И тревожат душу вечерами
8 Apr 2010 17:00![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
iad58The old-fashioned Gypsy encampments, once so frequent in shady lanes and secluded spots, have almost entirely disappeared from some parts of England. Hence it has been too hastily assumed that these inveterate strollers have forsaken tent-life and become permanent house-dwellers. Even Mr. Borrow makes the remark (“Lavo-lil,” p. 221,) that you may “walk from London to Carlisle, but neither by the roadside nor on heath or common will you see a single Gypsy tent.” This is certainly a mistake. Harassed by the rural police, deprived of his accustomed camping-grounds by Enclosure Acts, the Gypsy, like the bittern, has been extirpated from many of his old haunts—ancient commons and wastes from which “the Northern farmer” and other pioneers of modern agriculture have “raäved an’ rembled un oot”—but he has only shifted his quarters, and not changed his habits. On our coasts where holiday-makers* congregate, and in the neighbourhood of popular watering-places, still as heretofore are
The patrin, or Gypsy trail, deserves a few words of explanation. As the Gypsies are a wandering and vagabond race, it has always been necessary for them to have some way of pointing out to stragglers the direction taken by the rest of the gang. As, moreover, in civilized countries they must travel more or less along the principal roads and highways, any ordinary spoor or trace would soon be effaced by the subsequent traffic. Hence arose the patrin-system, the invention of certain recognizable signs, by which the caravan on the march could indicate to loiterers the path it had taken, and guide them safely to the halting-place. Different kinds of patrins:
“The Gypsies all the summer seen,their tents having become a permanent feature in many such localities. Here they ply their traditional vocations, and reap a rich harvest from the visitors, a seaside flirtation being hardly deemed complete unless a Gypsy sybil has told the fortune of the amorous couple.
Native as poppies to the green,”
The Gypsy willingly pays a small ground-rent for the patch he occupies, and then his frail tent becomes as much his castle as an Englishman's house, and is as safe from the intrusion of prastermengros, and other unwelcome visitors. We know of an instance at Blackpool where a Gypsy, though living in a tent, has been so long a squatter on the same spot as to have been assessed for the poor-rate, which he duly discharges.
The patrin, or Gypsy trail, deserves a few words of explanation. As the Gypsies are a wandering and vagabond race, it has always been necessary for them to have some way of pointing out to stragglers the direction taken by the rest of the gang. As, moreover, in civilized countries they must travel more or less along the principal roads and highways, any ordinary spoor or trace would soon be effaced by the subsequent traffic. Hence arose the patrin-system, the invention of certain recognizable signs, by which the caravan on the march could indicate to loiterers the path it had taken, and guide them safely to the halting-place. Different kinds of patrins:
- Three heaps of grass (or any plant agreed upon) placed on the left-hand side of the road taken (day-patrin).
- Pieces of rag, generally three in number, tied to the twigs of the hedge on the left-hand side of the road taken (day-patrin).
- Boughs, or cleft sticks, pointing down the road taken (night-patrin).
- Marks and signs on the road itself—generally a cross (used in snowy, dusty, or dirty weather).
- Stones placed in a certain manner on the left-hand side of the road taken (used in windy weather).
- Shoe-prints or foot-marks, etc., etc.
—B.C. Smart, M.D., & H.T. Crofton:
The Dialect of the English Gypsies,
London, 1875.
The Dialect of the English Gypsies,
London, 1875.
