Francis Hindes Groome

“ He could scarcely walk from his toe-nails curling up like ram’s horns that had not been cut for many hundred years, and big long hair. And although his teeth was curling out of his mouth, he could speak the Rómani language better than any other. They come to a well, and he gives the Prince a sword, and tells him to cut the old man’s head off, and to throw it in that well. The young man, through him being so kind to him, has to do it against his wish, but has to do it. ”

“ She brought Nameless into the house, and made him tell her his story. He told her of the man on the black lake, of the spring, and of the tree that used to bear golden apples.
Then said the old lady, ‘I will ask my son all about that. But come, let me hide you; for if my son finds you here he’ll burn you up.’
She hid Nameless in a great vessel of water, and bade him keep quiet. At evening the Sun-King came home, a feeble old man with golden head, and got victuals and drink from his mother. When he had eaten and drunk, he laid his golden head in his mother’s lap and fell fast asleep. ”

“ But should our mother pursue us, I will then change myself into a lovely flower, and you shall change yourself into a beautiful meadow.’
‘Very well.’
‘And if you see it is our father that pursues us, then I will change myself into a church, and you shall change yourself into an old man.’
‘Well.’
‘And if you perceive it is our sister who is coming after us, then I shall have to change myself into a duck, and you must change yourself into a drake. But I shall no longer have the heart to retain myself; she will beseech me, “My darling sister, return to us.” Thus will she speak to me. ”

“ No work could be more exhausting. To note every accent, to follow the story, and to keep the wandering wits of my Rómani raconteur to the point, all helped to make it trying work. For days together I have heard no English spoken, the Woods always talking Rómani, and the Gentiles Welsh. It is as well I did so at the time, for Matthew Wood has cleared his mountain of trees, and departed, God knows whither. Three journeys into Wales, and many letters to post-offices and police-stations, have failed to find him. ”

“ It is not sixteen years since an English Gypsy girl, to work her vengeance on her false Gentile lover, cut the heart out of a living white pigeon, and flung the poor bird, yet struggling, on the fire. ”

“ They were going forward, walking at times, and at times riding, till they came to a spring that there was by the side of the road. ‘Now, Brian,’ said the fox, ‘unless thou dost strike off my head with one blow of the White Glaive of Light into this spring, I will strike off thine.’
‘S’tia,’ said Brian, ‘a man is kind to his own life.’
And he swept the head off him with one blow, and it fell into the well. And in the wink of an eye what should rise up out of the well but the son of the king that was father to the Sun Goddess. ”

“ The robbers in a Moravian-Gypsy story (No. 43) break through the wall of a castle like the robbers of Scripture and of Indian folk-tales; and one very curious feature, which we can trace across two continents, is the feather, hair, or wing of a bird, beast, or insect, the burning of which, or sometimes the mere thinking on which, summons its former possessor to the hero’s aid. ”

“ And he caused sleep to fall on that lad, and bade St. Peter lift him, and went with him to the church, and gave him the name Handak. And the holy God said to him, ‘Godson, a hero like you there shall never be any other; and do you take my god-daughter.’
For there was a maiden equally heroic, and equally baptized by God. And she was his god-daughter, and he told his godson to take her. And he gave him a wand of good fortune and a sword. And he endowed him with strength, and set him down. And his godfather departed to heaven, like the holy God that he was. ”

“ And a dragon with twelve heads came, and he drew his sword, and killed him also, and made twelve heaps, and planted a black flag, and went further. And there came one with twenty-four heads, and he killed him also, and made twenty-four heaps, and planted a white flag.
Behold! the dragons carried off an emperor’s daughter—there were twelve dragons—and shut her up in their castle. And they went and fought from morning even till noon; he who shall prove himself strongest, he shall marry the maiden. ”

“ All that I hold for certain is our absolute uncertainty at present whether Gypsies first set foot in Europe a thousand years after or a thousand years before the Christian era. We have no certitude even for western Europe. In 1866 a large band of English ball-giving Gypsies paid a visit to Edinburgh; Scottish newspapers of that date wrote as though Gypsies had never till then been seen to the north of the Border. ”

“ Half the world come, but they do not know the Green Man. ‘Go,’ she says, and blows the horn again. Half the birds in the world come, but with a like result. She takes her sister’s horse, and gives Jack hers, with a ball of thread, and sends him on to the eldest sister. It is the same thing there. The third sister also doesn’t know, but in the morning goes on the roof and blows a horn. All the people in the world come, but do not know the Green Man. ‘Go.’ Again she blows, and all the birds come, but do not know. She goes down and looks in her book, and finds that the eagle is missing. ”

“ The empress called two servants. ‘Take her into the forest and kill her, and bring me her heart and little finger.’
They put her in the carriage, and drove her into the forest; after them ran a whelp. And they brought her into the forest, and were going to kill her, and she said, ‘Kill me not, for I have used you well.’
‘How are we to take her the heart, then?’
‘Kill the whelp, for its heart is just like a human one, and cut off my little finger.’ [30]
They killed the whelp, and cut off her little finger, and took out the whelp’s heart. ”

“ Campbell’s Santal Folk-tales, pp. 54, 104, furnish two remarkable analogues. In the first a drowned girl grows up as a bamboo, out of which a jugi makes a magic fiddle; in the second a princess, devoured by a monkey, springs up after his death as a gourd, of whose shell a jugi makes a wonderful banjo. In both tales there is mention of Doms; and it is at least an odd coincidence that, while the Gypsy word for devil is beng, in Santali a spirit is called bonga. Selling one’s self, or rather one’s blood, to the devil is a superstition still current amongst English Gypsies. ”

“ The fool got off his horse, cut himself a cudgel, and began to beat his two brothers; finally he gave them each three ducats. The two brothers did not recognise him, and so he went on by himself, unknown. When he had come to the king’s palace all the great lords looked with admiration at this prince, mounted on a silver steed, and clad in garments of silver. He leapt up with a great spring towards the princess, and almost got near enough to kiss her. ”

“ It seems these people had roamed, in small parties, during the summer season, cross the vast countries between Poland and this place; subsisting themselves on what they could find, and on selling trinkets, and telling fortunes to the country people. But Tobolsky, being the place of rendezvous, was the end of their long journey eastwards; and they, with no small regret, were obliged to turn their faces to the west again.’ I fancy these Gypsies also must have been Caldarari. But whether they were or no, the passage remains one of the most curious that we have relating to Gypsy migrations. ”

“ But the difficulty vanishes if one may suppose that the Gypsies, starting from the Balkan Peninsula at a date when churches were familiar objects, which a pursuer would naturally pass, carried with them the modern version of the story to Russia, Spain, and the other countries in which it is told to-day. Similarly, in Gypsy stories, and in stories current in countries wide apart, one finds such incidents as the hero falling in love through a portrait, the hero playing cards with the devil, the hero carrying a Bellerophon letter, the hero looking through an all-seeing telescope. ”

“ The Devil said to him, ‘One more task I will give you. Fell the whole forest, and stack it by to-morrow.’
He went to the maiden, and the maiden asked him, ‘Have you a father and mother?’
‘I have.’
‘Ah! let us fly, for my father will kill you. Take the whetstone, and take a comb; I have a towel.’
They set out and fled. The Devil arose, saw that the forest is not felled. ‘Go and call him to me.’
Ho, ho! there is neither the lad nor the maiden. ”

“ The twelve white dragons roar under the earth, and then emerge one by one from out of the fountain, to be torn in pieces by the hero’s twelve wild animals. The water becomes plentiful, and the hero marries the princess. But a former lover of hers poisons him. The twelve animals find his grave, and dig him up. They go in quest of the healing herb; and the hare, ‘whose eyes are always open, sees a snake with it in his mouth, robs the snake of it, and runs off, but at the snake’s request restores a portion.’ They then resuscitate their master. ”

“ Breakfast being over, when out come the other horse, and, when saddling and fettling, the old man began to laugh, and told the young gentleman that if he saw a pretty young lady, not to stay with her too long, because she may waken, and then he would have to stay with her, or to be turned into one of those unearthly monsters, like those which he will have to pass by going into the castle. ”

“ To maintain that the Gypsies of England, France, Spain, and Italy arrived at their present habitats from [lxiii] Africa by way of Sicily, is, as has been shown, to evince a crass ignorance of the Rómani language. Equally absurd is it to maintain that ‘every Gypsy dialect contains a large number of words of non-Aryan origin: Aramaic, Semitic, and even Mongol words form 25 per cent. of the Gypsy vocabulary taken in its largest sense.’ For this implies that Aramaic is non-Semitic, as though one should speak of Gaelic and Celtic, or of German and Teutonic. ”

“ One may not build upon so slight a superstructure, though at the same time it should be borne in mind that nothing, absolutely nothing, was known of the Welsh Gypsies till 1875. Where, however, as in England, Gypsies have certainly been roaming to and fro for centuries, nothing seems to me likelier than the transmission by them of folk-tales. For I know by frequent journeyings with them how the Gypsy camp is the favourite nightly rendezvous of the lads and lasses from the neighbouring village. All the amusement they can give their guests, the Gypsies give gladly ”

“ He chooses a central spot to pitch his tent, and the most wonderful collection of decrepit copper utensils is soon brought from the neighbouring tents and piled around. He usually brings with him a young assistant to look after the mule and blow the bellows; and with nitre heated at his fire he mends the damaged articles, gossiping the while, and filling the minds of the simple Yourouks who stand around with wonderful tales, not always within the bounds of veracity. ”

“ The youngest son comes to a hermit’s in a great forest, inquires the way to the Accursed Garden, and gets a red ball, which, flung before him, will show the way. He next comes to a black dog, and sleeps three nights with him, then to a red dog, lastly to a white maiden. Before reaching the mountain on whose top is the garden he ties his horse to a fig-tree. He has to enter the garden at eleven, and leave before noon. In a castle in the midst of the garden he finds a sleeping lady, writes down his name and address, departs and is pursued by devouring beasts. ”

“ I hesitated whether to give this story; it is so hopelessly corrupt, it seems such absolute nonsense. Yet it enshrines beyond question, however confusedly, the widespread and ancient belief that to ensure one’s foundation one should wall up a human victim. So St. Columba buried St. Oran alive in the foundation of his monastery; in Western folklore, however, the victim is usually an infant—a bastard sometimes, in one case (near Göttingen) a deaf-mute. But in south-eastern Europe it is almost always a woman—the wife of the master-builder, whose name, as here, is Manoli. ”

“ A folk-tale, as told to-day in India, need not be more primitive, more faithful to the original, than the same folk-tale as told to-day in Greece or Germany. The same wear and tear may have affected the story that stayed at home as has affected the story that wandered westward a thousand or two thousand years ago; it may have affected it in a very much greater degree. That is just what we find in language; the Rómani vast, hand, comes much nearer the Sanskrit hasta than does the Hindustani hāth. ”

“ This fragment is on the familiar theme of an emperor who till old age has had no heir; then his empress bears him a son; but just as the child is being shown to the people, two eagles carry it off. ‘Men,’ cries the empress, ‘if you will find my boy, I will become your servant, to wait on you, to wash your feet, to drink the water they are washed in, to quit my greatness, to make you king in my stead, if only you will find my boy.’ After which the story becomes hopeless nonsense, then suddenly stops—I fancy the Gypsy story-teller had got too drunk to continue. ”

“ CHAPTER VI POLISH-GYPSY STORIES
[Contents]
No. 45.—Tale of a Foolish Brother and of a Wonderful Bush
There was once a poor peasant who had three sons, two of them wise and one foolish. One day the king gave a feast, to which everybody was invited, rich and poor. These two wise brothers set out for the feast like the rest, leaving the poor fool at home, crouching over the stove. He thereupon besought his mother to allow him to go after his brothers. But the mother answered, ‘Fool that thou art! thy brothers go thither to tell tales, whilst thou, thou knowest nothing. ”