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THE GYPSY’S PARSON
THE GYPSY’S PARSON
HIS EXPERIENCES AND ADVENTURES BY The Rev . GEORGE HALL RECTOR OF RUCKLAND, LINCOLNSHIRE ILLUSTRATED PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY London : SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & CO. LTD. TO MY WIFE MY COMPANION ON MANY A GYPSY-JAUNT “ They cast the glamour o’er him .” “ You must forgive us. We are barbarians. . . . We are ruffians of the sun . . . and we must be forgiven everything.” “It is easy to forgive in the sun,” Domini said. “Madame, it is impossible to be anything but lenient in the s
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PREFACE
PREFACE
Not a few writers have essayed to study the Gypsies in dusty libraries. I have companioned with them on fell and common, racecourse and fairground, on the turfy wayside and in the city’s heart. In my book, which is a record of actual experiences, I have tried to present the Gypsies just as I have found them, without minimising their faults or magnifying their virtues. Most of the Gypsies mentioned in the following pages have now passed away, and of those who remain, many have, for obvious rea
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CHAPTER I GYPSY COURT—MY INITIATION INTO GYPSYDOM
CHAPTER I GYPSY COURT—MY INITIATION INTO GYPSYDOM
A TANGLE of sequestered streets lying around a triple-towered cathedral; red roofs and gables massed under the ramparts of an ancient castle; a grey Roman arch lit up every spring-time by the wallflower’s mimic gold; an old-world Bailgate over whose tavern yards drifted the sleepy music of the minster chimes; a crooked by-lane leading down to a wide common loved by the winds of heaven—these were the surroundings of my childhood’s home in that hilltop portion of Lincoln which has never quite thro
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CHAPTER II CHARACTERS OF THE COURT—READING BORROW
CHAPTER II CHARACTERS OF THE COURT—READING BORROW
A FEW miles outside my native city, there stands on the bank of the Roman Fossdyke a lonely house known as “Drinsey Nook,” formerly a tavern with bowling greens, swings, and skittle alleys, a resort of wagonette and boating parties out for a frolic in the sunshine. Often on bygone summer eves have I loitered about the old inn gleaming white amid its guardian trees, but best of all I loved to see the beechen boughs drop their fiery leaves upon its mossy roof in the fading of the year. To-day, as
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CHAPTER III NORTH-COUNTRY GYPSIES
CHAPTER III NORTH-COUNTRY GYPSIES
A TYPICAL colliery village in a bleak northern county was the scene of my first curacy. Silhouettes of ugliness were its black pit buildings, dominated by a mountain of burning refuse exhaling night and day a poisonous breath which tarnished your brass candlesticks and rendered noxious the “long, unlovely street” of the parish. What in the name of wisdom induced me to pitch my tent in such a spot, I can scarcely say at this distance of time, unless perhaps it was a mad desire to rub against so
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CHAPTER IV MY POACHING PUSSY—A ROMANY BENISON—MY FIRST TASTE OF HEDGEHOG
CHAPTER IV MY POACHING PUSSY—A ROMANY BENISON—MY FIRST TASTE OF HEDGEHOG
My clerical life has been spent for the most part in green country places, chiefly amid wind-swept hills. Consequently one has learned to delight in the creatures that run and fly, the wild things of wood and wold and brookside, and this love of Nature and her children has never left me; it has companioned with me throughout my wanderings. Give me now an elevated crest commanding a broad sweep of field and forest, with the swift rush of keen air over the furze bushes, a footpath among the thor
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CHAPTER V A GYPSY BAPTISM—ROMANY NAMES
CHAPTER V A GYPSY BAPTISM—ROMANY NAMES
Quitting the Wolds, described in the preceding chapter, I took up my abode in a large village situated on Lincoln Heath, where I had further opportunities of pursuing my Gypsy studies round about home. In a sinuous turfy lane which ran behind our house, the Gypsies would pitch their camp from time to time, and one of these wandering families conceived the notion of renting a cottage in the village. In my mind’s eye I can see that little house, wearing a lost, desolate air. It stood in a walled
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CHAPTER VI I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
CHAPTER VI I MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE
For several years I was curate-in-charge of a parish abutting upon the Great North Road, and during that time I used to meet many Gypsies on the famous highway. There passed along it members of the Boswell clan, making their way from Edinburgh to London; the dark Herons, after spending the summer months in the Northern Counties, came by this route to their winter quarters at Nottingham; a lawless horde of Lovells also knew this road well. Sometimes these Gypsies would turn aside from the dusty
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CHAPTER VII THE BLACKPOOL GYPSYRY
CHAPTER VII THE BLACKPOOL GYPSYRY
It has been said that if an architect, a caterer, and a poet were commissioned to construct out of our existing south and east coast resorts a place which, in its appeal to the million, might compare with Blackpool, they would utterly fail, a saying not to be questioned for a moment. Yet the sight which thrilled me most, as I beheld it years ago, was not the cluster of gilded pleasure-palaces in the town, but the gay Gypsyry squatting on the sand-dunes at the extremity of the South Shore. Livin
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CHAPTER VIII A TRENTSIDE FAIR
CHAPTER VIII A TRENTSIDE FAIR
Overnight a welcome rain had fallen upon a thirsty land, and morning broke cool and grey, with a lively breeze stirring the tree-tops, and shaking the raindrops from the grasses, as I strode along the banks of the river Trent, with my face set towards West Stockwith Horse Fair. The long, dry summer was drawing to a close, and there was an agreeable sense of novelty in the rain-drenched aspect of the countryside. After a harvest prematurely ripened by an exuberance of sunshine, brown-cheeked Se
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CHAPTER IX TAKEN FOR TRAMPS—AN EAST ANGLIAN FAMILY
CHAPTER IX TAKEN FOR TRAMPS—AN EAST ANGLIAN FAMILY
Day after day, in the woods around our village, the autumnal gales roared and ravened with unabated fury, snapping brittle boughs, cracking decrepit boles, and piling up drifts of brown leaves around grey roots protruding like half-buried bones through the mossy woodland floor. Then right in the midst of it all came a spell of calm weather, as if summer had stolen back to her former haunts in sylvan glade and ferny lane. Call it by what name you please, this brief season of sunny repose follow
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CHAPTER X PETERBOROUGH FAIR
CHAPTER X PETERBOROUGH FAIR
The twentieth century has witnessed a remarkable revival of certain old-time pleasures in the form of pageants and pastoral plays, folk-songs, and dances, but it should not be overlooked that in our midst still linger those popular revels, tattered survivals of medieval mirth, called pleasure-fairs, held periodically in most of our old country towns. It is true, these ancient fairs are not what they were, Father Time having laid his hand heavily upon them, with the result that not a few of thei
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CHAPTER XI A FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY—“ON THE ROAD” WITH JONATHAN—THE PATRIN—THE GHOST OF THE HAYSTACK
CHAPTER XI A FORGOTTEN HIGHWAY—“ON THE ROAD” WITH JONATHAN—THE PATRIN—THE GHOST OF THE HAYSTACK
“ We was all brought up on this Old Dyke. We’s hatsh ’d (camped) on it in all weathers. I knows every yard of it. Ay, the fine kanengrê (hares) we’s taken from these here fields.” The speaker was my old friend, Jonathan Boswell, who with his tilt-cart had overtaken me whilst strolling along the grass-grown Roman Ermine Street which traverses the broad Heath stretching southward of Lincoln. At the Gypsy’s cheery invitation, I joined him on his seat under the overarching tilt. Behind us were
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CHAPTER XII THE GYPSY OF THE TOWN
CHAPTER XII THE GYPSY OF THE TOWN
In the sunny forenoon I was walking in one of the airy suburbs of Nottingham, and, passing by the entrance to some livery stables, I noticed on a sign-board in prominent yellow letters on a black ground the surname of Boss. This it was that brought me to a standstill in front of the large doors in a high wall. “A Romany name,” I said to myself. “I ought to find a Gypsy here;” and, pushing open one of the doors, I saw before me an office with masses of brown wallflower abloom beneath a wide-op
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CHAPTER XIII WITH THE YORKSHIRE GYPSIES
CHAPTER XIII WITH THE YORKSHIRE GYPSIES
As I have said, Gypsies settled in houses now greatly outnumber their roving brethren. Hence it has come to pass that nearly every town in the land possesses a Bohemian quarter where you are met by dark faces and sidelong glances speaking of Gypsy blood. Nor can the student of Gypsy life and manners afford to neglect these haunts despite their dinginess, for as often as not they contain aged Gypsies whose memories are well worth ransacking for lore and legend, and in “working” these queer alle
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CHAPTER XIV A NIGHT WITH THE GYPSIES—THE SWEEP OF LYNN—LONDON GYPSIES—ON EPSOM DOWNS
CHAPTER XIV A NIGHT WITH THE GYPSIES—THE SWEEP OF LYNN—LONDON GYPSIES—ON EPSOM DOWNS
“ It ain’t fit to turn a dog out o’ doors, that it ain’t, so you’d better make up your mind to stop all night.” Saying this, Gypsy Ladin closed the porch door, but not without difficulty, for a gale was battering upon the wayside bungalow. Half an hour ago, as I hurried along the willow-fringed “ramper” on my way to see this old Romany pal, black rain-clouds, bulging low over the fenland wapentake, had foretold an approaching storm; and now with the descent of the May night the tempest had burs
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CHAPTER XV TINKERS AND GRINDERS
CHAPTER XV TINKERS AND GRINDERS
A PLAGUE of an incline to joints stiffened by age, the Steep Hill at Lincoln is for me aureoled by all the fair colours of youth. Have I not more than once rent my nether garments in gliding down the adjacent hand-rail? Likewise in the time of snow have I not, defiant of police-notices, made slides where the gradient is sharpest? Now it happened one day that under the shadow of the ancient, timbered houses just below the crown of the hill there stood at his workshop on wheels a Gypsy tinker wh
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CHAPTER XVI THE INN ON THE RIDGEWAY—TALES BY THE FIRESIDE
CHAPTER XVI THE INN ON THE RIDGEWAY—TALES BY THE FIRESIDE
At one time I had a great liking for long jaunts in search of fossils—cross-country rambles extending over two or three days. Thus I came to know many a deserted quarry and unfrequented byway of our county, as well as the bedchambers of sundry remote wayside inns—“hedge-taverns,” perhaps some would have described these lonely little houses of call. Occasionally, however, I lighted upon an inn which had seen better days, a sleepy old house with mullioned casements, a worn mounting-block of ston
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CHAPTER XVII HORNCASTLE FAIR
CHAPTER XVII HORNCASTLE FAIR
Like Lincoln, York, and Chester, the town of Horncastle originated within the boundaries of a Roman castrum , and to this day an old-world atmosphere clings to its narrow, cobbled streets. Readers who know their Borrow will recall the visit of “The Romany Rye” to Horncastle in the August of 1825, in order to sell a horse which he had purchased by means of a loan from his Gypsy friend Jasper. Nowhere perhaps are the changes wrought by the passing years more plainly seen than at a horse-fair of an
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CHAPTER XVIII A GYPSY SEPULCHRE—BURIAL LORE—THE PASSING OF JONATHAN
CHAPTER XVIII A GYPSY SEPULCHRE—BURIAL LORE—THE PASSING OF JONATHAN
In Tetford churchyard, not far from my Rectory on the Lincolnshire Wolds, lies the grave of two celebrated Gypsies, Tyso Boswell and Edward, or “No Name,” Hearn (Heron), who were killed by lightning on 5th August 1831. The incident seems to have made a profound impression upon our Gypsies, and to this day it is everywhere remembered among the Anglo-Romany clans. A large company of the Boswells and Hearns (Herons) appear to have halted at Tetford on their way to Horncastle August Fair, at that
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CHAPTER XIX BITSHADO PAWDEL (TRANSPORTED)
CHAPTER XIX BITSHADO PAWDEL (TRANSPORTED)
Thickly sprinkled with Gypsy names are the “Transportation Lists” (1787–1867) reposing on the shelves of the Public Record Office in London; yet as your eye scans those lists of names, how dull and ordinary they look. It is not until you embark upon the arduous task of tracking individuals in old newspaper files that you realize the charm of unearthing buried romances in which the Gypsies played a part. If, on the one hand, the wildness and roughness of the times are fully impressed upon your m
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CHAPTER XX A ROMANY MUNCHAUSEN
CHAPTER XX A ROMANY MUNCHAUSEN
The Gypsies are an imaginative folk, delighting, like children, in romances and romancing; and if one may judge from the array of folk-tales [256] already collected from them, these wanderers appear to possess the gift of story-telling in generous measure. To this day, in Eastern Europe, the Gypsies still pursue their ancient rôle of tale-telling, mystifying their hearers with stories which perhaps they brought out of India many centuries ago. Here, in the West, no one can mingle intimately wi
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I
I
May 12.—Just as I stepped out of the train at Corwen, thick vapours, blotting out the mountains, made up their minds to let down rain. Five years before, on landing at the same station, it was only to find a tornado howling over the land and heavy rain falling. That wild night I’m not likely to forget in a hurry. . . . At last, after an hour’s wait in a snug hostelry, I set off along the Holyhead Road, having a certain encampment in my mind’s eye. At the “Goat” Inn, where the by-road turns of
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II
II
September 27.—We are at Sedbergh, a little grey town at the foot of the Yorkshire Fells. Stone walls, narrow streets, old inns—all have their outlines softened by the mellow shadows, half-golden, half-brown, stealing over the place this afternoon. Looking out from a tavern window I experience a thrill. There in the street stand two vehicles, a vâdo and a tilt-cart, with sleek horses between their shafts. That tilt-cart I should know anywhere, for under its weathered hood I have dreamt happy
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CHAPTER XXII FURZEMOOR
CHAPTER XXII FURZEMOOR
Are you seeking a recipe for youth? Go a-Gypsying. Forth to the winding road under the open sky, the Gypsies are calling you. Scorning our hurrying mode of life, these folk are content to loiter beneath the green beeches, or in the shadow of some old inn on the fringe of a windy common. Like Nature herself, these wildlings of hers overflow with the play-spirit and therefore remain ever youthful. To rub shoulders with them, I have found, is to acquire a laughing indifference to dull care and
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PRONUNCIATION [291]
PRONUNCIATION [291]
As In â alms (âms). a aloe (alô). aw all (awl). ê ale (êl). è air (èr). e ell (el). î eel (îl). i ill (il). ô old (ôld). o olive (oliv). û ooze (ûz). u book (buk). ù ulcer (ùlsa). As In ai aisle (ail). oi oyster (oista). ou ounce (ouns). The following are pronounced as in English:— b, d, f, h, k, l, m, n, p, t, v, w. v and w are, as a rule, easily interchangeable. As In y yes (yes). r roam (rôm). ch loch (Scottish loch). s ass (as). sh shin (shin). tsh chin (tshin). z zest (zest). zh pleas
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VOCABULARY.
VOCABULARY.
Romany . English . Adrê In, into, within. Akai Here. Apopli Again. Aprê On, upon. Av Come. Âva, âvali, âwa, âwali Yes, certainly, verily Avrî Away, out. Bâ Stone, sovereign (£1). Baiengri Waistcoat. Bal Hair. Balovas Bacon, ham. Barvelo Rich. Baw Comrade, mate. Bawlo Pig. Bawro Great, large. Bawro-Gav London. Beng Devil. Besh Sit, rest, lie. Bîbi Aunt. Biken Sell. Bita Little. Bitshado Sent. Bitshado-pawdel Sent over, transported. Bok Luck. Bokro Sheep. Bokro-mas Mutton. Bongo Crooked, lame, w
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Mumper’s Patter
Mumper’s Patter
Dunnock Steer. Mush-fakir Umbrella-mender....
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Masculine Names.
Masculine Names.
Airant. Aniel. Artelus. Baius. Barendon. Bartholoways. Bohemia. Bosko. Boufi. Buzi. Craimia. Credi. Dimiti. Dinki. Doval. Dud. Duraia. Dusti. Eros. Evergreen. Feli. Fennix. Fowk. Ganation. Glympton. Golias. Gōni. Gui. Haini. Harkles. Harodain. Hedji. Înan. Îthil. Îza. Jaina. Kaivela. Kashi. Khulai. Ladin. Lamerok. Leshi. Liberty. Logan. Loni. Lumas. Lusha. Mairik. Manabel. Manfri. Manful. Mantis. Meriful. Moelus. Morpus. Moti. Motsha. Motshan. Motshus. Muldobrai. Nelus. Niabai. Nipkin. Nitshel.
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Feminine Names.
Feminine Names.
Acorn. Alamina. Andelia. Angelis. Anis. Ashena. Ashila. Aslog. Begonia. Bidi. Biti. Bobum. Boina. Consuleti. Daiena. Darklis. Delaia. Delenda. Deleta. Deloreni. Dorenia. Edingel. Eldorai. Elophia. Elvaira. Emanaia. Erosabel. Everilda. Ezi. Fazenti. Femi. Fernet. Fianci. Fili. Florentia. Fluenzi. Froniga. Genti. Glorina. Graveleni. Idadê. Inji. Jeta. Jōni. Kadilia. Kerlenda. Kiomi. Kodi. Kraisini. Laini. Lavaina. Leanabel. Lenda. Leondra. Levaithen. Lidi. Linji. Liti. Lurina. Lusana. Lwaiden. Mad
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