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.
Living-vans of green and gold with their flapping canvas covers; domed
tents whose blankets of red and grey had faded at the touch of sun and
wind; boarden porches and outgrowths of a fantastic character, the work
of Romany carpenters; unabashed advertisements announcing Gypsy queens
patronized by duchesses and lords; bevies of black-eyed, wheedling
witches eager to pounce upon the stroller into Gypsydom; and troops of
fine children, shock-headed and jolly—all these I beheld in the Gypsyry
which is now no more. “Life enjoyed to the last” might well have been
its epitaph.
Those were the days of Old Sarah Boswell and her nephews Kenza and Oscar;
Johnny and Wasti Gray; Elijah Heron and his son Poley; Bendigo and
Morjiana Purum; the vivacious Robinsons; Dolferus Petulengro and Noarus
Tâno; some of whom, alas, “have joined the people whom no true Romany
will call by name.”
[Picture: On the Look-Out. Photo. T. J. Lewis]
Hot June sunshine flooded the sandhills on the afternoon of my entry into
the encampment, which, by the way, was made strategetically from the
rear. Thus it was that I lighted upon the retired tent of the oldest
occupants of the Gypsyry. Unlike the alert and expectant Romany mothers
and maids who hovered about this Gypsy town’s front gate, Ned Boswell’s
widow sat drowsing at the tent door, overpowered by the midsummer heat.
I was about to turn away, intending to revisit the old lady later on,
when her son Alma, the lynx-eyed, popped upon me from round the corner,
and in a sandy hollow a little way off we were soon deep in conversation.
“Now, _rashai_,” said Alma, after we had talked awhile, “there’s one
thing I would like to ask you. Where do you think us _Romanitshel_s
reely origin’d from?”
Here I was confronted by a question which has been asked throughout the
ages, and addressed to myself how many times?
Who are the Gypsies, and where did they come from? Bulky tomes have been
filled with scholarly speculations upon these questions, and so varied
have been the conclusions arrived at that we appear to be no nearer to
the solution of the mystery than when about the year 1777 the German
Rudiger first made known to the world that the Gypsies spoke an Indian
dialect, which discovery is said “to have injured more than it served in
the quest after the origin of the Gypsies, because it has prevented
scholars from searching for it.” Taking philology for our guide, we may
believe that the ancestors of our Gypsies tarried for centuries in
North-West India, a region which they quitted with their faces set
towards the west not later than about 1000 A.D. To quote the words of an
authority {73} on the linguistic side of the problem: “Their language
proves that they once inhabited Northern India, but as no Indian writers
have left any documents describing this people, their mode of life in
India, and the most interesting point of all, why they emigrated, must
for ever remain a matter for conjecture. It is, however, surprising what
can be proved from our present knowledge of their language, which, it is
generally admitted, must rank as an independent eighth among the seven
modern Indian languages of the Aryan stock, based on Sanskrit. To begin
with, the grammatical peculiarities of the language of the Gypsies
resemble those of the modern Aryan languages of India so closely that it
is impossible not to believe that they were developed side by side.
Comparing Gypsy and Hindi, for example, we find that their declensions
are based exactly on the same principle, that neither has a real genitive
case, that both decline their adjectives only when used as nouns. Now it
is generally held that these modern forms came slowly into existence
throughout the eleventh century, when the old synthetical structure of
the Sanskrit was broken up and thrown into confusion, but not quite lost,
while the modern auxiliary verbs and prepositions were as yet hardly
fully established in their stead. Therefore, it is extremely unlikely
that the Gypsies left India before the tenth century, when they could
have carried away with them, so to speak, the germs of the new
construction, absorbed on Indian soil.”
From the words they borrowed from Persia, Armenia, and Greece, we know
that the wanderers passed through these countries on their way westward,
but, since no Arabic or Coptic words are found in the Gypsy tongue, we
infer that they were never in Egypt. The theory of the Egyptian origin
of the _Romanitshel_s probably arose from legends which they themselves
set afloat.
Two stories were repeated by the Gypsies. They said that they were
Egyptian penitents on a seven years’ pilgrimage. The Saracens had
attacked them in Egypt, and, having surrendered to their enemies, they
became Saracens themselves and denied Christ. Now, as a penance, they
were ordered to travel for seven years without sleeping in a bed. A
second story was that their exile was a punishment for the sin of having
refused hospitality to Joseph and the Virgin Mary when they fled into
Egypt with the newborn Christ-child to escape the anger of Herod.
Associated with the Gypsies are other legends which may have been
invented by them for similar purposes. An old tradition asserts that
Caspar, one of the three Magi, was a Gypsy, and that it was he who (as
their ruler) first converted them to the Christian religion. The
Lithuanian Gypsies say that stealing has been permitted in their favour
by God because the Gypsies, being present at the Crucifixion, stole one
of the four nails, and therefore God allows them to steal, and it is not
accounted a sin to them.
Needless to say, the foregoing statements were not delivered to Alma
Boswell. Of their actual history the Anglo-Romany folk know nothing, but
this does not prevent them from holding some curious notions about
themselves. So, in response to Alma’s question about the origin of the
Gypsies, I replied that great scholars believed his race to have come
from India.
“Oh, I think they’re wrong,” said Alma. “Far more likely we came from
the land of Bethlehem. Being a _rashai_ (parson), you’ll know the Bible,
I suppose, from cover to cover. Well, you’ve heard of the man called
Cain. Now, don’t the Old Book say that he went away and married a
black-eyed camper-gal, one of our roving folks? I reckons we sprang from
them. We was the first people what the dear Lord made, and mebbe we
shall be the last on earth. When all the rest is wore out, there’ll
still be a few of our folks travelling with tents and wagons.”
Such was Alma’s idea of the origin of the Gypsies.
“But there,” he continued, “you must read my Uncle Westarus’s big book
all about our people. There was a doctor and a lawyer, wery kind
gentlemen, real _bawrê raiaw_ (swells), who used to talk to my uncle for
hours on end, and they wrote down every word he said, and then he wrote
them a sight of letters, wery long ones, and they are all of ’em in
print. So if you reads that book, you’ll larn all as is’ known about
us.”
Alma’s Uncle Westarus was certainly a remarkable Gypsy, possessing quite
a library, which he carried about with him on his travels. It is on
record that at the age of fifty-five his library included several volumes
of fiction, history, poetry, and science, a large Bible, a Church of
England Prayer Book, Burns’s _Justice_, as well as English, Greek, and
Latin dictionaries.
For the information of those who may not already know it, the volume
designated by Alma “my uncle’s book” is a most valuable _vade mecum_ for
Gypsy students entitled _The Dialect of the English Gypsies_, by Dr. Bath
Smart and Mr. H. T. Crofton.
There was a strong dash of Gypsy pride in Alma’s remark that the Boswells
were the only real Gypsies left. “These others all about us are _kek
tatsho_” (not genuine), he said, with a wave of the hand; “they’re only
half-breeds.”
“But,” I queried, “are not the Herons and Lees good Gypsies?” Then,
veering from his first statement, he admitted that the families I had
named might be allowed a place among the old roots.
Then followed a discussion about grades of Gypsy blood. These were
classified by Alma—
1. The Black _Romanitshel_s, “the real thing.”
2. The _Didakai_s, or half-breeds, who pronounce the Romany words _dik
akai_ (look here) as _did akai_.
3. Hedge-crawlers, or mumpers. “There’s a lot of ’em up London way,”
said Alma. “We’d scorn to go near the likes of them—a _tshikli_ (dirty)
lot, not Gypsies at all.”
In his last remark Alma certainly hit the nail on the head. The
distinction between the Gypsy and the mumper cannot be too strongly
emphasized. Anyone who has known members of our old Gypsy families, such
as the Boswells, Grays, Herons, Lees, Lovells, Smiths, Stanleys, and
Woods, will never again make the grave error of confounding the Gypsy
with the mumper.
Rising from our hollow in the sand, we walked a little way between the
tents, and when Alma took the railway crossing for a ramble in the town,
I betook myself to his mother’s tent. Having just aroused from sleep,
the old lady was somewhat absent-minded, but she was quickly on the alert
at hearing my greeting in Romany.
“What gibberish is it you’re talking, my gentleman?”
“You understand it well enough, I’m thinking, mother.”
So blank was her look, so well-feigned her ignorance, that for the nonce
it seemed that after all the ancient language of the tents was a delusion
and a dream.
Then methought of a plan I had tried before. Having for many years made
a study of Gypsy pedigrees, I have often been able to give a temporary
shock to a Gypsy’s mind by telling him the names of his
great-grandfathers and of his uncles and aunts, paternal and maternal.
“How came you to know all this, Mr. Hall?” my Gypsy will ask. “You
certainly don’t look an old man.”
It was now my turn to pretend ignorance.
“If it’s not being very inquisitive, Mrs. Boswell, I am wondering what
your maiden-name may have been?”
“That I won’t tell you, and nobody in this town knows what it was.”
“Is that really so? Fancy, no one in Blackpool knows your maiden-name.”
“Not a soul.” (This very solemnly.)
“Then what if I can tell you?”
“Well, what was it, my gentleman?” eyeing me curiously.
“You are one of the Drapers—Old Israel’s daughter, if I’m not mistaken”
(looking straight into her large eyes as though reading the information
at the back of her brain), “and your two sisters were Rodi and Lani.”
If a stone figure had spoken, she could scarcely have looked more amazed,
and, quite forgetting herself, she exclaimed—
“_Av adrê_, _mi tshavo_, and _besh tălê_” (Come inside, my son, and sit
down).
Mrs. Boswell’s manner was now so amiable, and her voice so soft, that as
she handed me cake and tea, I felt as if I had known her all my life.
All who have ever met a pure-bred Gypsy will know what Romany politeness
is, and how charming a sense of the fitness of things these wanderers
possess. As one who has worked hard at Gypsy genealogy, I have myself
often been surprised at one thing. A member of the _kawlo rat_ (black
blood) will betray no inquisitiveness in regard to his tiresome
interlocutor who may be a perfect stranger to him. How many of us, I
wonder, would care to be subjected to such an inquisition as we sometimes
inflict upon a Gypsy by our interrogations as to his ancestry? Yet the
Gypsy apparently takes it all with complacence and good humour.
When taking mine ease behind the scenes in a Gypsy camp, it has often
amused me to observe how extremes meet. After all, the tastes of the
high and the low are not so very far removed. If the duchess is proud of
her blue blood and her ancestral tree, so is the Gypsy of her black blood
and lengthy pedigree. I have known “swells” who liked their game so
“high” that it almost ran into the fields again, a taste akin to the
Gypsy’s liking for _mulo-mas_. The Gypsy mother’s love for her black
cutty joins hands with the after-dinner cigarette in my lady’s boudoir.
It goes without saying that politeness is a stamp of both extremes.
In the cool of the evening I wandered inland to a sequestered camp, where
Isaac and Sinfai Heron, those aristocrats of their race, sat by their
fire in an angle where two hedgerows met.
“We likes a bit o’ quiet, you see,” said the slender, gracious Sinfai,
when I asked why they had pitched on a spot so far from Blackpool’s South
Shore.
“Get the _rai_ one o’ the rugs to _besh oprê_” (sit upon), said Isaac to
his grandson Walter, who trotted off briskly to a large tent, and
reappeared with a smartly striped coverlet, which he spread for me
beneath the hedge. A second grandson, with a similar alacrity, set off
at Sinfai’s bidding to find sticks for the fire. The devotion of these
lads to their grandparents seemed to spring from a sense of comradery
rather than reverence, and the quaint deference paid in turn by the old
people to the boys impressed me not a little—a thing I have often
observed in Romany camps.
Old Isaac’s memory carried him back to Mousehold Heath of the long ago,
and, listening to his talk, one could see the brown tents and smoking
fires amid the ling and fern. Among the Gypsies reclining by those fires
were the Smiths, the Maces, the Pinfolds, and the Grays—Sinfai’s folk—and
of course some of the old Herons. Niabai, Isaac’s father, would sit
mending kettles, for, like many of the Gypsies of those days, he was a
tinker by calling, and when on travel would carry his grindstone on his
back. Sometimes of an evening, “Mister Burrow” would walk up on to the
Heath for a chat with Niabai and his wife “Crowy,” so called by reason of
her very dark features. Borrow picked up from Crowy many a Romany _lav_
(word). Gypsy fights were common on the Heath, and at times the fern
would be trampled down by the crowds who came from far and near to
witness these thrilling scenes.
Old Isaac had two uncles of whom he made mention—William Heron, always
known as “the handsome man,” and Robert Heron, known as “the lame man.”
Examples of a remarkable exactness of observation are Borrow’s
pen-portraits of the two last-named brothers contained in the
Introduction to _The Zincali_. The writer does not mention them by name,
but when I submitted a memorized version of these word-pictures to my
friend Isaac he at once recognized his uncles, William and Robert.
Let us open _The Zincali_.
Handsome William is standing by his horse. He is tall, as were all the
men of his clan.
“Almost a giant, for his height could not have been less than six
feet three. It is impossible for the imagination to conceive
anything more perfectly beautiful than were the features of this man,
and the most skilful sculptor of Greece might have taken them as his
model for a hero and a god. The forehead was exceedingly lofty—a
rare thing in a Gypsy; the nose less Roman than Grecian—fine, yet
delicate; the eyes large, overhung with long, drooping lashes, giving
them almost a melancholy expression; it was only when the lashes were
elevated that the Gypsy glance was seen, if that can be called a
glance which is a strange stare, like nothing else in the world. His
complexion was a beautiful olive, and his teeth were of a brilliance
uncommon even amongst these people, who have all fine teeth. He was
dressed in a coarse wagoner’s slop, which, however, was unable to
conceal altogether his noble and Herculean figure. He might be about
twenty-eight.”
William is said to have persisted in carrying his own silver mug in his
coat pocket, and would drink out of no other vessel. “I’d scorn to wet
my lips with a drop of drink out of a _gawjikeno kuro_,” meaning the
publican’s mugs.
Robert, William’s elder brother, remained on horseback, looking “more
like a phantom than anything human. His complexion was the colour of
pale dust, and of that same colour was all that pertained to him, hat and
clothes. His boots were dusty of course, for it was midsummer, and his
very horse was of a dusty dun. His features were whimsically ugly, most
of his teeth were gone, and as to age, he might be thirty or sixty. He
was somewhat lame and halt, but an unequalled rider when once upon his
steed, which he was naturally not very solicitous to quit.”
Robert was always considered the wizard of the clan. Never having been
married, he dispensed with a tent, preferring, like some of the deep
Woods of Wales, to sleep in a barn. He was nicknamed “Church” Robert,
because he was a reader and had a wonderful memory, and sometimes going
to church he listened to lessons and psalms and would afterwards reel
them off like a _roker_in _tshiriklo_ (parrot).
When I made a move to go, Old Isaac drew himself to his full height and
said, “_Av akai apopli_, _rashai_” (Come here again, parson), and the
boys to whom I had mentioned my roving experiences urged me to come and
camp near them. “Let us put up a tent for you here next to ours.”
Sinfai, who walked to the field-gate with me, slipped into my pocket a
_bita delaben_ (small gift), a green wineglass.
A sunset of rare beauty was reddening the sandhills when I returned to
the Gypsyry on the South Shore. For a while I walked up and down in the
miniature fair, and before I turned my face towards the town, lights
began to appear in the tent baulks and the stars came out over the
darkening sea.
Next morning I was walking along the spacious sea-front with Archie Smith
for companion, and in the distance appeared a little man pushing a
grinding-barrow. Quickening our steps, we overtook him and found he was
Elijah Heron on his morning round. I inquired where he was stopping, and
promised to visit him later in the day. My companion, the lively Archie,
was reeling off for my benefit a list of the inhabitants of the South
Shore Gypsyry, and had just mentioned Bendigo Purum, when, rounding a
corner, we met the man himself, a very swarthy Gypsy—almost black, one
might say.
“_Roker_ of the _Beng_,” whispered Archie, “and you’ll _dik lesti_” (see
him).
Farther along in a narrow thoroughfare we observed several Gypsy women
out a-shopping, their gay _diklo_s and blouses making splashes of bright
colour in the crowded street. It seemed to me that Blackpool was alive
with Gypsies. In the afternoon I returned to the South Shore, and,
hearing the strains of a violin proceeding from a gorgeous red blanket
tent in a field near the railway, I made my way thither, and to my joy I
discovered Eros and Lias Robinson at home.
Here is a song which I heard from the lips of Lias—
“_Mandi’s tshori puri dai_
_Jaw_’d _adrê kongri_ to _shun_ the _rashai_;
The _gawjê saw sal_’d as _yoi besh_’d _talê_;
_Yoi dik_’d ’_drê_ the _lil_, but _yoi keka del-aprê_;
The _rashai roker_’d agen _duker_in, _pen_’d _dova sos_ a _laj_,
But _yov keka jin_’d _mandi duker_’d _yov_’s _tshai_,
_Puker_’d _yoi_’d _romer_ a _barvdo rai_.”
_Translation_.
“My poor old mother
Went into church to hear the parson;
The gentiles all laughed as she sat down;
She looked into the book, but she could not read;
The parson talked against fortune-telling, said it was a shame,
But he never knew I had told his daughter’s fortune,
Told her she’d marry a wealthy squire.”
Lias was full of reminiscences of wanderings through the heart of Wales,
and I listened with keen interest to his talk about the deep Woods. In
my readings of Leland’s writings I had come upon the mention of Mat Wood
whom, in after years, I had the good fortune to meet in Wales. During
his Welsh wanderings, Lias had met several sons of John Roberts, the
harpist, concerning whom I had learned much from Groome’s delightful
book, _In Gipsy Tents_. Here I may mention that Old John Roberts was an
occasional visitor to Lincolnshire in days gone by. He travelled widely
with his harp, on which he was a talented player. My wife, who hails
from the Fen country, remembers John’s visits to her native village of
Fleet, near Holbeach in Lincolnshire, where he would play on the parish
green, as well as on the lawns of private houses. A venerable-looking,
bearded man, who might have passed for a clergyman, he was a welcome
guest in the home of my father-in-law, where he would play old airs to a
pianoforte accompaniment.
[Picture: The gypsy’s parson with his friends. Photo. Fred Shaw]
The afternoon and evening which followed my morning ramble were crowded
with Gypsy experiences. At the back of a large tent sat Kenza Boswell
fiddling, while his daughters danced with exceeding grace.
Next, Noarus Tâno, in one of his skittish moods, kept me in fits of
laughter for ten minutes. He was the humorist of the Blackpool camp.
Entirely unaccustomed to controlling his imagination, Noarus will tell an
extraordinary tale in which he himself plays a part, with no other object
than to amuse his hearer, or to lift himself a little higher in your
esteem. And just as no one is expected to believe the narratives of
Baron Munchausen, so the Gypsy in telling his “lying tale” is perfectly
content with the laughter of the listener. This gay spirit of
exaggeration certainly stamps the following tale told by Old Tâno.
[Picture: Friends at the fair. Photo. Fred Shaw]
The scene is the kitchen of the village inn, and poultry-lifting is the
topic of conversation. It is Noarus who speaks—
“There’s a farmer’s wife up in the willage what’s been blaming a
two-legged fox for robbing her hen-roost. I say it’s some low dealer
what comes out of the town with a light cart on a shiny night when
the stormy winds are blowing, so as folks shan’t hear him at work.
You knows the sort, but us Gypsies has a different way. When did you
ever know any of us to meddle with anythink in these here parts?
Don’t your farmers buy ponies off us? Ain’t we highly respected by
the gentle-folk for miles round? Why, there was a squire up in
Yorkshire, a prize-poultry fancier, as know’d my people wery well.
We often camped on his land and never meddled with nothink. He
trusted us so much that he comes down to our tents one day and says
to my daddy—
“‘I want to beg a favour of you, Tâno. I’m going abroad for a while,
and I want you and your son to take charge of my poultry farm while
I’m away.’
“Well, my daddy and me took charge of his prize fowls, and when he
come back again, how do you think he found things, my gentlemen?”
The company, profoundly impressed by the speaker’s discourse,
exclaimed with one voice—
“All right to a feather.”
“Nay, that he never did. _We_’d _ate the hull blessed lot_!”
Mindful of my promise to visit Elijah Heron, I sought out his tent, and I
had to stoop very low to get in the doorway. In my pocket was a heavy,
silver-mounted brier pipe possessing a large amber mouthpiece. This I
presented to the old man, and it was good to see his face light up with
pleasure. “_Tatsheni rup si kova_” (Real silver is this), he said,
pointing to the mountings. “A _swêgler_’s _kek kushto_ without _tuvalo_”
(A pipe’s no good without tobacco), I remarked, handing him a cake of
Black Jack. He lighted up and looked as happy as a king.
Noticing that I was slightly deaf, he recommended oil extracted from
vipers as good for deafness. The mention of snakes took him back to his
sojourn in the Antipodes. “I never talks of _saps_ (snakes) but I thinks
of the days when I was travelling in ’Stralia. One night I got leave
from a farmer to stop near a river, but I didn’t _hatsh odoi_ (remain
there) for more than an hour or two, for I found there was _saps_
about—nasty, hissing critturs. A black man as come down to the river to
water some hosses told me that the _saps_ sometimes _maw_’d (killed)
animals near the river, so I packed up my traps and kept on the road all
night. Give me Old England, I say. I’m right glad to be back here.”
* * * * *
In a little tent hard by, I heard Poley and his wife singing as I said
“Good-night” to Elijah. Happy, twinkling eyes they were that looked out
at me from that little tent door as I passed. I envy you that merry
heart, Poley, that evergreen spirit of yours, and, recalling your face, I
see again the array of Gypsy tents as twilight dropped its purple veil on
Blackpool’s pleasant shore.