Chapter V: VANGUS, s. Finger. Sans. Angula (2)

I’M sailing across the water,
A-stealing bread and meat so free,
Along with a precious harlot,
And she has been the ruin of me.

I slept one night within a barn,
A-stealing bread and meat so free,
Along with a precious harlot,
And she has been the ruin of me.

Next morning she would have me go,
A-stealing bread and meat so free,
To see with her the wild-beast show,
For she would be the ruin of me.

I went with her to see the show,
A-stealing bread and meat so free,
To steal a purse she was not slow,
And so she was the ruin of me.

They took us up, and with her I,
A-stealing bread and meat so free:
Am sailing now to Botany,
So she has been the ruin of me.

I’m sailing across the water,
A-stealing bread and meat so free,
Along with a precious harlot,
And she has been the ruin of me.

THE RYE AND RAWNIE

THE rye he mores adrey the wesh
The kaun-engro and chiriclo;
You sovs with leste drey the wesh,
And rigs for leste the gono.

Oprey the rukh adrey the wesh
Are chiriclo and chiricli;
Tuley the rukh adrey the wesh
Are pireno and pireni.

THE SQUIRE AND LADY

THE squire he roams the good greenwood,
And shoots the pheasant and the hare;
Thou sleep’st with him in good green wood,
And dost for him the game-sack bear.

I see, I see upon the tree
The little male and female dove;
Below the tree I see, I see
The lover and his lady love.

ROMANY SUTTUR GILLIE

JAW to sutturs, my tiny chal;
Your die to dukker has jall’d abri;
At rarde she will wel palal
And tute of her tud shall pie.

Jaw to lutherum, tiny baw!
I’m teerie deya’s purie mam;
As tute cams her tud canaw
Thy deya meerie tud did cam.

GYPSY LULLABY

SLEEP thee, little tawny boy!
Thy mother’s gone abroad to spae,
Her kindly milk thou shalt enjoy
When home she comes at close of day.

Sleep thee, little tawny guest!
Thy mother is my daughter fine;
As thou dost love her kindly breast,
She once did love this breast of mine.

SHARRAFI KRALYISSA

FINOR coachey innar Lundra,
Bonor coachey innar Lundra,
Finor coachey, bonor coachey
Mande dick’d innar Lundra.

Bonor, finor coachey
Mande dick’d innar Lundra
The divvus the Kralyissa jall’d
To congri innar Lundra.

OUR BLESSED QUEEN

COACHES fine in London,
Coaches good in London,
Coaches fine and coaches good
I did see in London.

Coaches good and coaches fine
I did see in London,
The blessed day our blessed Queen
Rode to church in London.

PLASTRA LESTI

GARE yourselves, pralor!
Mã pee kek-komi!
The guero’s welling—
Plastra lesti!

RUN FOR IT!

UP, up, brothers!
Cease your revels!
The Gentile’s coming—
Run like devils!

FOREIGN GYPSY SONGS

OY die-la, oy mama-la oy!
Cherie podey mangue penouri.

_Russian Gypsy Song_.

THE ROMANY SONGSTRESS FROM THE RUSSIAN GYPSY

HER temples they are aching,
As if wine she had been taking;
Her tears are ever springing,
Abandoned is her singing!
She can neither eat nor nest
With love she’s so distress’d;
At length she’s heard to say:
“Oh here I cannot stay,
Go saddle me my steed,
To my lord I must proceed;
In his palace plenteously
Both eat and drink shall I;
The servants far and wide,
Bidding guests shall run and ride.
And when within the hall the multitude I see,
I’ll raise my voice anew, and sing in Romany.”

L’ERAJAI

UN erajai
Sinaba chibando un sermon;
Y lle falta un balicho
Al chindomar de aquel gao,
Y lo chanelaba que los Cales
Lo abian nicabao;
Y penela l’erajai, “Chaboró!
Guillate a tu quer
Y nicabela la peri
Que terela el balicho,
Y chibela andro
Una lima de tun chaborí,
Chabori,
Una lima de tun chabori.”

THE FRIAR FROM THE SPANISH GYPSY

A FRIAR
Was preaching once with zeal and with fire;
And a butcher of the town
Had lost a flitch of bacon;
And well the friar knew
That the Gypsies it had taken;
So suddenly he shouted: “Gypsy, ho!
Hie home, and from the pot!
Take the flitch of bacon out,
The flitch good and fat,
And in its place throw
A clout, a dingy clout of thy brat,
Of thy brat,
A clout, a dingy clout of thy brat.”

MALBRUN FROM THE SPANISH GYPSY VERSION

CHALÓ Malbrun chingarár,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Chaló Malbrun chingarár;
No sé bus truterá!
No sé bus truterá!

La romi que le caméla,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
La romi que le camela
Muy curepeñada está,
Muy curepeñada está.

S’ardéla á la felichá,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
S’ardéla á la felichá
Y baribu dur dicá,
Y baribu dur dicá.

Dicá abillar su burno,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Dicá abillar su burno,
En ropa callardá,
En ropa callardá.

“Burno, lacho quirbó;
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Burno, lacho quiribó,
Que nuevas has diñar?
Que nuevas has diñar?”

“Las nuevas que io térelo,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Las nuevas que io terélo
Te haran orobar,
Te haran orobar.

“Meró Malbrun mi eráy,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Meró Malbrun mi eráy
Meró en la chingá,
Meró en la chingá.

“Sinaba á su entierro,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Sinaba á su entierro
La plastani sará,
La plastani sará.

“Seis guapos jundunáres,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Seis guapos jundunáres
Le lleváron cabañar,
Le lleváron cabañar.

“Delante de la jestári,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Delante de la jestári
Chaló el sacristá,
Chaló el sacristá.

“El sacristá delante,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
El sacristá delante,
Y el errajai palá,
Y el errajai palá.

“Al majaro ortaláme,
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Al majaro ortaláme
Le lleváron cabañar,
Le lleváron cabañar.

“Y oté le cabañáron
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Y oté le cabañáron
No dur de la burdá,
No dur de la burdá.

“Y opré de la jestári
Birandón, birandón, birandéra!
Guillabéla un chilindróte;
Sobá en paz, sobá!
Sobá en paz, sobá!”

MALBROUK

MALBROUK is gone to the wars,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
Malbrouk is gone to the wars;
He’ll never return no more!
He’ll never return no more!

His lady-love and darling,
Birrandon, birrandón, birrandéra
His lady-love and darling
His absence doth deplore,
His absence doth deplore.

To the turret’s top she mounted,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
To the turret’s top she mounted
And look’d till her eyes were sore,
And look’d till her eyes were sore.

She saw his squire a-coming,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
She saw his squire a-coming;
And a mourning suit he wore,
And a mourning suit he wore.

“O squire, my trusty fellow;
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
O squire, my trusty fellow,
What news of my soldier poor?
What news of my soldier poor?”

“The news which I bring thee, lady,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
The news which I bring thee, lady,
Will cause thy tears to shower,
Will cause thy tears to shower.

“Malbrouk my master’s fallen,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
Malbrouk my master’s fallen,
He fell on the fields of gore,
He fell on the fields of gore.

“His funeral attended,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
His funeral attended
The whole reg’mental corps,
The whole reg’mental corps.

“Six neat and proper soldiers,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
Six neat and proper soldiers
To the grave my master bore,
To the grave my master bore.

“The parson follow’d the coffin,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
The parson follow’d the coffin,
And the sexton walk’d before,
And the sexton walk’d before.

“They buried him in the churchyard,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
They buried him in the churchyard,
Not far from the church’s door,
Not far from the church’s door.

“And there above his coffin,
Birrandón, birrandón, birrandéra!
There sings a little swallow:
Sleep there, thy toils are o’er,
Sleep there, thy toils are o’er.”

THE ENGLISH GYPSIES

TUGNEY BESHOR

THE Romany Chals
Should jin so bute
As the Puro Beng
To scape of gueros
And wafo gorgies
The wafodupen.

They lels our gryor,
They lels our wardoes,
And wusts us then
Drey starripenes
To mer of pishens
And buklipen.

Cauna volélan
Muley pappins
Pawdle the len
Men artavàvam
Of gorgio foky
The wafodupen.
Ley teero sollohanloinus opreylis!

SORROWFUL YEARS

The wit and the skill
Of the Father of ill,
Who’s clever indeed,
If they would hope
With their foes to cope
The Romany need.

Our horses they take,
Our waggons they break,
And us they fling
Into horrid cells,
Where hunger dwells
And vermin sting.

When the dead swallow
The fly shall follow
Across the river,
O we’ll forget
The wrongs we’ve met,
But till then O never:
Brother, of that be certain.

THEIR HISTORY

THE English Gypsies call themselves Romany Chals and Romany Chies, that is, Sons and Daughters of Rome. When speaking to each other, they say “Pal” and “Pen”; that is, brother and sister. All people not of their own blood they call “Gorgios,” or Gentiles. Gypsies first made their appearance in England about the year 1480. They probably came from France, where tribes of the race had long been wandering about under the names of Bohemians and Egyptians. In England they pursued the same kind of merripen {174} which they and their ancestors had pursued on the Continent. They roamed about in bands, consisting of thirty, sixty, or ninety families, with light, creaking carts, drawn by horses and donkeys, encamping at night in the spots they deemed convenient. The women told fortunes at the castle of the baron and the cottage of the yeoman; filched gold and silver coins from the counters of money-changers; caused the death of hogs in farmyards, by means of a stuff called drab or drao, which affects the brain, but does not corrupt the blood; and subsequently begged, and generally obtained, the carcases. The men plied tinkering and brasiery, now and then stole horses, and occasionally ventured upon highway robbery. The writer has here placed the Chies before the Chals, because, as he has frequently had occasion to observe, the Gypsy women are by far more remarkable beings than the men. It is the Chi and not the Chal who has caused the name of Gypsy to be a sound awaking wonder, awe, and curiosity in every part of the civilised world. Not that there have never been remarkable men of the Gypsy race both abroad and at home. Duke Michael, as he was called, the leader of the great Gypsy horde which suddenly made its appearance in Germany at the beginning of the fifteenth century, was no doubt a remarkable man; the Gitano Condre, whom Martin del Rio met at Toledo a hundred years afterwards, who seemed to speak all languages, and to be perfectly acquainted with the politics of all the Courts of Europe, must certainly have been a remarkable man; so, no doubt, here at home was Boswell; so undoubtedly was Cooper, called by the gentlemen of the Fives Court—poor fellows! they are all gone now—the “wonderful little Gypsy”;—but upon the whole the poetry, the sorcery, the devilry, if you please to call it so, are vastly on the side of the women. How blank and inanimate is the countenance of the Gypsy man, even when trying to pass off a foundered donkey as a flying dromedary, in comparison with that of the female Romany, peering over the wall of a par-yard at a jolly hog!

Sar shin Sinfye?
Koshto divvus, Romany Chi!
So shan tute kairing acoi?

Sinfye, Sinfye! how do you do?
Daughter of Rome, good day to you!
What are you thinking here to do?

After a time the evil practices of the Gypsies began to be noised about, and terrible laws were enacted against people “using the manner of Egyptians”—Chies were scourged by dozens, Chals hung by scores. Throughout the reign of Elizabeth there was a terrible persecution of the Gypsy race; far less, however, on account of the crimes which they actually committed, than from a suspicion which was entertained that they harboured amidst their companies priests and emissaries of Rome, who had come to England for the purpose of sowing sedition and inducing the people to embrace again the old discarded superstition. This suspicion, however, was entirely without foundation. The Gypsies call each other brother and sister, and are not in the habit of admitting to their fellowship people of a different blood and with whom they have no sympathy. There was, however, a description of wandering people at that time, even as there is at present, with whom the priests, who are described as going about, sometimes disguised as serving-men, sometimes as broken soldiers, sometimes as shipwrecked mariners, would experience no difficulty in associating, and with whom, in all probability, they occasionally did associate—the people called in Acts of Parliament sturdy beggars and vagrants, in the old cant language Abraham men, and in the modern Pikers. These people have frequently been confounded with the Gypsies, but are in reality a distinct race, though they resemble the latter in some points. They roam about like the Gypsies, and, like them, have a kind of secret language. But the Gypsies are a people of Oriental origin, whilst the Abrahamites are the scurf of the English body corporate. The language of the Gypsies is a real language, more like the Sanscrit than any other language in the world; whereas the speech of the Abrahamites is a horrid jargon, composed for the most part of low English words used in an allegorical sense—a jargon in which a stick is called a crack; a hostess, a rum necklace; a bar-maid, a dolly-mort; brandy, rum booze; a constable, a horny. But enough of these Pikers, these Abrahamites. Sufficient to observe that if the disguised priests associated with wandering companies it must have been with these people, who admit anybody to their society, and not with the highly exclusive race the Gypsies.

For nearly a century and a half after the death of Elizabeth the Gypsies seem to have been left tolerably to themselves, for the laws are almost silent respecting them. Chies, no doubt, were occasionally scourged for cauring, that is filching gold and silver coins, and Chals hung for grychoring, that is horse-stealing; but those are little incidents not much regarded in Gypsy merripen. They probably lived a life during the above period tolerably satisfactory to themselves—they are not an ambitious people, and there is no word for glory in their language—but next to nothing is known respecting them. A people called Gypsies are mentioned, and to a certain extent treated of, in two remarkable works—one a production of the seventeenth, the other of the eighteenth century—the first entitled the ‘English Rogue, or the Adventures of Merriton Latroon,’ the other the ‘Life of Bamfield Moore Carew’; but those works, though clever and entertaining, and written in the raciest English, are to those who seek for information respecting Gypsies entirely valueless, the writers having evidently mistaken for Gypsies the Pikers or Abrahamites, as the vocabularies appended to the histories, and which are professedly vocabularies of the Gypsy language, are nothing of the kind, but collections of words and phrases belonging to the Abrahamite or Piker jargon. At the commencement of the last century, and for a considerable time afterwards, there was a loud cry raised against the Gypsy women for stealing children. This cry, however, was quite as devoid of reason as the suspicion entertained of old against the Gypsy communities of harbouring disguised priests. Gypsy women, as the writer had occasion to remark many a long year ago, have plenty of children of their own, and have no wish to encumber themselves with those of other people. A yet more extraordinary charge was, likewise, brought against them—that of running away with wenches. Now, the idea of Gypsy women running away with wenches! Where were they to stow them in the event of running away with them? and what were they to do with them in the event of being able to stow them? Nevertheless, two Gypsy women were burnt in the hand in the most cruel and frightful manner, somewhat about the middle of the last century, and two Gypsy men, their relations, sentenced to be hanged, for running away with a certain horrible wench of the name of Elizabeth Canning, who, to get rid of a disgraceful burden, had left her service and gone into concealment for a month, and on her return, in order to account for her absence, said that she had been run away with by Gypsies. The men, however, did not undergo their sentence; for, ere the day appointed for their execution arrived, suspicions beginning to be entertained with respect to the truth of the wench’s story, they were reprieved, and, after a little time, the atrocious creature, who had charged people with doing what they neither did nor dreamt of doing, was tried for perjury, convicted, and sentenced to transportation. Yet so great is English infatuation that this Canning, this Elizabeth, had a host of friends, who stood by her, and swore by her to the last, and almost freighted the ship which carried her away with goods, the sale of which enabled her to purchase her freedom of the planter to whom she was consigned, to establish herself in business, and to live in comfort, and almost in luxury, in the New World during the remainder of her life.

But though Gypsies have occasionally experienced injustice; though Patricos and Sherengroes were hanged by dozens in Elizabeth’s time on suspicion of harbouring disguised priests; though Gypsy women in the time of the Second George, accused of running away with wenches, were scorched and branded, there can be no doubt that they live in almost continual violation of the laws intended for the protection of society; and it may be added, that in this illegal way of life the women have invariably played a more important part than the men. Of them, amongst other things, it may be said that they are the most accomplished swindlers in the world, their principal victims being people of their own sex, on whose credulity and superstition they practise. Mary Caumlo, or Lovel, was convicted a few years ago at Cardiff of having swindled a surgeon’s wife of eighty pounds, under pretence of propitiating certain planets by showing them the money. Not a penny of the booty was ever recovered by the deluded victim; and the Caumli, on leaving the dock, after receiving sentence of a year’s imprisonment, turned round and winked to some _brother_ or _sister_ in court, as much as to say: “_Mande has gared the luvvu_; _mande is kek atugni for the besh’s starripen_”—“I have hid the money, and care nothing for the year’s imprisonment.” Young Rawnie P. of N., the daughter of old Rawnie P., suddenly disappeared with the whole capital of an aged and bedridden gentlewoman, amounting to nearly three hundred pounds, whom she had assured that if she were intrusted with it for a short time she should be able to gather certain herbs, from which she could make decoctions, which would restore to the afflicted gentlewoman all her youthful vigour. Mrs. Townsley of the Border was some time ago in trouble at Wick, only twenty-five miles distant from Johnny Groat’s House, on a charge of fraudulently obtaining from a fisherman’s wife one shilling, two half-crowns, and a five-pound note by promising to untie certain witch-locks, which she had induced her to believe were entwined in the meshes of the fisherman’s net, and would, if suffered to remain, prevent him from catching a single herring in the Firth. These events occurred within the last few years, and are sufficiently notorious. They form a triad out of dozens of a similar kind, in some of which there are features so odd, so strangely droll, that indignation against the offence is dispelled by an irresistible desire to laugh.

But Gypsyism is declining, and its days are numbered. There is a force abroad which is doomed to destroy it, a force which never sleepeth either by day or night, and which will not allow the Roman people rest for the soles of their feet. That force is the Rural Police, which, had it been established at the commencement instead of towards the middle of the present century, would have put down Gypsyism long ago. But, recent as its establishment has been, observe what it has produced. Walk from London to Carlisle, but neither by the road’s side, nor on heath or common, will you see a single Gypsy tent. True Gypsyism consists in wandering about, in preying upon the Gentiles, but not living amongst them. But such a life is impossible in these days; the Rural Force will not permit it. “It is a hard thing, brother,” said old Agamemnon Caumlo to the writer, several years ago; “it is a hard thing, after one has pitched one’s little tent, lighted one’s little fire, and hung one’s kettle by the kettle-iron over it to boil, to have an inspector or constable come up, and say, ‘What are you doing here? Take yourself off, you Gypsy dog!’” A hard thing, indeed, old Agamemnon; but there is no help for it. You must e’en live amongst the Gorgios. And for years past the Gypsies have lived amongst the Gorgios, and what has been the result? They do not seem to have improved the Gentiles, and have certainly not been improved by them. By living amongst the Gentiles they have, to a certain extent, lost the only two virtues they possessed. Whilst they lived apart on heaths and commons, and in shadowy lanes, the Gypsy women were paragons of chastity, and the men, if not exactly patterns of sobriety, were, upon the whole, very sober fellows. Such terms, however, are by no means applicable to them at the present day. Sects and castes, even of thieves and murderers, can exist as long as they have certain virtues, which give them a kind of respect in their own eyes; but, losing those virtues, they soon become extinct. When the salt loses its savour, what becomes of it? The Gypsy salt has not altogether lost its savour, but that essential quality is every day becoming fainter, so that there is every reason to suppose that within a few years the English Gypsy caste will have disappeared, merged in the dregs of the English population.

GYPSY NAMES

THERE are many curious things connected with the Gypsies, but perhaps nothing more so than what pertains to their names. They have a double nomenclature, each tribe or family having a public and a private name, one by which they are known to the Gentiles, and another to themselves alone. Their public names are quite English; their private ones attempts, some of them highly singular and uncouth, to render those names by Gypsy equivalents. Gypsy names may be divided into two classes, names connected with trades, and surnames or family names. First of all, something about trade names.

There are only two names of trades which have been adopted by English Gypsies as proper names, Cooper and Smith: these names are expressed in the English Gypsy dialect by _Vardo-mescro_ and _Petulengro_. The first of these renderings is by no means a satisfactory one, as _Vardo-mescro_ means a cartwright, or rather a carter. To speak the truth, it would be next to impossible to render the word ‘cooper’ into English Gypsy, or indeed into Gypsy of any kind; a cooper, according to the common acceptation of the word, is one who makes pails, tubs, and barrels, but there are no words in Gypsy for such vessels. The Transylvanian Gypsies call a cooper a _bedra-kero_ or pail-maker, but _bedra_ is not Gypsy, but Hungarian, and the English Gypsies might with equal propriety call a cooper a _pail-engro_. On the whole the English Gypsies did their best when they rendered ‘cooper’ into their language by the word for ‘cartwright.’

_Petulengro_, the other trade name, is borne by the Gypsies who are known to the public by the English appellation of Smith. It is not very easy to say what is the exact meaning of _Petulengro_: it must signify, however, either horseshoe-fellow or tinker: _petali_ or _petala_ signifies in Gypsy a horseshoe, and is probably derived from the Modern Greek _πέταλον_; _engro_ is an affix, and is either derived from or connected with the Sanscrit _kara_, to make, so that with great feasibility _Petulengro_ may be translated horseshoe-maker. But _bedel_ in Hebrew means ‘tin,’ and as there is little more difference between _petul_ and _bedel_ than between _petul_ and _petalon_, _Petulengro_ may be translated with almost equal feasibility by tinker or tin-worker, more especially as tinkering is a principal pursuit of Gypsies, and to _jal petulengring_ signifies to go a-tinkering in English Gypsy. Taken, however, in either sense, whether as horseshoe-maker or tin-worker (and, as has been already observed, it must mean one or the other), _Petulengro_ may be considered as a tolerably fair rendering of the English Smith.

So much for the names of the Gypsies which the writer has ventured to call the trade names; now for those of the other class. These are English surnames, and for the most part of a highly aristocratic character, and it seems at first surprising that people so poor and despised as Gypsies should be found bearing names so time-honoured and imposing. There is, however, a tolerable explanation of the matter in the supposition that on their first arrival in England the different tribes sought the protection of certain grand powerful families, and were permitted by them to locate themselves on their heaths and amid their woodlands, and that they eventually adopted the names of their patrons. Here follow the English names of some of the principal tribes, with the Romany translations or equivalents:—

BOSWELL.—The proper meaning of this word is the town of Bui. The initial _Bo_ or _Bui_ is an old Northern name, signifying a colonist or settler, one who tills and builds. It was the name of a great many celebrated Northern _kempions_, who won land and a home by hard blows. The last syllable, _well_, is the French _ville_: Boswell, Boston, and Busby all signify one and the same thing—the town of Bui—the _well_ being French, the _ton_ Saxon, and the _by_ Danish; they are half-brothers of Bovil and Belville, both signifying fair town, and which ought to be written Beauville and Belville. The Gypsies, who know and care nothing about etymologies, confounding _bos_ with _buss_, a vulgar English verb not to be found in dictionaries, which signifies to kiss, rendered the name Boswell by _Chumomisto_, that is, Kisswell, or one who kisses well—_choom_ in their language signifying to kiss, and _misto_ well—likewise by _choomomescro_, a kisser. Vulgar as the word _buss_ may sound at present, it is by no means of vulgar origin, being connected with the Latin _basio_ and the Persian _bousè_.

GREY.—This is the name of a family celebrated in English history. The Gypsies who adopted it, rendered it into their language by _Gry_, a word very much resembling it in sound, though not in sense, for _gry_, which is allied to the Sanscrit _ghora_, signifies a horse. They had no better choice, however, for in Romany there is no word for grey, any more than there is for green or blue. In several languages there is a difficulty in expressing the colour which in English is called grey. In Celtic, for instance, there is no definite word for it; _glas_, it is true, is used to express it, but _glas_ is as frequently used to express green as it is to express grey.

HEARNE, HERNE.—This is the name of a family which bears the heron for its crest, the name being either derived from the crest, or the crest from the name. There are two Gypsy renderings of the _word_—_Rossar-mescro_ or _Ratzie-mescro_, and _Balorengre_. _Rossar-mescro_ signifies duck-fellow, the duck being substituted for the heron, for which there is no word in Romany. The meaning of _Balor-engre_ is hairy people; the translator or translators seeming to have confounded Hearne with ‘haaren,’ old English for hairs. The latter rendering has never been much in use.

LEE.—The Gypsy name of this tribe is _Purrum_, sometimes pronounced _Purrun_. The meaning of _Purrurn_ is an onion, and it may be asked what connection can there be between Lee and onion? None whatever: but there is some resemblance in sound between Lee and leek, and it is probable that the Gypsies thought so, and on that account rendered the name by _Purrum_, which, if not exactly a leek, at any rate signifies something which is cousin-german to a leek. It must be borne in mind that in some parts of England the name Lee is spelt Legh and Leigh, which would hardly be the case if at one time it had not terminated in something like a guttural, so that when the Gypsies rendered the name, perhaps nearly four hundred years ago, it sounded very much like ‘leek,’ and perhaps was Leek, a name derived from the family crest. At first the writer was of opinion that the name was _Purrun_, a modification of _pooro_, which in the Gypsy language signifies old, but speedily came to the conclusion that it must be _Purrum_, a leek or onion; for what possible reason could the Gypsies have for rendering Lee by a word which signifies old or ancient? whereas by rendering it by _Purrum_, they gave themselves a Gypsy name, which, if it did not signify Lee, must to their untutored minds have seemed a very good substitute for Lee. The Gypsy word _pooro_, old, belongs to Hindostan, and is connected with the Sanscrit _pura_, which signifies the same. _Purrum_ is a modification of the Wallachian _pur_, a word derived from the Latin _porrum_, an onion, and picked up by the Gypsies in Roumania or Wallachia, the natives of which region speak a highly curious mixture of Latin and Sclavonian.

LOVEL.—This is the name or title of an old and powerful English family. The meaning of it is Leo’s town, Lowe’s town, or Louis’ town. The Gypsies, who adopted it, seem to have imagined that it had something to do with love, for they translated it by _Camlo_ or _Caumlo_, that which is lovely or amiable, and also by _Camomescro_, a lover, an amorous person, sometimes used for ‘friend.’ _Camlo_ is connected with the Sanscrit _Cama_, which signifies love, and is the appellation of the Hindoo god of love. A name of the same root as the one borne by that divinity was not altogether inapplicable to the Gypsy tribe who adopted it: _Cama_, if all tales be true, was black, black though comely, a _Beltenebros_, and the Lovel tribe is decidedly the most comely and at the same time the darkest of all the Anglo-Egyptian families. The faces of many of them, male and female, are perfect specimens of black beauty. They are generally called by the race the _Kaulo Camloes_, the Black Comelies. And here, though at the risk of being thought digressive, the writer cannot forbear saying that the darkest and at one time the comeliest of all the _Caumlies_, a celebrated fortune-teller, and an old friend of his, lately expired in a certain old town, after attaining an age which was something wonderful. She had twenty-one brothers and sisters, and was the eldest of the family, on which account she was called “Rawnie P., pooroest of bis ta dui,” Lady P.—she had married out of the family—eldest of twenty-two.

MARSHALL.—The name Marshall has either to do with marshal, the title of a high military personage, or marches, the borders of contiguous countries. In the early Norman period it was the name of an Earl of Pembroke. The Gypsies who adopted the name seem in translating it to have been of opinion that it was connected with marshes, for they rendered it by _mokkado tan engre_, fellows of the wet or miry place, an appellation which at one time certainly became them well, for they are a northern tribe belonging to the Border, a country not very long ago full of mosses and miry places. Though calling themselves English, they are in reality quite as much Scotch as English, and as often to be found in Scotland as the other country, especially in Dumfriesshire and Galloway, in which latter region, in Saint Cuthbert’s churchyard, lies buried ‘the old man’ of the race,—Marshall, who died at the age of 107. They sometimes call themselves _Bungyoror_ and _Chikkeneymengre_, cork-fellows and china people, which names have reference to the occupations severally followed by the males and females, the former being cutters of bungs and corks, and the latter menders of china.

STANLEY.—This is the name or title of an ancient English family celebrated in history. It is probably descriptive of their original place of residence, for it signifies the stony lea, which is also the meaning of the Gaelic _Auchinlech_, the place of abode of the Scottish Boswells. It was adopted by an English Gypsy tribe, at one time very numerous, but at present much diminished. Of this name there are two renderings into Romany; one is _Baryor_ or _Baremescre_, stone-folks or stonemasons, the other is _Beshaley_. The first requires no comment, but the second is well worthy of analysis, as it is an example of the strange blunders which the Gypsies sometimes make in their attempts at translation. When they rendered Stanley by _Beshaley_ or _Beshley_, they mistook the first syllable _stan_ for ‘stand,’ but for a very good reason rendered it by _besh_, which signifies ‘to sit, and the second for a word in their own language, for _ley_ or _aley_ in Gypsy signifies ‘down,’ so they rendered Stanley by _Beshley_ or _Beshaley_, which signifies ‘sit down.’ Here, of course, it will be asked what reason could have induced them, if they mistook _stan_ for ‘stand,’ not to have rendered it by the Gypsy word for ‘stand’? The reason was a very cogent one, the want of a word in the Gypsy language to express ‘stand’; but they had heard in courts of justice witnesses told to stand down, so they supposed that to stand down was much the same as to sit down, whence their odd rendering of Stanley. In no dialect of the Gypsy, from the Indus to the Severn, is there any word for ‘stand,’ though in every one there is a word for ‘sit,’ and that is _besh_, and in every Gypsy encampment all along the vast distance, _Beshley_ or _Beshaley_ would be considered an invitation to sit down.

So much for the double-name system in use among the Gypsies of England. There is something in connection with the Gypsies of Spain which strangely coincides with one part of it—the translation of names. Among the relics of the language of the Gitanos or Spanish Gypsies are words, some simple and some compound, which are evidently attempts to translate names in a manner corresponding to the plan employed by the English Romany. In illustration of the matter, the writer will give an analysis of _Brono Aljenicato_, the rendering into Gitano of the name of one frequently mentioned in the New Testament, and once in the Apostles’ Creed, the highly respectable, but much traduced individual known to the English public as Pontius Pilate, to the Spanish as Poncio Pilato. The manner in which the rendering has been accomplished is as follows: _Poncio_ bears some resemblance to the Spanish _puente_, which signifies a bridge, and is a modification of the Latin _pons_, and _Pilato_ to the Spanish _pila_, a fountain, or rather a stone pillar, from the top of which the waters of a fountain springing eventually fall into a stone basin below, the two words—the _Brono Aljenicato_—signifying bridge-fountain, or that which is connected with such a thing. Now this is the identical, or all but the identical, way in which the names Lee, Lovel, and Stanley have been done into English Romany. A remarkable instance is afforded in this Gitano Scripture name, this _Brono Aljenicato_, of the heterogeneous materials of which Gypsy dialects are composed: _Brono_ is a modification of a Hindoo or Sanscrit, _Aljenicato_ of an Arabic root. _Brono_ is connected with the Sanscrit _pindala_, which signifies a bridge, and _Aljenicato_ is a modification of the Gypsy _aljenique_, derived from the Arabic _alain_, which signifies the fountain. But of whatever materials composed, a fine-sounding name is this same _Brono Aljenicato_, perhaps the finest sounding specimen of Spanish Gypsy extant, much finer than a translation of Pontius Pilate would be, provided the name served to express the same things, in English, which _Poncio Pilato_ serves to express in Spanish, for then it would be _Pudjico Pani_ or Bridgewater; for though in English Gypsy there is the word for a bridge, namely _pudge_, a modification of the Persian _pul_, or the Wallachian _podul_, there is none for a fountain, which can be only vaguely paraphrased by _pani_, water.

FORTUNE-TELLING

GYPSY women, as long as we have known anything of Gypsy history, have been arrant fortune-tellers. They plied fortune-telling about France and Germany as early as 1414, the year when the dusky bands were first observed in Europe, and they have never relinquished the practice. There are two words for fortune-telling in Gypsy, _bocht_ and _dukkering_. _Bocht_ is a Persian word, a modification of, or connected with, the Sanscrit _bagya_, which signifies ‘fate.’ _Dukkering_ is the modification of a Wallaco-Sclavonian word signifying something spiritual or ghostly. In Eastern European Gypsy, the Holy Ghost is called _Swentuno Ducos_.

Gypsy fortune-telling is much the same everywhere, much the same in Russia as it is in Spain and in England. Everywhere there are three styles—the lofty, the familiar, and the homely; and every Gypsy woman is mistress of all three and uses each according to the rank of the person whose _vast_ she _dukkers_, whose hand she reads, and adapts the luck she promises. There is a ballad of some antiquity in the Spanish language about the _Buena Ventura_, a few stanzas of which translated will convey a tolerable idea of the first of these styles to the reader, who will probably with no great reluctance dispense with any illustrations of the other two:—

Late rather one morning
cIn summer’s sweet tide,
Goes forth to the Prado
Jacinta the bride:

There meets her a Gypsy
So fluent of talk,
And jauntily dressed,
On the principal walk.

“O welcome, thrice welcome,
Of beauty thou flower!
Believe me, believe me,
Thou com’st in good hour.”

Surprised was Jacinta;
She fain would have fled;
But the Gypsy to cheer her
Such honeyed words said:

“O cheek like the rose-leaf!
O lady high-born!
Turn thine eyes on thy servant,
But ah, not in scorn.

“O pride of the Prado!
O joy of our clime!
Thou twice shalt be married,
And happily each time.

“Of two noble sons
Thou shalt be the glad mother,
One a Lord Judge,
A Field-Marshal the other.”

Gypsy females have told fortunes to higher people than the young Countess Jacinta: _Modor_—of the Gypsy quire of Moscow—told the fortune of Ekatarina, Empress of all the Russias. The writer does not know what the Ziganka told that exalted personage, but it appears that she gave perfect satisfaction to the Empress, who not only presented her with a diamond ring—a Russian diamond ring is not generally of much value—but also her hand to kiss. The writer’s old friend, Pepíta, the Gitana of Madrid, told the _bahi_ of Christina, the Regentess of Spain, in which she assured her that she would marry the son of the King of France, and received from the fair Italian a golden ounce, the most magnificent of coins, a guerdon which she richly merited, for she nearly hit the mark, for though Christina did not marry the son of the King of France, her second daughter was married to a son of the King of France, the Duke of M-, one of the three claimants of the crown of Spain, and the best of the lot; and Britannia, the Caumli, told the good luck to the Regent George on Newmarket Heath, and received ‘foive guineas’ and a hearty smack from him who eventually became George the Fourth—no bad fellow by the by, either as regent or king, though as much abused as Pontius Pilate, whom he much resembled in one point, unwillingness to take life—the _sonkaypè_ or gold-gift being, no doubt, more acceptable than the _choomapé_ or kiss-gift to the Beltenebrosa, who, if a certain song be true, had no respect for _gorgios_, however much she liked their money:—

Britannia is my nav;
I am a Kaulo Camlo;
The gorgios pen I be
A bori chovahaunie;
And tatchipen they pens,
The dinneleskie gorgies,
For mande chovahans
The luvvu from their putsies.

Britannia is my name;
I am a swarthy Lovel;
The Gorgios say I be
A witch of wondrous power;
And faith they speak the truth,
The silly, foolish fellows,
For often I bewitch
The money from their pockets.

Fortune-telling in all countries where the Gypsies are found is frequently the prelude to a kind of trick called in all Gypsy dialects by something more or less resembling the Sanscrit _kuhana_; for instance, it is called in Spain _jojana_, _hokano_, and in English _hukni_. It is practised in various ways, all very similar; the defrauding of some simple person of money or property being the object in view. Females are generally the victims of the trick, especially those of the middle class, who are more accessible to _the poor woman_ than those of the upper. One of the ways, perhaps the most artful, will be found described in another chapter.

THE HUKNI

THE Gypsy makes some poor simpleton of a lady believe that if the latter puts her gold into her hands, and she makes it up into a parcel, and puts it between the lady’s feather-bed and mattress, it will at the end of a month be multiplied a hundredfold, provided the lady does not look at it during all that time. On receiving the money she makes it up into a brown paper parcel, which she seals with wax, turns herself repeatedly round, squints, and spits, and then puts between the feather-bed and mattress—not the parcel of gold, but one exactly like it, which she has prepared beforehand, containing old halfpence, farthings, and the like; then, after cautioning the lady by no means to undo the parcel before the stated time, she takes her departure singing to herself:—

O dear me! O dear me!
What dinnelies these gorgies be.

The above artifice is called by the English Gypsies the _hukni_, and by the Spanish _hokhano baro_, or the great lie. _Hukni_ and _hokano_ were originally one and the same word; the root seems to be the Sanscrit _huhanã_, lie, trick, deceit.

CAURING

THE Gypsy has some queer, old-fashioned gold piece; this she takes to some goldsmith’s shop, at the window of which she has observed a basin full of old gold coins, and shows it to the goldsmith, asking him if he will purchase it. He looks at it attentively, and sees that it is of very pure gold; whereupon he says that he has no particular objection to buy it; but that as it is very old it is not of much value, and that he has several like it. “Have you indeed, Master?” says the Gypsy; “then pray show them to me, and I will buy them; for, to tell you the truth, I would rather buy than sell pieces like this, for I have a great respect for them, and know their value: give me back my coin, and I will compare any you have with it.” The goldsmith gives her back her coin, takes his basin of gold from the window, and places it on the counter. The Gypsy puts down her head, and pries into the basin. “Ah, I see nothing here like my coin,” says she. “Now, Master, to oblige me, take out a handful of the coins and lay them on the counter; I am a poor, honest woman, Master, and do not wish to put my hand into your basin. Oh! if I could find one coin like my own, I would give much money for it; _barributer_ than it is worth.” The goldsmith, to oblige the poor, simple, foreign creature (for such he believes her to be), and, with a considerable hope of profit, takes a handful of coins from the basin and puts them upon the counter. “I fear there is none here like mine, Master,” says the Gypsy, moving the coins rapidly with the tips of her fingers. “No, no, there is not one here like mine—_kek yeck_, _kek yeck_—not one, not one. Stay, stay! What’s this, what’s this? _So se cavo_, _so se cavo_? Oh, here is one like mine; or if not quite like, like enough to suit me. Now, Master, what will you take for this coin?” The goldsmith looks at it, and names a price considerably above the value; whereupon she says: “Now, Master, I will deal fairly with you: you have not asked me the full value of the coin by three three-groats, three-groats, three-groats; by _trin tringurushis_, _tringurushis_, _tringurushis_. So here’s the money you asked, Master, and three three-groats, three shillings, besides. God bless you, Master! You would have cheated yourself, but the poor woman would not let you; for though she is poor she is honest”: and thus she takes her leave, leaving the goldsmith very well satisfied with his customer—with little reason, however, for out of about twenty coins which he laid on the counter she had filched at least three, which her brown nimble fingers, though they seemingly scarcely touched the gold, contrived to convey up her sleeves. This kind of pilfering is called by the English Gypsies _cauring_, and by the Spanish _ustilar pastesas_, or stealing with the fingers. The word _caur_ seems to be connected with the English _cower_, and the Hebrew _kãra_, a word of frequent occurrence in the historical part of the Old Testament, and signifying to bend, stoop down, _incurvare_.

METROPOLITAN GYPSYRIES

WANDSWORTH, 1864

WHAT may be called the grand Metropolitan Gypsyry is on the Surrey side of the Thames. Near the borders of Wandsworth and Battersea, about a quarter of a mile from the river, is an open piece of ground which may measure about two acres. To the south is a hill, at the foot of which is a railway, and it is skirted on the north by the Wandsworth and Battersea Road. This place is what the Gypsies call a _kekkeno mushes puv_, a no man’s ground; a place which has either no proprietor, or which the proprietor, for some reason, makes no use of for the present. The houses in the neighbourhood are mean and squalid, and are principally inhabited by artisans of the lowest description. This spot, during a considerable portion of the year, is the principal place of residence of the Metropolitan Gypsies, and of other people whose manner of life more or less resembles theirs. During the summer and autumn the little plain, for such it is, is quite deserted, except that now and then a wretched tent or two may be seen upon it, belonging to some tinker family, who have put up there for a few hours on their way through the metropolis; for the Gypsies are absent during summer, some at fairs and races, the men with their cocoa-nuts and the women busy at fortune-telling, or at suburban places of pleasure—the former with their donkeys for the young cockneys to ride upon, and the latter as usual _dukkering_ and _hokkering_, and the other travellers, as they are called, roaming about the country following their particular avocations, whilst in the autumn the greater part of them all are away in Kent, getting money by picking hops. As soon, however, as the rains, the precursors of winter, descend, the place begins to be occupied, and about a week or two before Christmas it is almost crammed with the tents and caravans of the wanderers; and then it is a place well worthy to be explored, notwithstanding the inconvenience of being up to one’s ankles in mud, and the rather appalling risk of being bitten by the Gypsy and travelling dogs tied to the tents and caravans, in whose teeth there is always venom and sometimes that which can bring on the water-horror, for which no European knows a remedy. The following is an attempt to describe the odd people and things to be met with here; the true Gypsies, and what to them pertaineth, being of course noticed first.

On this plain there may be some fifteen or twenty Gypsy tents and caravans. Some of the tents are large, as indeed it is highly necessary that they should be, being inhabited by large families—a man and his wife, a grandmother a sister or two and half a dozen children, being, occasionally found in one; some of them are very small, belonging to poor old females who have lost their husbands, and whose families have separated themselves from them, and allow them to shift for themselves. During the day the men are generally busy at their several avocations, _chinning the cost_, that is, cutting the stick for skewers, making pegs for linen-lines, _kipsimengring_ or basket-making, tinkering or braziering; the children are playing about, or begging halfpence by the road of passengers; whilst the women are strolling about, either in London or the neighbourhood, engaged in fortune-telling or swindling. Of the trades of the men, the one by far the most practised is _chinning the cost_, and as they sit at the door of the tents, cutting and whittling away, they occasionally sweeten their toil by raising their voices and singing the Gypsy stanza in which the art is mentioned, and which for terseness and expressiveness is quite equal to anything in the whole circle of Gentile poetry:

Can you rokra Romany?
Can you play the bosh?
Can you jal adrey the staripen?
Can you chin the cost?

Can you speak the Roman tongue?
Can you play the fiddle?
Can you eat the prison-loaf?
Can you cut and whittle?