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 their features which were reckoned among our childhood’s joys have
vanished.
[Picture: On the Eve of the Fair. Photo. Rev. H. H. Malleson]
Gone are the marionettes, the wax-works, the ghost-shows. Departed, too,
are many of the mysterious little booths, behind whose canvas walls queer
freaks and abnormalities were wont to hide. Perhaps, however, when the
travelling cinema has outworn its vogue, the older “mystery” shows will
reappear by the side of the Alpine slide, the scenic railway, and the joy
wheel.
Still renowned for their wondrous gaiety are a few of our larger fairs,
whither huge crowds flock by road and rail for a few hours of rollicking
carnival. I have in mind such events as Barnet September Fair,
Birmingham Onion Fair, the October merry-makings at Hull, Nottingham
Goose Fair, and the like, but even these, owing to a variety of reasons,
are now of shrunken dimensions.
Fairs of whatever sort are generally occasions of friendly reunion, not
only for show-people and _gawjê_ visitors, but also for Gypsies who love
to forgather on the margins of the fair-ground, or upon an adjacent
common, where they compare notes and discuss the happenings since their
last meeting.
Borne on the crisp October air, the chimes of Peterborough floated over
the city roofs, reaching even to the fair-grounds, where I was one of the
large holiday crowd which hustled and laughed and tossed confetti in
mimic snow-showers. When in quest of Gypsies, the first half-hour you
spend in wandering about a fair is a time of pleasurable excitement. Who
can tell how many old friends you may meet, or what fresh dark faces you
are about to encounter?
As I was saying, the crowd was hilarious, and, having so far recognized
no Romany countenance up and down the footways between the coco-nut shies
and shooting-galleries, swing-boats and merry-go-rounds, it occurred to
me that a little more breathing-space might be found upon the open
pasture where horses were being bought and sold, and, pushing along in
that direction, I was brought to a standstill at the foot of the steps
leading down from a gilded show-front. Walking with the airs of a fine
lady, there came down those steps a young Gypsy attired in a yellow gown
and tartan blouse, with a blazing red scarf thrown over her shoulders
upon which her hair fell in black curls. It was this coloured vision as
much as the block in the footway that held me up for the nonce. Another
moment, and Lena Gray, Old Eliza’s daughter, brushed against my shoulder,
yet, as often happens in a crowd, she failed to see me. Therefore, into
her ear I dropped a whispered Romany phrase at which she started, and,
recognizing me, exclaimed—
“_Dawdi_, _raia_, this _is_ a surprise!”
It was but a few steps to the sheltered spot in a field opposite the
horse-fair where her brother Yoben sat fiddling by the side of the
living-van. Even before we came up to him, something arrested my
attention—the unusual shape of his violin, which, as Lena informed me,
her brother had made out of a cigar-box picked up in a public-house.
Our field corner had a most agreeable outlook. Beyond a stretch of
greenest turf, dotted with caravans and bounded by the reddening autumn
hedgerows, lay the pleasure-fair, a sunlit fantasia of colour, from
which, like feathery plumes, ascended puffs of white steam topping
numerous whirling roundabouts. Pleasant it was to sit out here in the
calm weather chatting with the Grays, whom I had so recently met on the
Lincolnshire sea-border, and even while we conversed there passed by a
little party of gaily-dressed Gypsies—two rather portly women of middle
age and two slender girls.
“Who are those people?” I asked.
“Some of the _gozverê_ (cunning) Lovells,” replied Lena. Then I
remembered that for some time past I had carried in my notebook several
cuttings grown dingy with age, relating to traditional practices
characteristic of this family. Two paragraphs will suffice as specimens.
“A domestic servant told a remarkable story yesterday before a West
London magistrate. She said that a gipsy called at the house and
asked her to buy some laces. She refused, and prisoner then offered
to tell her fortune for a shilling. Witness agreed, and the woman
told her fortune, and she (witness) gave her two shillings, and asked
her for the change. Prisoner said she would tell her young man’s
name by the planet. Witness had a half-sovereign and two half-crowns
in her purse, and prisoner asked her to let her have the coins to
cross the palm of her hand with. She handed her the coins, and the
woman crossed her palm. She then asked her to fetch a glass of
water, and, on her returning with it, told her to drink it.
Afterwards she told her to pray, and then, apparently putting the
10s. and the two half-crowns in her pocket-handkerchief, placed the
handkerchief in her bodice, and told her not to take it out for
twenty minutes. After that the woman left.
“The magistrate: ‘Did you take the handkerchief out?’
“‘Well, I waited for twenty minutes or so, and then I took it out,
and instead of the 10s. and the two half-crowns I found two pennies
and a farthing.’ (Laughter.)”
Obviously, the above is a variant of the ancient Gypsy trick known as the
_hokano bawro_ (big swindle). Something equally Gypsy, as we shall see,
clings to our second example.
“The local police have had their attention engaged during the week in
connection with an alleged extraordinary occurrence whereby a
shopgirl became, under supposed hypnotic influence, the dupe of two
gipsy women. From inquiry it appears that on Saturday afternoon two
gipsy women, having the appearance of mother and daughter, entered a
baby-linen shop, and seem to have exerted such a remarkable influence
over the girl that she was induced to hand over to them articles of
wear amounting in value to between £8 and £9. Before they left the
shop she recovered her self-possession sufficiently to express doubt
as to whether they would return with the goods or money, and her
fears were allayed somewhat by receiving from her visitors in the
shape of security a lady’s beautiful gold ring and chain.
Subsequently the young lady, suspecting the genuineness of the
pledges, took them to a jeweller, who declared the value of the ring
and chain to be not more than a couple of shillings. The shopgirl is
unable to account for her want of self-possession in the presence of
the gipsies, and states that she felt she might have given them
anything they asked for. There were a good many gipsies located in
the district, but on a visit to the encampment in company with the
police the girl did not recognize her two visitors. The remarkable
occurrence has given rise to much comment in the locality.”
Here is something strangely akin to the Romany mesmerism to which
allusion is made by “The Scholar-Gipsy,” whose
“. . . mates had arts to rule as they desir’d
The workings of men’s brains;
And they can bind them to what thoughts they will.”
As is well known, Matthew Arnold’s poem is based upon the following
passage in Joseph Glanvill’s _Vanity of Dogmatizing_:—
“That one man should be able to bind the thoughts of another, and
determine them to their particular objects, will be reckoned in the
first rank of Impossibles; Yet by the power of advanc’d Imagination
it may very probably be effected; and story abounds with Instances.
I’le trouble the Reader but with one; and the hands from which I had
it, make me secure of the truth on’t. There was very lately a lad in
the University of Oxford, who, being of very pregnant and ready
parts, and yet wanting the encouragement of preferment, was by his
poverty forced to leave his studies there, and to cast himself upon
the wide world for livelyhood. Now, his necessities growing daily on
him, and wanting the help of friends to relieve him; he was at last
forced to joyn himself to a company of Vagabond Gypsies, whom
occasionally he met with, and to follow their trade for a
maintenance. Among these extravagant people, by the insinuating
subtility of his carriage, he quickly got so much of their love and
esteem; that they discover’d to him their Mystery; in the practice of
which, by the pregnancy of his wit and partz he soon grew so good a
proficient, as to out-do his Instructours. After he had been a
pretty while well exercis’d in the Trade; there chanc’d to ride by a
couple of Scholars who had formerly bin of his acquaintance. The
Scholars had quickly spyed out their old friend, among the Gypsies;
and their amazement to see him among such society, had well-nigh
discover’d him; but by a sign he prevented their owning him before
that crew; and taking one of them aside privately, desir’d him with
his friend to go to an Inn, not far distant thence, promising there
to come to them. They accordingly went thither, and he follows;
after their first salutations, his friends enquire how he came to
live so odd a life as that was, and to joyn himself with such a
cheating beggerly company. The Scholar-Gypsy having given them an
account of the necessity, which drove him to that kind of life; told
them, that the people he went with were not such Impostours as they
were taken for, but that they had a traditional kind of learning
among them, and could do wonders by the power of Imagination, and
that himself had learned much of their Art, and improved it further
than themselves could. And to evince the truth of what he told them,
he said he’d remove into another room, leaving them to discourse
together; and upon his return tell them the sum of what they had
talked of; which accordingly he perform’d, giving them a full account
of what had pass’d between them in his absence. The Scholars being
amaz’d at so unexpected a discovery, earnestly desir’d him to
unriddle the mystery. In which he gave them satisfaction, by telling
them, that what he did was by the power of Imagination, his Phancy
binding theirs; and that himself had dictated to them the discourse
they held together, while he was from them: That there were
warrantable wayes of heightening the Imagination to that pitch, as to
bind another’s; and that when he had compass’d the whole secret, some
parts of which he said he was yet ignorant of, he intended to leave
their company, and give the world an account of what he had learned.”
One sometimes wonders whether the world would have cared one jot about
the revelations which the Oxford Scholar here promises, for to the
majority the “Gypsies” are almost tabu.
In a letter which I received from that perfect Scholar-Gypsy and
Gypsy-Scholar, the late Francis Hindes Groome, he tells how he once
stumbled upon a typical critic.
“Three or four years ago I gave a lecture on Gypsies at Greenock, and
a well-dressed man came up after it.
“‘There were some things,’ he remarked, ‘that I quite liked in your
lecture, but on a good many points _you were absolutely wrong_.’
“‘Of course you’ve studied the question?’ I asked him.
“‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘I looked up the article “Gypsies” in Dr.
Brewer’s _Dictionary of Fable_ just before coming along.’”
Talking of critics reminds me how I once received something of a shock to
the nerves during the opening sentences of a lecture on “Gypsy Customs.”
Not far from the platform where I stood, there sat a well-to-do
horse-dealer who, having married a pure-bred Gypsy, was presumably in
possession of “inside information.” The vision of his face, all
alertness and curiosity, caused me a momentary disturbance. What would
this critic make of my disclosures? How would he take my revelations?
Warming to my subject, however, I was made happy by my auditor
interjecting such remarks as “That’s right.” “He’s got it.” “Where does
the man get it all from?” Sometimes he would punctuate his exclamations
by vigorously slapping his knee and laughing aloud. Certainly his
ejaculations added a piquancy to my tales gathered from Gypsy tents.
* * * * *
But to return to Peterborough Fair.
About the middle of the afternoon, as I stood on a grassy mound
overlooking the horses, I spied near a group of animals my old friend,
Anselo Draper, flourishing a long-handled whip. This swart East Anglian
roamer wore a dark brown coat of Newmarket cut, slouch hat of soft green
felt, and crimson neckerchief neatly tied at the throat. Along an open
space between the rows of horses sauntered his two pretty daughters,
Jemima and Phœbe, bareheaded and bare-armed, their laughing voices
ringing out merrily, while at their heels followed two little brothers
cracking whips as became budding horse-dealers.
Quite a head above the Gaskins and Brinkleys with whom she was talking
loudly, stood Wythen, Anselo’s wife, who, happening to look my way,
smiled and came towards me, holding out the empty bowl of her pipe.
“Got a bit of _tuvalo_ (tobacco) about you, _rashai_ (parson)? I’m dying
for a smoke.”
“_So bok ke-divus_?” (What luck to-day?) I inquired, handing over my
pouch.
“_Bikin_’d _tshîtshî_” (Sold nothing), she replied, jerking her whip
towards the ponies, “but I’ll _duker_ (tell fortunes) a bit this
evening,” adjusting her black hat with its large ostrich feathers and
gaudy orange bow set jauntily at the side.
[Picture: Midland Gypsies. Photo. Fred Shaw]
On my pretending to ridicule _duker_in, she said—
“Look here, now, what’s the difference between a Gypsy telling fortunes
at a fair and a parson _roker_in (preaching) in church of a Sunday?”
“If that’s a riddle,” said I, “it’s beyond me to answer it.”
“Well, when folks do bad things, you foretell a bad future for them,
don’t you? And when they do right, you promises ’em a good time? What’s
the difference then between you and me? I’m a low-class fortune-teller
and you’s a high-class fortune-teller. You’s had a deal of eddication.
My only school has been the fairs, race-courses, and sich-like. But I
bet I can tell a fortune as well as you any day. Let me tell yours.”
And she did.
[Picture: South-Country Gypsies. Photo. Fred Shaw]
As we stood there and talked, I noticed that the woman looked worried
about something, and presently I heard her say to Anselo, “I haven’t
found it yet.” It was a brooch that she had lost. Then I told how once
I lost and found a ring. One Sunday morning just before service, I stood
on the gravel swinging my arms in physical exercises as a freshener
before going to church, and suddenly I heard the tinkle of my ring on the
yellow gravel. As only a few minutes remained before church time, I
thought of a child’s method of finding a thing quickly, and, turning
myself round three times, I tossed upon the ground a smooth black pebble,
and, going, forward, lo, there was the ring close to the pebble.
Eyeing me curiously, Wythen remarked—
“Do you know what we says about people as does that sort of thing? Well,
we reckons they has dealings with the _Beng_ (Devil).
“When I was a little ’un, my old granny would do things like that, and
she used to say that when you sees a star falling you must wish a wish,
and if you do it afore the _stari pogers_ (the star breaks) your wish
will come true.”
It seems that among Gypsies “wishing a wish” sometimes means a curse. It
was at Peterborough Fair in 1872 that Groome saw a blind Gypsy child—made
blind, he was told, through the father wishing a wish. Akin to this is
the belief in the evil eye. A Battersea Gypsy mother would not let her
baby be seen by its half-witted uncle, for fear his looking at it should
turn its black hair red.
After leaving Wythen, I sauntered along, making mental notes of Gypsies
all around, among whom were local Brinkleys, the far-travelled Greens,
some Loveridges, and other Midland Gypsies. I was about to move away
towards the pleasure fair, when a dealer standing near some ponies caught
my eye. I had never seen the man before, but as he looked a thorough
Gypsy, I drew alongside and accosted him in Romany. For a moment he
stared at my clerical frock-coat and broad-brimmed hat, and then calmly
remarked—
“I say, pal, you look born to them things you’ve got on, you do really.
You reckons to attend fairs at these here cathedral places, don’t you?
Didn’t I once see you at Ely, or was it Chester?”
To this man I was nothing more than a Gypsy “dragsman” disguised in
clerical garb. Accordingly, he lowered his voice as he said—
“See this here pony? Will you sell it for me? You’ll do it easy enough
with your experience. On my honour it ain’t a _bongo yek_ (wrong ’un),
nor yet a _tshordo grai_” (stolen horse).
“What about the price?” I asked.
“If you get a tenner for it,” he replied, “there’ll be a _bâ_ (sovereign)
for yourself. What say?”
“_Saw tatsho_ (All right). _Jaw_ ’_vrî konaw_” (Go away now). And in
less than ten minutes after taking my stand by the little animal, I had a
bid from a young farmer of the small-holder type. His offer was
accompanied by some adverse criticism. Who ever heard a man praise the
horse he intended to buy?
“Examine the pony for yourself,” said I.
He looked at its teeth. He lifted its feet one by one. He pinched and
punched it all over. The pony was next trotted to and fro, and so
pleased was the farmer with the animal’s behaviour that he promptly
handed over ten pounds and led the pony away. On seeing that I had
completed the business, my Gypsy friend, who was just round the corner,
came up, and on my giving up the money, he put one of the sovereigns into
my hand. When I got away I had a good laugh to myself, and it took me
some time to get my face straight.
Walking back into the heart of the town, I saw a dusty, ill-clad party of
Gypsies going slowly along with a light dray drawn by a young horse with
flowing mane and long tail, and when they reached the corner where I was
standing, I spoke to the woman who was at the horse’s head. She said she
was a Smith, and when I pointed to the name Hardy on the dray, she
remarked, “Oh, that’s nobbut a travelling name.” It may be noted that
Gypsies are extremely careless about their names.
At a later hour in a field behind the pleasure fair, I found the
comfortable _vâdo_ of my friend, Anselo Draper, and tapped at the van
door with the knob of my stick. Quickly the door opened, and thrusting
out his dark, handsome head, Anselo shouted, “_Av adrê_, _baw_” (Come in,
friend).
What a contrast! Outside: a very babel of blaring sounds, a dark sky
reflecting the glow of a myriad naphtha flares. Within: cosiness and
warmth, red curtains, glittering mirrors, polished brasses, and a good
fire. Over the best teacups (taken tenderly from a corner cupboard)
Anselo and his wife talked of their travels. They had been as far north
as Glasgow that summer, and had sold a good _vâdo_ (van) to one of the
Boswells at Newcastle Fair. They had decided to winter at
Southend-on-Sea. “We shall make a tent, a big one, and very jolly it
will be with a _yog_ (fire) in the baulk. To be sure, there will be
plenty of mumpers (low-class van-dwellers) around us, but we shall not be
the only _tatshenê Romanitshel_s (real Gypsies) stopping there.”
Next, Anselo plunged into an account of a low dealer’s trick at the horse
fair. It seemed that this dealer had sold two horses to a farmer for
forty pounds. A stranger coming up to the farmer offered to buy them at
a higher price, so into a tavern they retired to talk things over.
During drinks the stranger continually offered more money for the horses,
and the farmer remained there a longer time than was good for him. At
last when the man was hopelessly muddled the stranger disappeared. Nor
had the horses so far been seen again.
“But there’s not so much of that done as there was. My father knew a
Gypsy who died up in Yorkshire, a desprit hand at _grai-tshor_in
(horse-stealing), and to this day they say, ‘If you shake a bridle over
his grave, he’ll jump up and steal a horse.’” Both Wythen and Anselo
laughed merrily as I told a tale I once heard of a Gypsy who had been
“away” for a space. Coming out of the prison gate, he was met by a
fellow who asked him what he had been in there for.
“For finding a horse,” was the reply.
“But surely they would never jug you for finding a horse?”
“Well, but you see I found this one before his owner had lost him.”
Anselo admitted that this sort of thing was not at all uncommon in the
old days, and two of his uncles had to take a trip across the water for
similar practices.
When I left my friends and hastened to catch my train, the pleasure fair
was in full blast, noisy organs, cymbals and drums, shrieking whistles,
and the dull muffled roar of innumerable human voices, sounds which long
haunted my ears, and, looking back from the moving train, there still
floated from the distance the din and rattle of the receding fair.