sixty years ago (literally, _now_), was walking +through the woods to his tent, and he heard a little cry like little +ladies talking real old Gipsy, and so he went from one great tree to the +other (_i.e_., concealing himself), and after a while he saw a little +lady, and she was crying out as if for her life, "_Rom-ma-ny_, _Rom-ma-ny +jo-ter_!" So my father cried again, "_Gipsy_, _here_!" But as he +hallooed there came a great blast of wind, and the little ladies and all +flew away in the sky like birds in a storm, and all he heard was a +laughing and "_Rom-ma-ny jo-ter_!" softer and softer, till all was done. + +And you can see by that that the goblins (dwarfs, mannikins), and +fairies, and ghosts, and witches, and all talk real old Gipsy, because +that is the old Egyptian language that was talked in the Scripture land. + + + +GUDLO XXIII. OF THE RICH GIPSY AND THE PHEASANT. + + +Yeckorus a Rommany chal kaired adusta wongur, and was boot barvelo an' a +boro rye. His chuckko was kashno, an' the crafnies 'pre lester chuckko +were o' sonnakai, and his graias solivaris an' guiders were sar ruppeny. +Yeck divvus this here Rommany rye was hawin' habben anerjal the krallis's +chavo, an' they hatched adree a weshni kanni that was kannelo, but saw +the mushis penned it was kushtidearer. "Bless mi-Duvel!" rakkered the +Rommany rye shukar to his juvo, "tu and mandy have hawed mullo mass boot +'dusta cheiruses, mi-deari, but never soomed kek so wafro as dovo. It +kauns worse than a mullo grai!" + +Boro mushis an' bitti mushis sometimes kaum covvas that waver mushis +don't jin. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a Gipsy made much money, and was very rich and a great gentleman. +His coat was silk, and the buttons on his coat were of gold, and his +horse's bridle and reins were all silver. One day this Gipsy gentleman +was eating (at table) opposite to the king's son, and they brought in a +pheasant that smelt badly, but all the people said it was excellent. +"Bless me, God!" said the Gipsy gentleman softly (whispering) to his +wife, "you and I have eaten dead meat (meat that died a natural death) +many a time, my dear, but never smelt anything so bad as that. It stinks +worse than a dead horse!" + +Great men and small men sometimes like (agree in liking things) that +which other people do not understand. + + + +GUDLO XXIV. THE GIPSY AND THE "VISITING-CARDS." + + +Yeckorus a choro Rommany chal dicked a rani hatch taller the wuder of a +boro ker an' mukked adovo a bitti lil. Then he putched the rakli, when +the rani jessed avree, what the lil kaired. Adoi the rakli pukkered +lesco it was for her rani ta jin kun'd welled a dick her. "Avali!" +penned the Rommany chal; "_that's_ the way the Gorgios mukks their +patteran! _We_ mukks char apre the drum." + +The grai mukks his pirro apre the drum, an' the sap kairs his trail adree +the puv. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a poor Gipsy saw a lady stop before the door of a great house and +left there a card (little letter). Then he asked the girl, when the lady +went away, what the card meant (literally, _did_). Then (there) the girl +told him it was for her lady to know who had come to see her. "Yes!" +said the Gipsy; "so that is the way the Gorgios leave their sign! _We_ +leave grass on the road." + +The horse leaves his track on the road, and the snake makes his trail in +the dust. + + + +GUDLO XXV. THE GIPSY IN THE FOREST. + + +When I was beshin' alay adree the wesh tale the bori rukkas, mandy +putched a tikno chillico to latch mandy a bitti moro, but it jalled avree +an' I never dicked it kekoomi. Adoi I putched a boro chillico to latch +mandy a curro o' tatti panni, but it jalled avree paul' the waver. Mandy +never putchered the rukk parl my sherro for kek, but when the bavol +welled it wussered a lay to mandy a hundred ripe kori. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +When I was sitting down in the forest under the great trees, I asked a +little bird to bring (find) me a little bread, but it went away and I +never saw it again. Then I asked a great bird to bring me a cup of +brandy, but it flew away after the other. I never asked the tree over my +head for anything, but when the wind came it threw down to me a hundred +ripe nuts. + + + +GUDLO XXVI. THE GIPSY FIDDLER AND THE YOUNG LADY. + + +Yeckorus a tano mush was kellin' kushto pre the boshomengro, an' a kushti +dickin rani pookered him, "Tute's killaben is as sano as best-tood." And +he rakkered ajaw, "Tute's mui's gudlo sar pishom, an' I'd cammoben to +puraben mi tood for tute's pishom." + +Kushto pash kushto kairs ferridearer. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a young man was playing well upon the violin, and a beautiful lady +told him, "Your playing is as soft as cream." And he answered, "Your +mouth (_i.e_., lips or words) is sweet as honey, and I would like to +exchange my cream for your honey." + +Good with good makes better. + + + +GUDLO XXVII. HOW THE GIPSY DANCED A HOLE THROUGH A STONE. + + +Yeckorus some plochto Rommany chals an' juvas were kellin' the +pash-divvus by dood tall' a boro ker, and yeck penned the waver, "I'd be +cammoben if dovo ker was mandy's." And the rye o' the ker, kun sus +dickin' the kellaben, rakkered, "When tute kells a hev muscro the bar +you're hatchin' apre, mandy'll del tute the ker." Adoi the Rom tarried +the bar apre, an' dicked it was hollow tale, and sar a curro 'pre the +waver rikk. So he lelled dui sastern chokkas and kelled sar the ratti +'pre the bar, kairin' such a gudlo you could shoon him a mee avree; an' +adree the sala he had kaired a hev adree the bar as boro as lesters +sherro. So the barvelo rye del him the fino ker, and sar the mushis got +matto, hallauter kettenus. + +Many a cheirus I've shooned my puri dye pen that a bar with a hev adree +it kairs kammoben. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once some jolly Gipsy men and girls were dancing in the evening by +moonlight before a great house, and one said to the other, "I'd be glad +if that house was mine." And the gentleman of the house, who was looking +at the dancing, said, "When you dance a hole through (in the centre of) +the stone you are standing on, I'll give you the house." Then the Gipsy +pulled the stone up, and saw it was hollow underneath, and like a cup on +the other side. So he took two iron shoes and danced all night on the +stone, making such a noise you could hear him a mile off; and in the +morning he had made a hole in the stone as large as his head. So the +rich gentleman gave him the fine house, and all the people got drunk, all +together. + +Many a time I've heard my old mother say that a stone with a hole in it +brings luck. + + + +GUDLO XXVIII. STORY OF THE GENTLEMAN AND THE GIPSY. + + +Yeckorus a boro rye wouldn't mukk a choro, pauvero, chovveny Rommany chal +hatch odoi 'pre his farm. So the Rommany chal jalled on a puv apre the +waver rikk o' the drum, anerjal the ryas beshaben. And dovo ratti the +ryas ker pelled alay; kek kash of it hatched apre, only the foki that +loddered adoi hullered their kokeros avree ma their miraben. And the +ryas tikno chavo would a-mullered if a Rommany juva had not lelled it +avree their pauveri bitti tan. + +An' dovo's sar _tacho like my dad_, an' to the divvus kenna they pens +that puv the Rommany Puv. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a great gentleman would not let a poor, poor, poor Gipsy stay on his +farm. So the Gipsy went to a field on the other side of the way, +opposite the gentleman's residence. And that night the gentleman's house +fell down; not a stick of it remained standing, only the people who +lodged there carried themselves out (_i.e_., escaped) with their lives. +And the gentleman's little babe would have died if a Gipsy woman had not +taken it into their poor little tent. + +And that's all _true as my father_, and to this day they call that field +the Gipsy Field. + + + +GUDLO XXIX. HOW THE GIPSY WENT INTO THE WATER. + + +Yeck divvus a prastramengro prastered pauli a Rommany chal, an' the chal +jalled adree the panni, that was pordo o' boro bittis o' floatin' shill, +and there he hatched pall his men with only his sherro avree. "Hav +avree," shelled a rye that was wafro in his see for the pooro rnush, "an' +we'll mukk you jal!" "Kek," penned the Rom; "I shan't jal." "Well +avree," penned the rye ajaw, "an' I'll del tute pange bar!" "_Kek_," +rakkered the Rom. "Jal avree," shokkered the rye, "an' I'll del tute +pange bar an' a nevvi chukko!" "Will you del mandy a walin o' tatto +panni too?" putched the Rommany chal. "Avail, avail," penned the rye; +"but for Duveleste hav' avree the panni!" "Kushto," penned the Rommany +chal, "for cammoben to tute, rya, I'll jal avree!" {235} + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a policeman chased a Gipsy, and the Gipsy ran into the river, that +was full of great pieces of floating ice, and there he stood up to his +neck with only his head out. "Come out," cried a gentleman that pitied +the poor man, "and we'll let you go!" "No," said the Gipsy; "I won't +move." "Come out," said the gentleman again, "and I'll give you five +pounds!" "No," said the Gipsy. "Come out," cried the gentleman, "and +I'll give you five pounds and a new coat!" "Will you give me a glass of +brandy too?" asked the Gipsy. "Yes, yes," said the gentleman; "but for +God's sake come out of the water!" "Well," exclaimed the Gipsy, "to +oblige you, sir, I'll come out!" + + + +GUDLO XXX. THE GIPSY AND HIS TWO MASTERS. + + +"Savo's tute's rye?" putched a ryas mush of a Rommany chal. "I've dui +ryas," pooked the Rommany chal: "Duvel's the yeck an' beng's the waver. +Mandy kairs booti for the beng till I've lelled my yeckora habben, an' +pallers mi Duvel pauli ajaw." + + +TRANSLATION. + + +"Who is your master?" asked a gentleman's servant of a Gipsy. "I've two +masters," said the Gipsy: "God is the one, and the devil is the other. I +work for the devil till I have got my dinner (one-o'clock food), and +after that follow the Lord." + + + +GUDLO XXXI. THE LITTLE GIPSY BOY AT THE SILVERSMITH'S. + + +A bitti chavo jalled adree the boro gav pash his dadas, an' they hatched +taller the hev of a ruppenomengro's buddika sar pordo o' kushti-dickin +covvas. "O dadas," shelled the tikno chavo, "what a boro choromengro +dovo mush must be to a' lelled so boot adusta rooys an' horas!" + +A tacho covva often dicks sar a hokkeny (huckeny) covva; an dovo's sim of +a tacho mush, but a juva often dicks tacho when she isn't. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +A little boy went to the great village (_i.e_., London) with his father, +and they stopped before the window of a silversmith's shop all full of +pretty things. "O father," cried the small boy, "what a great thief that +man must be to have got so many spoons and watches!" + +A true thing often looks like a false one; and the same is true (and +that's _same_) of a true man, but a girl often looks right when she is +not. + + + +GUDLO XXXII. THE GIPSY'S DREAM. + + +Mandy sutto'd I was pirraben lang o' tute, an' I dicked mandy's pen odoi +'pre the choomber. Then I was pirryin' ajaw parl the puvius, an' I +welled to the panni paul' the Beng's Choomber, an' adoi I dicked some +ranis, saw nango barrin' a pauno plachta 'pre lengis sherros, adree the +panni pash their bukkos. An' I pookered lengis, "Mi-ranis, I putch +tute's cammoben; I didn't jin tute sus acai." But yeck pre the wavers +penned mandy boot kushti cammoben, "Chichi, mor dukker your-kokero; we +just welled alay acai from the ker to lel a bitti bath." An' she savvy'd +sa kushto, but they all jalled avree glan mandy sar the bavol, an' tute +was hatchin' pash a maudy sar the cheirus. + +So it pens, "when you dick ranis sar dovo, you'll muller kushto." Well, +if it's to be akovo, I kaum it'll be a booti cheirus a-wellin.' Tacho! + + +TRANSLATION. + + +I dreamed I was walking with you, and I saw my sister (a fortune-teller) +there upon the hill. Then I (found myself) walking again over the field, +and I came to the water near the Devil's Dyke, and there I saw some +ladies, quite naked excepting a white cloth on their heads, in the water +to the waists. And I said to them, "Ladies, I beg your pardon; I did not +know you were here." But one among the rest said to me very kindly, "No +matter, don't trouble yourself; we just came down here from the house to +take a little bath." And she smiled sweetly, but they all vanished +before me like the cloud (wind), and you were standing by me all the +time. + +So it means, "_when you see ladies like that, you will die happily_." +Well, if it's to be that, I hope it will be a long time coming. Yes, +indeed. + + + +GUDLO XXXIII. OF THE GIRL AND HER LOVER. + + +Yeckorus, boot hundred beshes the divvus acai, a juva was wellin' to +chore a yora. "Mukk mandy hatch," penned the yora, "an' I'll sikker tute +ki tute can lel a tikno pappni." So the juva lelled the tikno pappni, +and it pookered laki, "Mukk mandy jal an' I'll sikker tute ki tute can +chore a bori kani." Then she chored the bori kani, an' it shelled avree, +"Mukk mandy jal an' I'll sikker tute ki you can loure a rani-chillico." +And when she lelled the rani-chillico, it penned, "Mukk mandy jal an' +I'll sikker tute odoi ki tute can lel a guruvni's tikno." So she lelled +the guruvni's tikno, an' it shokkered and ruvved, an' rakkered, "Mukk +mandy jal an' I'll sikker tute where to lel a fino grai." An' when she +loured the grai, it penned laki, "Mukk mandy jal an' I'll rikker tute to +a kushto-dick barvelo rye who kaums a pirreny." So she lelled the kushto +tauno rye, an' she jivved with lester kushto yeck cooricus; but pash dovo +he pookered her to jal avree, he didn't kaum her kekoomi. "Sa a wafro +mush is tute," ruvved the rakli, "to bitcher mandy avree! For tute's +cammoben I delled avree a yora, a tikno pappni, a boro kani, a +rani-chillico, a guruvni's tikno, an' a fino grai." "Is dovo tacho?" +putched the raklo. "'Pre my mullo dadas!" sovahalled the rakli," I del +'em sar apre for tute, yeck paul the waver, an' kenna tu bitchers mandy +avree!" "So 'p mi-Duvel!" penned the rye, "if tute nashered sar booti +covvas for mandy, I'll rummer tute." So they were rummobend. + +Avali, there's huckeny (hokkeny) tachobens and tacho huckabens. You can +sovahall pre the lil adovo. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once, many hundred years ago (to-day now), a girl was going to steal an +egg. "Let me be," said the egg, "and I will show you where you can get a +duck." So the girl got the duck, and it said (told) to her, "Let me go +and I will show you where you can get a goose" (large hen). Then she +stole the goose, and it cried out, "Let me go and I'll show you where you +can steal a turkey" (lady-bird). And when she took the turkey, it said, +"Let me go and I'll show you where you can get a calf." So she got the +calf, and it bawled and wept, and cried, "Let me go and I'll show you +where to get a fine horse." And when she stole the horse, it said to +her, "Let me go and I'll carry you to a handsome, rich gentleman who +wants a sweetheart." So she got the nice young gentleman, and lived with +him pleasantly one week; but then he told her to go away, he did not want +her any more. "What a bad man you are," wept the girl, "to send me away! +For your sake I gave away an egg, a duck, a goose, a turkey, a calf, and +a fine horse." "Is that true?" asked the youth. "By my dead father!" +swore the girl, "I gave them all up for you, one after the other, and now +you send me away!" "So help me God!" said the gentleman, "if you lost so +many things for me, I'll marry you." So they were married. + +Yes, there are false truths and true lies. You may kiss the book on +_that_. + + + +GUDLO XXXIV. THE GIPSY TELLS OF WILL-O'-THE-WISP. + + +Does mandy jin the lav adree Rommanis for a Jack-o'-lantern--the dood +that prasters, and hatches, an' kells o' the ratti, parl the panni, adree +the puvs? _Avali_; some pens 'em the Momeli Mullos, and some the Bitti +Mullos. They're bitti geeros who rikker tute adree the gogemars, an' +sikker tute a dood till you're all jalled apre a wafro drum an nashered, +an' odoi they chiv their kokeros pauli an' savs at tute. Mandy's dicked +their doods adusta cheiruses, an' kekoomi; but my pal dicked langis muis +pash mungwe yeck ratti. He was jallin' langus an' dicked their doods, +and jinned it was the yag of lesters tan. So he pallered 'em, an' they +tadered him dukker the drum, parl the bors, weshes, puvius, gogemars, +till they lelled him adree the panni, an then savvy'd avree. And odoi he +dicked lender pre the waver rikk, ma lesters kokerus yakkis, an' they +were bitti mushis, bitti chovihanis, about dui peeras boro. An' my pal +was bengis hunnalo, an' sovahalled pal' lengis, "If I lelled you acai, +you ratfolly juckos! if I nashered you, I'd chin tutes curros!" An' he +jalled to tan ajaw an' pookered mandy saw dovo 'pre dovo rat. "Kun sus +adovo?" Avali, rya; dovo was pash Kaulo Panni--near Blackwater. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Do I know the word in Rommanis for a Jack-o'-lantern--the light that +runs, and stops, and dances by night, over the water, in the fields? Yes; +some call them the Light Ghosts, and some the Little Ghosts. They're +little men who lead you into the waste and swampy places, and show you a +light until you have gone astray and are lost, and then they turn +themselves around and laugh at you. I have seen their lights many a +time, and nothing more; but my brother saw their faces close and opposite +to him (directly _vis-a-vis_) one night. He was going along and saw +their lights, and thought it was the fire of his tent. So he followed +them, and they drew him from the road over hedges, woods, fields, and +lonely marshes till they got him in the water, and then laughed out loud. +And there he saw them with his own eyes, on the opposite side, and they +were little fellows, little goblins, about two feet high. And my brother +was devilish angry, and swore at them! "If I had you here, you wretched +dogs! if I caught you, I'd cut your throats!" And he went home and told +me all that that night. "_Where was it_?" Yes, sir; that was near +Blackwater. + + + +GUDLO XXXV. THE GIPSY EXPLAINS WHY THE FLOUNDER HAS HIS MOUTH ON ONE +SIDE. + + +Yeckorus sar the matchis jalled an' suvved kettenescrus 'dree the panni. +And yeck penned as yuv was a boro mush, an' the waver rakkered ajaw sa +yuv was a borodiro mush, and sar pookered sigan ket'nus how lengis were +borodirer mushis. Adoi the flounder shelled avree for his meriben +"Mandy's the krallis of you sar!" an' he shelled so surrelo he kaired his +mui bongo, all o' yeck rikkorus. So to akovo divvus acai he's penned the +Krallis o' the Matchis, and rikkers his mui bongo sar o' yeck sidus. + +Mushis shouldn't shell too shunaben apre lengis kokeros. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once all the fish came and swam together in the water. And one said that +he was a great person, and the other declared that he was a greater +person, and (at last) all cried out at once what great characters (men) +they all were. Then the flounder shouted for his life, "I'm the king of +you all!" and he roared so violently he twisted his mouth all to one +side. So to this day he is called the King of the Fishes, and bears his +face crooked all on one side. + +Men should not boast too loudly of themselves. + + + +GUDLO XXXVI. A GIPSY ACCOUNT OF THE TRUE ORIGIN OF THE FISH CALLED OLD +MAIDS OR YOUNG MAIDS. + + +Yeckorus kushti-dickin raklos were suvvin' 'dree the lun panni, and there +welled odoi some plochti raklis an' juvas who pooked the tano ryas to +hav' avree an' choomer 'em. But the raklos wouldn't well avree, so the +ranis rikkered their rivabens avree an' pirried adree the panni paul' +lendy. An' the ryas who were kandered alay, suvved andurer 'dree the +panni, an' the ranis pallered 'em far avree till they were saw latchered, +raklos and raklis. So the tauno ryas were purabened into Barini Mushi +Matchis because they were too ladge (latcho) of the ranis that kaumed +'em, and the ranis were kaired adree Puri Rani Matchis and Tani Rani +Matchis because they were too tatti an' ruzli. + +Raklos shouldn't be too ladge, nor raklis be too boro of their kokeros. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once some handsome youths were swimming in the sea, and there came some +wanton women and girls who told the young men to come out and kiss them. +But the youths would not come out, so the ladies stripped themselves and +ran into the water after them. And the gentles who were driven away swam +further into the water, and the ladies followed them far away till all +were lost, boys and girls. So the young men were changed into Codfish +because they were too shy of the girls that loved them, and the ladies +were turned into Old Maids and Young Maids because they were too wanton +and bold. + +Men should not be too modest, nor girls too forward. + + + +GUDLO XXXVII. HOW LORD COVENTRY LEAPED THE GIPSY TENT. A TRUE STORY. + + +I dicked Lord Coventry at the Worcester races. He kistured lester noko +grai adree the steeple-chase for the ruppeny--kek,--a sonnakai tank I +think it was,--but he nashered. It was dovo tano rye that yeck divvus in +his noko park dicked a Rommany chal's tan pash the rikk of a bor; and at +yeck leap he kistered apre the bor, and jalled right atut an' parl the +Rommany chal's tan. "Ha, kun's acai?" he shelled, as he dicked the tikno +kaulos; "a Rommany chal's tan!" And from dovo divvus he mukked akovo Rom +hatch his cammoben 'pre his puv. Tacho. + +Ruzlo mushis has boro sees. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +I saw Lord Coventry at the Worcester races. He rode his own horse in the +steeple-chase for the silver--no, it was a gold tankard, I think, but he +lost. + +It was that young gentleman who one day in his own park saw a Gipsy tent +by the side of a hedge, and took a flying leap over tent, hedge, and all. +"Ha, what's here?" he cried, as he saw the little brown children; "a +Gipsy's tent!" And from that day he let that Gipsy stay as much as he +pleased on his land. + +Bold men have generous hearts. + + + +GUDLO XXXVIII. OF MR BARTLETT'S LEAP. + + +Dovo's sim to what they pens of Mr Bartlett in Glo'stershire, who had a +fino tem pash Glo'ster an' Bristol, where he jivved adree a boro ker. Kek +mush never dicked so booti weshni juckalos or weshni kannis as yuv +rikkered odoi. They prastered atut saw the drumyas sim as kanyas. Yeck +divvus he was kisterin' on a kushto grai, an' he dicked a Rommany chal +rikkerin' a truss of gib-puss 'pre lester dumo pral a bitti drum, an' +kistered 'pre the pooro mush, puss an' sar. I jins that puro mush better +'n I jins tute, for I was a'ter yeck o' his raklis yeckorus; he had +kushti-dick raklis, an' he was old Knight Locke. "Puro," pens the rye, +"did I kair you trash?" "I mang tute's shunaben, rya," pens Locke pauli; +"I didn't jin tute sus wellin'!" So puro Locke hatched odoi 'pre dovo +tem sar his miraben, an' that was a kushti covva for the puro Locke. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +That is like what is told of Mr Bartlett in Gloucestershire, who had a +fine place near Gloucester and Bristol, where he lived in a great house. +No man ever saw so many foxes or pheasants as he kept there. They ran +across all the paths like hens. One day he was riding on a fine horse, +when he saw a Gipsy carrying a truss of wheat-straw on his back up a +little path, and leaped over the poor man, straw and all. I knew that +old man better than I know you, for I was after one of his daughters +then; he had beautiful girls, and he was old Knight Locke. "Old fellow," +said the gentleman, "did I frighten you?" "I beg your pardon, sir," said +Locke after him; "I didn't know you were coming!" So old Locke stayed on +that land all his life, and that was a good thing for old Locke. + + + +GUDLO XXXIX. THE GIPSY, THE PIG, AND THE MUSTARD. + + +Yeckorus a Rommany chal jalled to a boro givescroker sa's the rye sus +hawin'. And sikk's the Rom wan't a-dickin', the rye all-sido pordered a +kell-mallico pash kris, an' del it to the Rommany chal. An' sa's the +kris dantered adree his gullo, he was pash tassered, an' the panni welled +in his yakkas. Putched the rye, "Kun's tute ruvvin' ajaw for?" An' he +rakkered pauli, "The kris lelled mandys bavol ajaw." Penned the rye, "I +kaum the kris'll del tute kushti bak." "Parraco, rya," penned the Rom +pauli; "I'll kommer it kairs dovo." Sikk's the rye bitchered his sherro, +the Rommany chal loured the krissko-curro ma the ruppeny rooy, an' kek +dicked it. The waver divvus anpauli, dovo Rom jalled to the ryas baulo- +tan, an' dicked odoi a boro rikkeno baulo, an' gillied, "I'll dick acai +if I can kair tute ruv a bitti." + +Now, rya, you must jin if you del a baulor kris adree a pabo, he can't +shell avree or kair a gudlo for his miraben, an' you can rikker him +bissin', or chiv him apre a wardo, an' jal andurer an' kek jin it. An' +dovo's what the Rommany chal kaired to the baulor, pash the sim kris; an' +as he bissered it avree an' pakkered it adree a gunno, he penned shukkar +adree the baulor's kan, "Calico tute's rye hatched my bavol, an' the +divvus I've hatched tute's; an' yeckorus your rye kaumed the kris would +del mandy kushti bak, and kenna it _has_ del mengy kushtier bak than ever +he jinned. + +Ryes must be sig not to kair pyass an' trickis atop o' choro mushis. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a Gipsy went to a great farmhouse as the gentleman sat at table +eating. And so soon as the Gipsy looked away, the gentleman very quietly +filled a cheese-cake with mustard and gave it to the Gipsy. When the +mustard bit in his throat, he was half choked, and the tears came into +his eyes. The gentleman asked him, "What are you weeping for now?" And +he replied, "The mustard took my breath away." The gentleman said, "I +hope the mustard will give you good luck!" "Thank you, sir," answered +the Gipsy; "I'll take care it does" (that). As soon as the gentleman +turned his head, the Gipsy stole the mustard-pot with the silver spoon, +and no one saw it. The next day after, that Gipsy went to the +gentleman's pig-pen, and saw there a great fine-looking pig, and sang, +"I'll see now if I can make _you_ weep a bit." + +Now, sir, you must know that if you give a pig mustard in an apple, he +can't cry out or squeal for his life, and you can carry him away, or +throw him on a waggon, and get away, and nobody will know it. And that +is what the Gipsy did to the pig, with the same mustard; and as he ran it +away and put it in a bag, he whispered softly into the pig's ear, +"Yesterday your master stopped my breath, and to-day I've stopped yours; +and once your master hoped the mustard would give me good luck, and now +it _has_ given me better luck than he ever imagined." + +Gentlemen must be careful not to make sport of and play tricks on poor +men. + + + +GUDLO XL. EXPLAINING THE ORIGIN OF A CURRENT GIPSY PROVERB OR SAYING. + + +Trin or shtor beshes pauli kenna yeck o' the Petulengros dicked a boro +mullo baulor adree a bitti drum. An' sig as he latched it, some Rommany +chals welled alay an' dicked this here Rommany chal. So Petulengro he +shelled avree, "A fino baulor! saw tulloben! jal an the sala an' you +shall have pash." And they welled apopli adree the sala and lelled pash +sar tacho. And ever sense dovo divvus it's a rakkerben o' the Rommany +chals, "Sar tulloben; jal an the sala an' tute shall lel your pash." + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Three or four years ago one of the Smiths found a great dead pig in a +lane. And just as he found it, some Gipsies came by and saw this +Rommany. So Smith bawled out to them, "A fine pig! all fat! come in the +morning and you shall have half." And they returned in the morning and +got half, all right. And ever since it has been a saying with the +Gipsies, "It's _all fat_; come in the morning and get your half." + + + +GUDLO XLI. THE GIPSY'S FISH-HOOK. + + +Yeckorus a rye pookered a Rommany chal he might jal matchyin' 'dree his +panni, and he'd del lester the cammoben for trin mushi, if he'd only +matchy with a bongo sivv an' a punsy-ran. So the Rom jalled with India- +drab kaired apre moro, an' he drabbered saw the matchas adree the panni, +and rikkered avree his wardo sar pordo. A boro cheirus pauli dovo, the +rye dicked the Rommany chal, an' penned, "You choramengro, did tute lel +the matchas avree my panni with a hook?" "Ayali, rya, with a hook," +penned the Rom pale, werry sido. "And what kind of a hook?" "Rya," +rakkered the Rom, "it was yeck o' the longi kind, what we pens in amandis +jib a hookaben" (_i.e_., huckaben or hoc'aben). + +When you del a mush cammoben to lel matchyas avree tute's panni, you'd +better hatch adoi an' dick how he kairs it. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a gentleman told a Gipsy he might fish in his pond, and he would +give him permission to do so for a shilling, but that he must only fish +with a hook and a fishing-pole (literally, crooked needle). So the Gipsy +went with India-drab (juice of the berries of _Indicus cocculus_) made up +with bread, and poisoned all the fish in the pond, and carried away his +waggonful. A long time after, the gentleman met the Gipsy, and said, +"You thief, did you catch the fish in my pond with a hook?" "Yes, sir, +with a hook," replied the Gipsy very quietly. "And what kind of a hook?" +"Sir," said the Gipsy, "it was one of the long kind, what we call in our +language a hookaben" (_i.e_., _a lie or trick_). + +When you give a man leave to fish in your pond, you had better be present +and see how he does it. + + + +GUDLO XLII. THE GIPSY AND THE SNAKE. + + +If you more the first sappa you dicks, tute'll more the first enemy +you've got. That's what 'em pens, but I don't jin if it's tacho or +nettus. And yeckorus there was a werry wafro mush that was allers +a-kairin' wafri covvabens. An' yeck divvus he dicked a sap in the wesh, +an' he prastered paller it with a bori churi adree lester waster and +chinned her sherro apre. An' then he rakkered to his kokerus, "Now that +I've mored the sap, I'll lel the jivaben of my wenomest enemy." And just +as he penned dovo lav he delled his pirro atut the danyas of a rukk, an' +pet alay and chivved the churi adree his bukko. An' as he was beshin' +alay a-mullerin' 'dree the weshes, he penned to his kokerus, "Avali, I +dicks kenna that dovo's tacho what they pookers about morin' a sappa; for +I never had kek worser ennemis than I've been to mandy's selfus, and what +wells of morin' innocen hanimals is kek kushtoben." + + +TRANSLATION. + + +If you kill the first snake you see, you'll kill the first (principal) +enemy you have. That is what they say, but I don't know whether it is +true or not. And once there was a very bad man who was always doing bad +deeds. And one day he saw a snake in the forest, and ran after it with a +great knife in his hand and cut her head off. And then he said to +himself, "Now that I've killed the snake, I'll take the life of my most +vindictive (literally, most venomous) enemy." And just as he spoke that +word he struck his foot against the roots of a tree, and fell down and +drove the knife into his own body (liver or heart). And as he lay dying +in the forests, he said to himself, "Yes, I see now that it is true what +they told me as to killing a snake; for I never had any worse enemy than +I have been to myself, and what comes of killing innocent animals is +naught good." + + + +GUDLO XLIII. THE STORY OF THE GIPSY AND THE BULL. + + +Yeckorus there was a Rommany chal who was a boro koorin' mush, a surrelo +mush, a boro-wasteni mush, werry toonery an' hunnalo. An' he penned +adusta cheiruses that kek geero an' kek covva 'pre the drumyas couldn't +trasher him. But yeck divvus, as yuv was jallin' langs the drum with a +waver pal, chunderin' an' hookerin' an' lunterin', an' shorin' his kokero +how he could koor the puro bengis' selfus, they shooned a guro a-goorin' +an' googerin', an' the first covva they jinned he prastered like divius +at 'em, an' these here geeros prastered apre ye rukk, an' the boro +koorin' mush that was so flick o' his wasters chury'd first o' saw (sar), +an' hatched duri-dirus from the puv pre the limmers. An' he beshed adoi +an' dicked ye bullus wusserin' an' chongerin' his trushnees sar aboutus, +an' kellin' pre lesters covvas, an' poggerin' to cutengroes saw he lelled +for lesters miraben. An' whenever the bavol pudered he was atrash he'd +pelt-a-lay 'pre the shinger-ballos of the gooro (guro). An' so they +beshed adoi till the sig of the sala, when the mush who dicked a'ter the +gruvnis welled a-pirryin' by an' dicked these here chals beshin' like +chillicos pre the rukk, an' patched lengis what they were kairin' dovo +for. So they pookered him about the bullus, an' he hankered it avree; +an' they welled alay an' jalled andurer to the kitchema, for there never +was dui mushis in 'covo tem that kaumed a droppi levinor koomi than +lender. But pale dovo divvus that trusheni mush never sookered he +couldn't be a trashni mush no moreus. Tacho. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once there was a Gipsy who was a great fighting man, a strong man, a +great boxer, very bold and fierce. And he said many a time that no man +and no thing on the roads could frighten him. But one day, as he was +going along the road with another man (his friend), exaggerating and +bragging and boasting, and praising himself that he could beat the old +devil himself, they heard a bull bellowing and growling, and the first +thing they knew he ran like mad at them; and these men hurried up a tree, +and the great fighting man that was so handy with his fists climbed first +of all, and got (placed) himself furtherest from the ground on the limbs. +And he sat there and saw the bull tossing and throwing his baskets all +about, and dancing on his things, and breaking to pieces all he had for +his living. And whenever the wind blew he was afraid he would fall on +the horns of the bull. And so they sat there till daybreak, when the man +who looked after the cows came walking by and saw these fellows sitting +like birds on the tree, and asked them what they were doing that for. So +they told him about the bull, and he drove it away; and they came down +and went on to the alehouse, for there never were two men in this country +that wanted a drop of beer more than they. But after that day that +thirsty man never boasted he could not be a frightened man. True. + + + +GUDLO XLIV. THE GIPSY AND HIS THREE SWEETHEARTS. + + +Yeckorus a tano mush kaired his cammoben ta trin juvas kett'nus an' kek +o' the trin jinned yuv sus a pirryin' ye waver dui. An 'covo raklo +jivved adree a bitti tan pash the rikkorus side o' the boro lun panni, +an' yeck ratti sar the chais welled shikri kett'nus a lester, an' kek o' +the geeris jinned the wavers san lullerin adoi. So they jalled sar-sigan +kett'nus, an' rakkered, "Sarshan!" ta yeck chairus. An' dovo raklo +didn't jin what juva kaumed lester ferridirus, or kun yuv kaumed ye +ferridirus, so sar the shtor besht-a-lay sum, at the habbenescro, and yuv +del len habben an' levinor. Yeck hawed booti, but ye waver dui wouldn't +haw kek, yeck pii'd, but ye waver dui wouldn't pi chommany, 'cause they +were sar hunnali, and sookeri an' kuried. So the raklo penned lengis, +yuv sos atrash if yuv lelled a juva 'at couldn't haw, she wouldn't jiv, +so he rummored the rakli that hawed her habben. + +All'ers haw sar the habben foki banders apre a tute, an' tute'll jal +sikker men dush an' tukli. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once a young man courted three girls together, and none of the three knew +he was courting the two others. And that youth lived in a little place +near the side of the great salt water, and one night all the girls came +at once together to him, and none of the girls knew the others were +coming there. So they went all quick together, and said "Good evening," +(sarishan means really "How are you?") at the same time. And that youth +did not know which girl liked him best, or whom he loved best; so all the +four sat down together at the table, and he gave them food and beer. One +ate plenty, but the other two would eat nothing; one drank, but the other +two would not drink something, because they were all angry, and grieved, +and worried. So the youth told them he was afraid if he took a wife that +could not eat, she would not live, so he married the girl that ate her +food. + +Always eat all the food that people give you (literally share out to +you), and you will go readily (securely) through sorrow and trouble. + + + +GUDLO XLV. THE GIPSIES AND THE SMUGGLERS. A TRUE STORY. + + +Yeckorus, most a hundred besh kenna, when mi dadas sus a chavo, yeck +ratti a booti Rommany chals san millerin kettenescrus pash the boro +panni, kun sar-sig the graias ankaired a-wickerin an' ludderin an' +nuckerin' an kairin a boro gudli, an' the Rommanis shuned a shellin, an' +dicked mushis prasterin and lullyin for lenders miraben, sa's seer-dush, +avree a boro hev. An' when len san sar jalled lug, the Rommany chals +welled adoi an' latched adusta bitti barrels o' tatto-panni, an' fino +covvas, for dovo mushis were 'mugglers, and the Roms lelled sar they +mukked pali. An' dovo sus a boro covva for the Rommany chals, an' they +pii'd sar graias, an' the raklis an' juvas jalled in kushni heezis for +booti divvuses. An' dovo sus kerro pash Bo-Peep--a boro puvius adree +bori chumures, pash Hastings in Sussex. + +When 'mugglers nasher an' Rommany chals latch, there's kek worser +cammoben for it. + + +TRANSLATION. + + +Once almost a hundred years now, when my father was a boy, one night many +Gipsies were going together near the sea, when all at once the horses +began whinnying and kicking and neighing, and making a great noise, and +the Gipsies heard a crying out, and saw men running and rushing as if in +alarm, from a great cave. And when they were all gone away together, the +Gipsies went there and found many little barrels of brandy, and +valuables, for those men were smugglers, and the Gipsies took all they +left behind. And that was a great thing for the Gipsies, and they drank +like horses, and the girls and women went in silk clothes for many days. +And that was done near Bo-Peep, a great field in the hills, by Hastings +in Sussex. + +When smugglers lose and Gipsies find, nobody is the worse for it. + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{0a} The reason why Gipsy words have been kept unchanged was fully +illustrated one day in a Gipsy camp in my hearing, when one man declaring +of a certain word that it was only _kennick_ or slang, and not +"Rommanis," added, "It can't be Rommanis, because everybody knows it. +When a word gets to be known to everybody, it's no longer Rommanis." + +{1} Lavengro and the Rommany Rye: London, John Murray. + +{5} To these I would add "Zelda's Fortune," now publishing in the +_Cornhill Magazine_. + +{21} Educated Chinese often exercise themselves in what they call +"handsome talkee," or "talkee leeson" (i.e., reason), by sitting down and +uttering, by way of assertion and rejoinder, all the learned and wise +sentences which they can recall. In their conversation and on their +crockery, before every house and behind every counter, the elegant +formula makes its appearance, teaching people not merely _how_ to think, +but what should be thought, and when. + +{24} Probably from the modern Greek [Greek text], the sole of the foot, +_i.e_., a track. Panth, a road, Hindustani. + +{26} Pott: "Die Zigeuner in Europa and Asien," vol. ii, p. 293. + +{30} Two hundred (shel) years growing, two hundred years losing his +coat, two hundred years before he dies, and then he loses all his blood +and is no longer good. + +{32} The words of the Gipsy, as I took them down from his own lips, were +as follows:-- + +"Bawris are kushto habben. You can latcher adusta 'pre the bors. When +they're pirraben pauli the puvius, or tale the koshters, they're kek +kushti habben. The kushtiest are sovven sar the wen. Lel'em and tove +'em and chiv 'em adree the kavi, with panny an' a bitti lun. The +simmun's kushto for the yellow jaundice." + +I would remind the reader that in _every instance_ where the original +Gipsy language is given, it was written down or _noted_ during +conversation, and subsequently written out and read to a Gipsy, by whom +it was corrected. And I again beg the reader to remember, that every +Rommany phrase is followed by a translation into English. + +{33} Dr Pott intimates that _scharos_, a globe, may be identical with +_sherro_, a head. When we find, however, that in German Rommany +_tscharo_ means goblet, pitcher, vessel, and in fact cup, it seems as if +the Gipsy had hit upon the correct derivation. + +{34} "Dovos yect o' the covvos that saw foki jins. When you lel a wart +'pre tutes wasters you jal 'pre the drum or 'dree the puvius till you +latcher a kaulo bawris--yeck o' the boro kind with kek ker apre him, an' +del it apre the caro of a kaulo kosh in the bor, and ear the bawris +mullers, yeck divvus pauli the waver for shtar or pange divvuses the +wart'll kinner away-us. 'Dusta chairusses I've pukkered dovo to Gorgios, +an' Gorgios have kaired it, an' the warts have yuzhered avree their +wasters." + +{35} Among certain tribes in North America, tobacco is both burned +before and smoked "unto" the Great Spirit. + +{38} This word palindrome, though Greek, is intelligible to every Gipsy. +In both languages it means "back on the road." + +{53} The Krallis's Gav, King's Village, a term also applied to Windsor. + +{65} Pronounced cuv-vas, like _covers_ without the _r_. + +{70} The Lord's Prayer in pure English Gipsy:-- + +"Moro Dad, savo djives oteh drey o charos, te caumen Gorgio ta Rommanny +chal tiro nav, te awel tiro tem, te kairen tiro lav aukko prey puv, sar +kairdios oteh drey o charos. Dey men todivvus more divvuskoe moro, ta +for dey men pazorrhus tukey sar men for-denna len pazhorrus amande; ma +muck te petrenna drey caik temptaciones; ley men abri sor doschder. Tiro +se o tem, mi-duvel, tiro o zoozlu vast, tiro sor koskopen drey sor +cheros. Avali. Tachipen." + +Specimens of old English Gipsy, preserving grammatical forms, may be +found in Bright's Hungary (Appendix). London, 1818. I call attention to +the fact that all the specimens of the language which I give in this book +simply represent _the modern and greatly corrupted_ Rommany of the roads, +which has, however, assumed a peculiar form of its own. + +{75} In gipsy _chores_ would mean swindles. In America it is applied to +small jobs. + +{81} Vide chapter x. + +{83} This should be _Bengo-tem_ or devil land, but the Gipsy who gave me +the word declared it was _bongo_. + +{110} In English: "Water is the Great God, and it is Bishnoo or Vishnoo +because it falls from God. _Vishnu is then the Great God_?" "Yes; there +can be no forced meaning there, can there, sir? Duvel (God) is Duvel all +the world over; but correctly speaking, Vishnu is God's blood--I have +heard that many times. And the snow is feathers that fall from the +angels' wings. And what I said, that Bishnoo is God's Blood is old +Gipsy, and known by all our people." + +{112} "Simurgh--a fabulous bird, _a griffin_."--_Brice's Hindustani +Dictionary_. + +{124} Romi in Coptic signifies _a man_. + +{127} Since writing the above I have been told that among many Hindus +"(good) evening" is the common greeting at any time of the day. And more +recently still, meeting a gentleman who during twelve years in India had +paid especial attention to all the dialects, I greeted him, as an +experiment, with "Sarisham!" He replied, 'Why, that's more elegant than +common Hindu--it's Persian!" "Sarisham" is, in fact, still in use in +India, as among the Gipsies. And as the latter often corrupt it into +_sha'shan_, so the vulgar Hindus call it "shan!" Sarishan means in +Gipsy, "How are you?" but its affinity with _sarisham_ is evident. + +{133} Miklosich ("Uber die Mundarten de der Zigeuner," Wien, 1872) +gives, it is true, 647 Rommany words of Slavonic origin, but many of +these are also Hindustani. Moreover, Dr Miklosich treats as Gipsy words +numbers of Slavonian words which Gipsies in Slavonian lands have +Rommanised, but which are not generally Gipsy. + +{171} Fortune-telling. + +{189} In Egypt, as in Syria, every child is more or less marked by +tattooing. Infants of the first families, even among Christians, are +thus stamped. + +{206} The Royston rook or crow has a greyish-white back, but is with +this exception entirely black. + +{209} The peacock and turkey are called lady-birds in Rommany, because, +as a Gipsy told me, "they spread out their clothes, and hold up their +heads and look fine, and walk proud, like great ladies." I have heard a +swan called a pauno rani chillico--a white lady-bird. + +{210} To make skewers is a common employment among the poorer English +Gipsies. + +{213} This rhyme and metre (such as they are) were purely accidental +with my narrator; but as they occurred _verb. et lit_., I set them down. + +{218} This story is well known to most "travellers." It is also true, +the "hero" being a _pash-and-pash_, or half-blood Rommany chal, whose +name was told to me. + +{219} The reader will find in Lord Lytton's "Harold" mention of an Anglo- +Saxon superstition very similar to that embodied in the story of the +Seven Whistlers. This story is, however, entirely Gipsy. + +{221a} This, which is a common story among the English Gipsies, and told +exactly in the words here given, is implicitly believed in by them. +Unfortunately, the terrible legends, but too well authenticated, of the +persecutions to which their ancestors were subjected, render it very +probable that it may have occurred as narrated. When Gipsies were hung +and transported merely for _being_ Gipsies, it is not unlikely that a +persecution to death may have originated in even such a trifle as the +alleged theft of a dish-clout. + +{221b} Although they bear it with remarkable _apparent_ indifference, +Gipsies are in reality extremely susceptible to being looked at or +laughed at. + +{235} This story was told me in a Gipsy tent near Brighton, and +afterwards repeated by one of the auditors while I transcribed it. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ENGLISH GIPSIES AND THEIR +LANGUAGE*** + + +******* This file should be named 16358.txt or 16358.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/6/3/5/16358 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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