All'ers haw sar the habben foki banders apre a tute, an' tute'll jal sikker men dush an' tukli.

TRANSLATION.

Once a young man courted three girls together, and none of the three knew he was courting the two others. And that youth lived in a little place near the side of the great salt water, and one night all the girls came at once together to him, and none of the girls knew the others were coming there. So they went all quick together, and said "Good evening," (sarishan means really "How are you?") at the same time. And that youth did not know which girl liked him best, or whom he loved best; so all the four sat down together at the table, and he gave them food and beer. One ate plenty, but the other two would eat nothing; one drank, but the other two would not drink something, because they were all angry, and grieved, and worried. So the youth told them he was afraid if he took a wife that could not eat, she would not live, so he married the girl that ate her food.

Always eat all the food that people give you (literally share out to you), and you will go readily (securely) through sorrow and trouble.



GUDLO XLV. THE GIPSIES AND THE SMUGGLERS. A TRUE STORY.

Yeckorus, most a hundred besh kenna, when mi dadas sus a chavo, yeck ratti a booti Rommany chals san millerin kettenescrus pash the boro panni, kun sar-sig the graias ankaired a-wickerin an' ludderin an' nuckerin' an kairin a boro gudli, an' the Rommanis shuned a shellin, an' dicked mushis prasterin and lullyin for lenders miraben, sa's seer-dush, avree a boro hev. An' when len san sar jalled lug, the Rommany chals welled adoi an' latched adusta bitti barrels o' tatto-panni, an' fino covvas, for dovo mushis were 'mugglers, and the Roms lelled sar they mukked pali. An' dovo sus a boro covva for the Rommany chals, an' they pii'd sar graias, an' the raklis an' juvas jalled in kushni heezis for booti divvuses. An' dovo sus kerro pash Bo-Peep—a boro puvius adree bori chumures, pash Hastings in Sussex.

When 'mugglers nasher an' Rommany chals latch, there's kek worser cammoben for it.

TRANSLATION.

Once almost a hundred years now, when my father was a boy, one night many Gipsies were going together near the sea, when all at once the horses began whinnying and kicking and neighing, and making a great noise, and the Gipsies heard a crying out, and saw men running and rushing as if in alarm, from a great cave. And when they were all gone away together, the Gipsies went there and found many little barrels of brandy, and valuables, for those men were smugglers, and the Gipsies took all they left behind. And that was a great thing for the Gipsies, and they drank like horses, and the girls and women went in silk clothes for many days. And that was done near Bo-Peep, a great field in the hills, by Hastings in Sussex.

When smugglers lose and Gipsies find, nobody is the worse for it.



FOOTNOTES

{0a} The reason why Gipsy words have been kept unchanged was fully illustrated one day in a Gipsy camp in my hearing, when one man declaring of a certain word that it was only kennick or slang, and not "Rommanis," added, "It can't be Rommanis, because everybody knows it. When a word gets to be known to everybody, it's no longer Rommanis."

{1} Lavengro and the Rommany Rye: London, John Murray.

{5} To these I would add "Zelda's Fortune," now publishing in the Cornhill Magazine.

{21} Educated Chinese often exercise themselves in what they call "handsome talkee," or "talkee leeson" (i.e., reason), by sitting down and uttering, by way of assertion and rejoinder, all the learned and wise sentences which they can recall. In their conversation and on their crockery, before every house and behind every counter, the elegant formula makes its appearance, teaching people not merely how to think, but what should be thought, and when.

{24} Probably from the modern Greek [Greek text], the sole of the foot, i.e., a track. Panth, a road, Hindustani.

{26} Pott: "Die Zigeuner in Europa and Asien," vol. ii, p. 293.

{30} Two hundred (shel) years growing, two hundred years losing his coat, two hundred years before he dies, and then he loses all his blood and is no longer good.

{32} The words of the Gipsy, as I took them down from his own lips, were as follows:—

"Bawris are kushto habben. You can latcher adusta 'pre the bors. When they're pirraben pauli the puvius, or tale the koshters, they're kek kushti habben. The kushtiest are sovven sar the wen. Lel'em and tove 'em and chiv 'em adree the kavi, with panny an' a bitti lun. The simmun's kushto for the yellow jaundice."

I would remind the reader that in every instance where the original Gipsy language is given, it was written down or noted during conversation, and subsequently written out and read to a Gipsy, by whom it was corrected. And I again beg the reader to remember, that every Rommany phrase is followed by a translation into English.

{33} Dr Pott intimates that scharos, a globe, may be identical with sherro, a head. When we find, however, that in German Rommany tscharo means goblet, pitcher, vessel, and in fact cup, it seems as if the Gipsy had hit upon the correct derivation.

{34} "Dovos yect o' the covvos that saw foki jins. When you lel a wart 'pre tutes wasters you jal 'pre the drum or 'dree the puvius till you latcher a kaulo bawris—yeck o' the boro kind with kek ker apre him, an' del it apre the caro of a kaulo kosh in the bor, and ear the bawris mullers, yeck divvus pauli the waver for shtar or pange divvuses the wart'll kinner away-us. 'Dusta chairusses I've pukkered dovo to Gorgios, an' Gorgios have kaired it, an' the warts have yuzhered avree their wasters."

{35} Among certain tribes in North America, tobacco is both burned before and smoked "unto" the Great Spirit.

{38} This word palindrome, though Greek, is intelligible to every Gipsy. In both languages it means "back on the road."

{53} The Krallis's Gav, King's Village, a term also applied to Windsor.

{65} Pronounced cuv-vas, like covers without the r.

{70} The Lord's Prayer in pure English Gipsy:—

"Moro Dad, savo djives oteh drey o charos, te caumen Gorgio ta Rommanny chal tiro nav, te awel tiro tem, te kairen tiro lav aukko prey puv, sar kairdios oteh drey o charos. Dey men todivvus more divvuskoe moro, ta for dey men pazorrhus tukey sar men for-denna len pazhorrus amande; ma muck te petrenna drey caik temptaciones; ley men abri sor doschder. Tiro se o tem, mi-duvel, tiro o zoozlu vast, tiro sor koskopen drey sor cheros. Avali. Tachipen."

Specimens of old English Gipsy, preserving grammatical forms, may be found in Bright's Hungary (Appendix). London, 1818. I call attention to the fact that all the specimens of the language which I give in this book simply represent the modern and greatly corrupted Rommany of the roads, which has, however, assumed a peculiar form of its own.

{75} In gipsy chores would mean swindles. In America it is applied to small jobs.

{81} Vide chapter x.

{83} This should be Bengo-tem or devil land, but the Gipsy who gave me the word declared it was bongo.

{110} In English: "Water is the Great God, and it is Bishnoo or Vishnoo because it falls from God. Vishnu is then the Great God?" "Yes; there can be no forced meaning there, can there, sir? Duvel (God) is Duvel all the world over; but correctly speaking, Vishnu is God's blood—I have heard that many times. And the snow is feathers that fall from the angels' wings. And what I said, that Bishnoo is God's Blood is old Gipsy, and known by all our people."

{112} "Simurgh—a fabulous bird, a griffin."—Brice's Hindustani Dictionary.

{124} Romi in Coptic signifies a man.

{127} Since writing the above I have been told that among many Hindus "(good) evening" is the common greeting at any time of the day. And more recently still, meeting a gentleman who during twelve years in India had paid especial attention to all the dialects, I greeted him, as an experiment, with "Sarisham!" He replied, 'Why, that's more elegant than common Hindu—it's Persian!" "Sarisham" is, in fact, still in use in India, as among the Gipsies. And as the latter often corrupt it into sha'shan, so the vulgar Hindus call it "shan!" Sarishan means in Gipsy, "How are you?" but its affinity with sarisham is evident.

{133} Miklosich ("Uber die Mundarten de der Zigeuner," Wien, 1872) gives, it is true, 647 Rommany words of Slavonic origin, but many of these are also Hindustani. Moreover, Dr Miklosich treats as Gipsy words numbers of Slavonian words which Gipsies in Slavonian lands have Rommanised, but which are not generally Gipsy.

{171} Fortune-telling.

{189} In Egypt, as in Syria, every child is more or less marked by tattooing. Infants of the first families, even among Christians, are thus stamped.

{206} The Royston rook or crow has a greyish-white back, but is with this exception entirely black.

{209} The peacock and turkey are called lady-birds in Rommany, because, as a Gipsy told me, "they spread out their clothes, and hold up their heads and look fine, and walk proud, like great ladies." I have heard a swan called a pauno rani chillico—a white lady-bird.

{210} To make skewers is a common employment among the poorer English Gipsies.

{213} This rhyme and metre (such as they are) were purely accidental with my narrator; but as they occurred verb. et lit., I set them down.

{218} This story is well known to most "travellers." It is also true, the "hero" being a pash-and-pash, or half-blood Rommany chal, whose name was told to me.

{219} The reader will find in Lord Lytton's "Harold" mention of an Anglo- Saxon superstition very similar to that embodied in the story of the Seven Whistlers. This story is, however, entirely Gipsy.

{221a} This, which is a common story among the English Gipsies, and told exactly in the words here given, is implicitly believed in by them. Unfortunately, the terrible legends, but too well authenticated, of the persecutions to which their ancestors were subjected, render it very probable that it may have occurred as narrated. When Gipsies were hung and transported merely for being Gipsies, it is not unlikely that a persecution to death may have originated in even such a trifle as the alleged theft of a dish-clout.

{221b} Although they bear it with remarkable apparent indifference, Gipsies are in reality extremely susceptible to being looked at or laughed at.

{235} This story was told me in a Gipsy tent near Brighton, and afterwards repeated by one of the auditors while I transcribed it.

THE END