Chapter VI: Tweed-Dale and Clydesdale Gipsies (3)

As in arranging for, and taking up, their quarters, the principal female Gipsy almost always negotiates the transactions which the horde have with the farmer's family, during their abode on his premises. Indeed, the females are the most active, if not the principal, members of the tribe, in vending their articles of merchandise. The time at which, on such occasions, they present these for sale, is the day after their arrival on the farm, and immediately after the breakfast of the farmer's family is over. When there are more families than one in the band, but all of one horde, the chief female of the whole gets the first chance of selling her wares; but every head female of the respective families bargains for her own merchandise, for the behoof of her own family. When the farmer's family is in want of any of their articles, an extraordinary higgling and chaffering takes place in making the bargain. Besides money, the Gipsy woman insists upon having what she calls her "boontith"--that is, a present in victuals, as she is fond of bartering her articles for provisions. If the mistress of the house agrees, and goes to her larder or milk-house for the purpose of giving her this boontith, the Gipsy is sure to follow close at her heels. Admitted into the larder, the voracious Tinkler will have part of everything she sees--flesh, meal, butter, cheese, &c., &c. Her fiery and penetrating eye darts, with rapidity, from one object to another. She makes use of every argument she can think of to induce the farmer's wife to comply with her unreasonable demands. "I'm wi' bairn, mistress," she will say; "I'm greenin'; God bless ye, gie me a wee bit flesh to taste my mouth, if it should no' be the book o' a robin-red-breast."[148] If the farmer's wife still disregards her importunities, the Gipsy will, in the end, snatch up a piece of flesh, and put it into her lap, in a twinkling; for out of the larder she will not go, without something or other. The farmer's wife, ever on the alert, now takes hold of the _sorner_, to wrest the flesh from her clutches, when a serious personal struggle ensues. She will frequently be under the necessity of calling for the assistance of her servants, to thrust the intruder out of the apartment; but the cautious Gipsy takes care not to let matters go too far: she yields the contest, and, laughing heartily at the good-wife losing her temper, immediately assumes her ordinary polite manner. And notwithstanding all that has taken place, both parties generally part on good terms.

[148] After recovery from child-birth, the Gipsy woman recommences her
course of begging or stealing, with her child in her arms; and then
she is more rapacious than at other times, taking whatever she can lay
her hands upon. For she calculates upon escaping without a beating, by
holding up her child to receive the blows aimed at her; which she
knows will have the effect of making the aggrieved person desist, till
she finds an opportunity of getting out of the way.--_Grellmann on the
Hungarian Gipsies._--ED.

On one of these bargain-making occasions, as the wife of the farmer of Glencotha, in Tweed-dale, went to give a boontith to Mary Yorkston, the harpy thrust, unobserved, about four pounds weight of tallow into her lap. On the return of the good-wife, the tallow was missed. She charged Mary with the theft, but Mary, with much gravity of countenance, exclaimed: "God bless ye, mistress, I wad steal from mony a one before I wad steal from you." The good-wife, however, took hold of Mary, to search her person. A struggle ensued, when the tallow fell out of Mary's lap, on the kitchen-floor. At this exposure, in the very act of stealing, the Gipsy burst into a fit of laughter, exclaiming: "The Lord hae a care o' me, mistress; ye hae surely little to spare, whan ye winna let a body take a bit tauch for a candle, to light her to bed." At another time, this Gipsy gravely told the good-wife of Rachan-mill, that she must give her a pound of butter for her boontith, that time, as it would be the last she would ever give her. Astonished at the extraordinary saying, the good-wife demanded, with impatience, what she meant. "You will," rejoined the Gipsy, "be in eternity (by a certain day, which she named,) and I will never see you again; and this will be the last boontith you will ever give me." The good-wife of Rachan-mill, however, survived the terrible prediction for several years.[149]

[149] The following facts will show what a Scottish Tinkler, at the
present day, will sometimes do in the way of "sorning," or masterful
begging.

One of the race paid a visit to the house of a country ale-wife, and,
in a crowded shop, vaulted the counter, and applied his bottle to her
whiskey-tap. Immediately a cry, with up-lifted hands, was raised for
the police, but the prudent ale-wife treated the circumstance with
indifference, and exclaimed: "Hout, tout, tout! _let_ the deil tak' a
wee drappie."

On another occasion, a Gipsy woman entered a country public-house,
leaving her partner at a short distance from the door. Espying a drawn
bottle of porter, standing on a table, in a room in which were two
females sitting, she, without the least ceremony, filled a glass, and
drank it off; but before she could decant another, the other Gipsy,
feeling sure of the luck of his mate, from her being admitted into the
premises, immediately proceeded to share it with her. But he had
hardly drank off the remainder of the porter, ere a son of the
mistress of the house made his appearance, and demanded what was
wanted. "Want--_want?_" replied the Gipsy, with a leering eye towards
the empty bottle; "we want nothing--we've got all that we want!" On
being ordered to "walk out of that," they left, with a smile of
satisfaction playing on their weather-beaten countenances.

Such displays of Gipsy impudence sometimes call forth only a hearty
laugh from the people affected by them.--ED.

The female Gipsies also derived considerable profits from their trade of fortune-telling. The art of telling fortunes was not, however, general among the Gipsies; it was only certain old females who pretended to be inspired with the gift of prophecy. The method which they adopted to get at the information which often enabled them to tell, if not fortunes, at least the history, and condition of mind, of individuals, with great accuracy, was somewhat this:

The inferior Gipsies generally attended our large country "penny-weddings", in former times, both as musicians and for the purpose of receiving the fragments of the entertainments. At the wedding in the parish of Corstorphine, to which I have alluded, under the chapter of Fife and Stirlingshire Gipsies, Charles Stewart entered into familiar conversation with individuals present; joking with them about their sweet-hearts, and love-matters generally; telling them he had noticed such a one at such a place; and observing to another that he had seen him at such a fair, and so on. He always enquired about their masters, and places of abode, with other particulars relative to their various connections and circumstances in life. Here, the Gipsy character displays itself; here, we see Stewart, while he seems a mere merry-andrew, to the heedless, merry-making people at these weddings, actually reading, with deep sagacity, their characters and dispositions; and ascertaining the places of residence, and connexions, of many of the individuals of the country through which he travelled. In this manner, by continually roaming up and down the kingdom, now as individuals in disguise, at other times in bands--not passing a house in their route--observing everything taking place in partial assemblies, at large weddings, and general gatherings of the people at fairs--scanning, with the eye of a hawk, both males and females, for the purpose of robbing them--did the Gipsies, with their great knowledge of human character, become thoroughly acquainted with particular incidents concerning many individuals of the population. Hence proceed, in a great measure, the warlockry and fortune-telling abilities of the shrewd and sagacious Gipsies.

Or, suppose an old Gipsy female, who traverses the kingdom, has a relative a lady's maid in a family of rank, and another a musician in a band, playing to the first classes of society, in public or private assemblies, the travelling _spae-wife_ would not be without materials for carrying on her trade of fortune-telling. The observant handmaid, and the acute, penetrating fiddler would, of course, communicate to their wandering relative every incident and circumstance that came under their notice, which would, at an after and suitable period, enable the cunning fortune-teller to astonish some of the parties who had been at these meetings, when in another part of the country, remote in time, and distant in place, from the spot where the occurrences happened.

In order that they might not lessen the importance and value of their art, these Gipsies pretended they could tell no one's fortune for anything less than silver, or articles of wearing-apparel, or other things of value. Besides telling fortunes by palmistry,[150] they foretold destinies by divination of the cup, their method of doing which appears to be nearly the same as that practised among the ancient Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians, perhaps, about the time of Joseph. The Gipsy method was, and I may say is, this: The divining cup, which is made of tin, or pewter, and about three inches in diameter, was filled with water, and sometimes with spirits. Into the cup a certain quantity of a melted substance, resembling tin, was dropped from a crucible, which immediately formed itself, in the liquid, into curious figures, resembling frost-work, seen on windows in winter. The compound was then emptied into a trencher, and from the arrangements or constructions of the figures, the destiny of the enquiring individual was predicted.[151] While performing the ceremony, the Gipsies muttered, in their own language, certain incantations, totally unintelligible to the spectator. The following fact, however, will, more particularly, show the manner in which these Gipsy sorceresses imposed on the credulous.

[150] The Kamtachadales, says Dr. Grieve, in his translation of a
Russian account of Kamtachatka, pretend to chiromancy, and tell a
man's good or bad fortune by the lines of his hand; but the rules
which they follow are kept a great secret. _Page 206._

[151] Julius Serenus, says Stackhouse, tells us, that the method among
the Assyrians, Chaldeans, and Egyptians was to fill the cup with
water, then throw into it thin plates of gold and silver, together
with some precious stones, whereon were engraven certain characters,
and, after that, the person who came to consult the oracle used
certain forms of incantation, and, so calling upon the devil, were
wont to receive their answer several ways: sometimes by particular
sounds; sometimes by the characters which were in the cup rising upon
the surface of the water, and by their arrangement forming the answer;
and many times by the visible appearance of the persons themselves,
about whom the oracle was consulted. Cornelius Agrippa (De Occult.
Philos. LI, c. 57,) tells as, likewise, that the manner of some was to
pour melted wax into the cup wherein was water; which wax would range
itself in order, and so form answers, according to the questions
proposed.--_Saurin's Dissertation, 38, and Heidegger's His. patriar.
exercit. 20._

Fortune-telling is punishable by the 9th Geo. II, chap. 5th. In June,
1805, a woman, of the name of Maxwell, commonly called the Galloway
sorceress, was tried for this offence, by a jury, before the Stewart
of Kirkcudbright, and was sentenced to imprisonment and the
pillory.--_Burnet on Criminal Law, page 178._

A relative of mine had several servant-girls who would, one day, have their fortunes told. The old Gipsy took them, one at a time, into an apartment of the house, and locked the door after her. My relative, feeling a curiosity in the matter, observed their operations, and overheard their conversation, through a chink in the partition of the room. A bottle of whiskey, and a wine glass, were produced by the girl, and the sorceress filled the glass, nearly full, with the spirits. Into the liquor she dropped part of the white of a raw egg, and taking out of her pocket something like chalk, scraped part of it into the mixture. Certain figures now appeared in the glass, and, muttering some jargon, unintelligible to the girl, she held it up between her eyes and the window. "There is your sweetheart now--look at him--do you not see him?" exclaimed the Gipsy to the trembling girl; and, after telling her a number of events which were to befall her, in her journey through life, she held out the glass, and told her to "cast that in her mouth"--"Me drink that? The Lord forbid that I should drink a drap o't." "E'ens ye like, my woman; I can tak' it mysel," quoth the Gipsy, and, suiting the action to the word, "cast" the whiskey, eggs and chalk[152] down her throat, in an instant. Knowing well that the idea of swallowing the glass in which their future husbands were seen, and their own fortunes told, in so mysterious a manner, would make the girls shudder, the cunning Gipsy gave each of them, in succession, the order to drink, and, the moment they refused, threw the contents of the "divining cup" into her own mouth. In this manner did the Gipsy procure, at one time, no less than four glasses of ardent spirits, and sixpence from each of the credulous girls.

[152] It is not unlikely that the "something like chalk," here
mentioned, was nothing but a nutmeg, with which, and the eggs and
whiskey, the Gipsy would make, what is called, "egg-nogg."--ED.

The country-girls, however, never could stand out the operations of telling fortunes by the method of turning a corn-riddle, with scissors attached, in a solitary out-house. Whenever the Gipsy commenced her work, and, with her mysterious mutterings, called out: "Turn riddle--turn--shears and all," the terrified girls fled to the house, impressed with the belief that the devil himself would appear to them, on the spot.

The Gipsies in Tweed-dale were never in want of the best of provisions, having always an abundance of fish, flesh, and fowl. At the stages at which they halted, in their progress through the country, it was observed that the principal families, at one time, ate as good victuals, and drank as good liquors, as any of the inhabitants of the country. A lady of respectability informed me of her having seen, in her youth, a band dine on the green-sward, near Douglass-mill, in Lanarkshire, when, as I have already mentioned, the Gipsies handed about their wine, after dinner, as if they had been as good a family as any in the land. Those in Fifeshire, as we have already seen, were in the habit of purchasing and killing fat cattle, for their winter's provisions. In a communication to Blackwood's Magazine, to which I will again allude, the illustrious author of "Waverley" mentions that his grandfather was, in some respects, forced to accept a dinner from a party of Gipsies, carousing on a moor, on the Scottish Border. The feast consisted of "all the varieties of game, poultry, pigs, and so forth." And, according to the same communication, it would appear that they were in the practice of stewing game and all kinds of poultry into soup, which is considered very rich and savoury, and is now termed "Pottage a la Meg Merrilies de Derncleugh;" a name derived from the singular character in the celebrated novel of Guy Mannering.

But the ancient method of cooking practised among the Scottish Gipsies, and which, in all probability, they brought with them, when they arrived in Europe, upwards of four hundred years ago, is, if I am not mistaken, new to the world, never having as yet, that I am aware of, been described.[153] It is very curious, and extremely primitive, and appears to be of the highest antiquity. It is admirably adapted to the wants of a rude and barbarous people, travelling over a wild and thinly-inhabited country, in which cooking utensils could not be procured, or conveniently carried with them. My facts are from the Gipsies themselves, and are corroborated by people, not of the tribe, who have witnessed some of their cooking operations.

[153] I published the greater part of the Gipsy method of cooking, in
the Fife Herald, of the 18th April, 1833.

The Gipsies, on such occasions, make use of neither pot, pan, spit, nor oven, in cooking fowls. They twist a strong rope of straw, which they wind very tightly around the fowl, just as it is killed, with the whole of its feathers on, and its entrails untouched. It is then covered with hot peat ashes, and a slow fire is kept up around and about the ashes, till the fowl is sufficiently done. When taken out from beneath the fire, it is stripped of its hull, or shell, of half-burned straw-rope and feathers, and presents a very fine appearance. Those who have tasted poultry, cooked by the Gipsies, in this manner, say that it is very palatable and good. In this invisible way, these ingenious people could cook stolen poultry, at the very moment, and in the very place, that a search was going on for the pilfered article.

The art of cooking butcher-meat among the Gipsies is similar to that of making ready fowls, except that linen and clay are substituted for feathers and straw. The piece of flesh to be cooked is first carefully wrapped up in a covering of cloth or linen rags, and covered over with well wrought clay, and either frequently turned before a strong fire, or covered over with hot ashes, till it is roasted, or rather stewed. The covering or crust, of the shape of the article enclosed, and hard with the fire, is broken, and the meat separated from its inner covering of burned rags, which, with the juice of the meat, are reduced to a thick sauce or gravy. Sometimes a little vinegar is poured upon the meat. The tribe are high in their praise of flesh cooked in this manner, declaring that it has a particularly fine flavour. These singular people, I am informed, also boiled the flesh of sheep in the skins of the animals, like the Scottish soldiers in their wars with the English nation, when their camp-kettles were nothing but the hides of the oxen, suspended from poles, driven into the ground.

The only mode of cooking butcher-meat, bearing any resemblance to that of the Gipsies, is practised by some of the tribes of South America, who wrap flesh in _leaves_, and, covering it over with clay, cook it like the Gipsies. Some of the Indians of North America roast deer of a small size in their skins, among hot ashes. An individual of great respectability, who had tasted venison cooked in this fashion, said that it was extremely juicy, and finely flavoured. In the Sandwich Islands, pigs are baked on hot stones in pits, or in the leaves of the bread-fruit tree, on hot stones, covered over with earth, during the operation of cooking. It is probable that the Gipsy art of cooking would be amongst the first modes of making ready animal food, in the first stage of human society, in Asia--the cradle of the human race.[154] Substitute linen rags for the leaves of trees, and what method of cooking can be more primitive than that of our Scottish Gipsies?

[154] Ponqueville considers the Gipsies contemporary of the first
societies. _Paris_, 1830.

The Gipsy method of smelting iron, for sole-clout for ploughs, and smoothing-irons, is also simple, rude, and primitive.[155] The tribe erect, on the open field, a small circle, built of stone, turf, and clay, for a furnace, of about three feet in height, and eighteen inches in diameter, and plastered, closely round on the outside, up to the top, with mortar made of clay. The circle is deepened by part of the earth being scooped out from the inside. It is then filled with coal or charred peat; and the iron to be smelted is placed in small pieces upon the top. Below the fuel an aperture is left open, on one side, for admitting a large iron ladle, lined inside with clay. The materials in the furnace are powerfully heated, by the blasts of a large hand-bellows, (generally wrought by females,) admitted at a small hole, a little from the ground. When the metal comes to a state of fusion, it finds its way down to the ladle, and, after being skimmed of its cinders, is poured into the different sand moulds ready to receive it.

[155] According to Grellmann, working in iron is the most usual
occupation of the Gipsies. In Hungary it is so common, as to have
given rise to the proverb, "So many Gipsies, so many smiths." The same
may be said of those in Transylvania, Wallachia, and Moldavia, and all
Turkey in Europe; at least, Gipsies following that occupation are very
numerous in those countries.

This occupation seems to have been a favourite one with them, from the
most distant period. Uladislaus, King of Hungary, in the year 1496,
ordered: "That every officer and subject, of whatever rank or
condition, do allow Thomas Polgar, leader of twenty-five tents of
wandering Gipsies, free residence everywhere, and on no account to
molest either him or his people, because they prepared musket balls
and other military stores, for the Bishop Sigismund, at Fünf-kirchen."
In the year 1565, when Mustapa, Turkish Regent of Bosnia, besieged
Crupa, the Turks having expended their powder and cannon balls, the
Gipsies were employed to make the latter, part of iron, the rest of
stone, cased with lead.

Observe the Gipsies at whatever employment you may, there always
appear sparks of genius. We cannot, indeed, help wondering, when we
consider the skill they display in preparing and bringing their work
to perfection, from the scarcity of proper tools and
materials.--_Grellmann on the Hungarian Gipsies._--ED.