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Gypsies : The name Gypsy,
an abbreviation of " Egyptian," has been used for
centuries by English-speaking people to denote a member of
a certain caste \of turbulent wanderers who travelled
Europe during the Middle Ages, and whose descendants, in a
much-decayed condition, are still found in most European
countries. Many other names, such as "Saracen" and ''Zigeuner,"
or '• Cigan," have been applied to these people, but "
Egyptian" is the most; widespread in time and place. It
does not relate to Egypt, but to the country of " Little
Egypt " or " Lesser Egypt," whose identity has never been
clearly established. Two Transylvanian references of the
years 1417 and 1418 indicate that Palestine is the country
in question, but there is some reason to believe that
''Little Egypt" included other regions in the Levant.
Gypsies speak ot themselves as Romane, and of their
language as Romani-tchib (Ichib—: tongue). Physically,
they are black-haired and brown-skinned, their appearance,
like their language, suggesting affinities with Hindustan.
But, although possessing marked racial characteristics,
for the most part, they must also be regarded as a caste
or organization. In recent centuries, if not in earlier
times, many of their over-lords were not of Gypsy blood,
but belonged to the nobility and petite noblesse of
Europe, and were formally appointed by the kings and
governments of their respective countries to rule over all
the Gypsies resident within those countries. The title of
baron, count, or regent of the Gypsies was no proof that
the official so designated was of Gypsy race. This fact
must always be borne in mind in any consideration of the
Gypsy system.
The rulers thus appointed, being empowered by Christian
princes, and under Papal approval, were necessarily
Christian. Moreover, their vassals were at least Christian
by profession. Although their behaviour was often wildly
inconsistent with such a profession, it was in the
character of Christian pilgrims that they asked and
obtrdned hospitality from the cities and towns of
Mediaeval Europe. On the other hand, they seem to have
practised rites which could not be described as Christian.
This twofold character is illustrated in conuertio.i with
the services which they still hold in the crypt of the
church of Les Saintes Maries de la Mer, in the He de la
C?.margue, Bonchcs-du-Rhone. In this church the Festival
of the Holy Marys is annually celebrated on 25th May, and
to it the Gypsies come in great numbers. The crypt is
specially reserved for them, because it contains the
shrine of Saint Sara of Egypt, whom they regard as their
patron s.jat. Throughout the night of 24th—25th May they
keep watch over her shrine, and on the 25th they take
their departure. Among the Gypsy votive oSerings presented
in the crypt, some are believed to date back ts about the
yeai 1450. All this would appear to indicate that the
Gypsies ware Christians. Another statement, however, tends
to qualify such a conclusion. This is the assertion that
the shrine of Saint Sara rests upon an ancient altar
dedicated to Mithra ; that the Gypsies of that
neighbourhood who are known as " Calagues," are descended
from the Iberians formerly inhabiting the Camargue; and
that their cult is really the Mithraic worship of fire and
water, upon which the veneration of Saint Sara is
super-imposed.
Confiimation of this view may be obtained from the worship
of fire still existing among the Gypsies of Southern
Hungary. The ceremonies observed at child-birth, in order
to avert evil during the period between birth and.
baptism, may be taken as evidence. Prior to the birth of
the child, the Gypsies light a fire before the mother's
tent, and this fire is not suffered to go out until the
rite of baptism has been performed. The women who light
and feed the fire croon, as they do so, the following
chant:-
Burn ye, barn ye fast,
O Fire ! And guard the babe from wrathful ire Of earthy
Gnome and Water-Sprite, Whom with thy dark smoke banish
quite ! Kindly Fairies, hither fare, And let the babe
good fortune share, Let luck attend him ever here,
Throughout his life be luck aye near ! Twigs and
branches now in store, { ^ And still of branches many
more, [ Give we to thy flame, 0 Fire ! Burn ye, burn ye,
fast and high, Hear the little baby cry !
It will be noted that the spirits of the Earth and Water
are here regarded as malevolent, and only to be overcome
by the superior aid of fire. Nevertheless, those women who
are believed to have learned their occult lore from the
unseen powers of Earth and Water are held to be the
greatest magicians of the tribe. Moreover, the water-being
is not invariably regarded as inimical, but is sometimes
directly propititated. As when a mother, to charm away
convulsive crying in her child, goes through the
prescribed ceremonial in all its details, of which the
last is this appeal, as she casts a red thread into the
stream:
"Take this thread, O
Water-Spirit, and take with it the crying of my child !
If it gets well, I will bring thee apples and eggs !"
The water-spirit appears
again in a friendly character when a man, in order to
recover a stolen horse, takes his infant to a stream, and,
bending over the water, asks the invisible genius to
indicate, by means of the baby's hand, the direction in
which the horse has been taken, 'in these two instances we
have a clear survival of the worship of water and the
watery powers. It may be questioned whether these rites
ought to be ascribed to Mithraism in its later stages, or
whether they own an earlier origin.
One definite statement with regard to Gypsy lore is
afforded by Joseph Glanvil, in a passage which inspired
Matthew Arnold's poem of '• The Scholar-Gypsy." " There
was lately a lad in the University of Oxford," says
Glanvil (Vanity of Dogmatising, 1661), " who was, by his
poverty, forced to leave his studies there, and at last to
join himself to a company of vagabond Gypsies." Glanvil
goes on to say that" after he had been a pretty while
exercised in the trade," this scholar-gypsy chanced to
meet two of his former fellow-students, to whom he
stated:—" that the people he went with were not such
impostors as they were taken for, but that they had a
traditional kind of learning among them, and could do
woriders by the powers of imagination, their fancy binding
that of others; that himself had learned much of their
art, and when he had compassed the whole secret, he
intended," he said, " to leave their company, and give the
world an account of what he had learned."
Here we have clear indications of the possession of a body
of esoteric learning, which included the knowledge and
exercise of hypnotism. Even among modern Gypsies this
power is exerciesd. De Rochas states that the Catalan
Gypsies are mesmerists and clairvoyants, and the present
writer has experienced an attempt on the part of a South
Hungarian Gypsy to exert this influence. The same power,
under the name of glamour, was formerly an attribute of
the Scottish Gypsies. Glamour is defined by Sir Walter
Scott as " the power of imposing on the eyesight of the
spectators, so that the appearance of an object shall be
totally different from the reality." And, in explanation
of a reference to " the Gypsies' glamour'd gang," in one
of his ballads, he remarks: •' Besides the prophetic
powers ascribed to the Gypsies in most European countries,
the Scottish peasants believe them possessed of the power
of throwing upon bystanders a spell to fascinate their
eyes and cause them to see the thing that is not. Thus in
the old ballad of' Johnnie Faa,' the elopement of the
Countess of Cassillis with a Gypsy leader is imputed to
fascination— ' Sae soon as they saw her weel-faur'd face,
They cast the glamour o'er her.' "
Scott also relates an incident of a Gypsy who " exercised
his glamour over a number of people at Haddington, to whom
he exhibited a common dung-hill cock, trailing, what
appeared to the spectators, a massy oaken trunk. An old
man passed with a cart of clover, he stopped and picked
out a four-leaved blade; the eyes of the spectators were
opened, and the oaken trunk appeared to be a bulrush." The
quatrefoil, owing to its cruciform shape, acted as a
powerful antidote to witchcraft. Moreover, in the face of
this sign of the Cross, the Gypsy was bound to desist from
the exercise of what was an unlawful art. As to the
possibility of hypnotizing a crowd, or making them " to
see the thing that is not," that feat is achieved to-day
by African witch-doctors. What is required is a dominant
will on the one hand and a sufficiently plastic
imagination on the other
Scott introduces these statements among his notes on the
ballad of " Christie's Will," in relation to the verse— "
He thought the warlocks o" the rosy cross, Had fang'd him
in their nets sae fast; Or that the Gypsies' glamour'd
gang Had lair'd his learning at the last."
This association of Rosicrucians with Gypsies is not
inapt, for hypnotism appears to have been considered a
Rosicru-cian art. Scott has other suggestive references in
this place. •' Saxo Grammaticus mentions a particular sect
of Mathematicians, as he is pleased to call them, who, '
per summam ludificandorum oculorum peritiam, proprios
alienosque vultus, varus rcrum imaginibus, adumbraie
callebant; illicibusque formis veros obscurare
conspectus." Merlin, the son of Ambrose, was particularly
skilled in this art, and displays it often in the old
metrical romance of Arthour and Merlin. The jongleurs were
also great professors of this mystery, which has in some
degree descended, with their name, on the modern
jugglers." *
It will be seen that various societies are credited with
the possession, in an eminent degree, of the art of
hypnotism, during the Middle Ages. Presumably, it was
inherited from one common source. How much the Gypsies
were associated with this power may be inferred from a
Scottish Act of Parliament of the year 1579, which was
directed . against " the idle people calling themselves
Egyptians, or any other that fancy themselves to have
knowledge of prophecy, charming, or other abused
sciences." For the terra ;' charming," like " glamour" and
other kindred words (e.g." enchantment," •• bewitched," "
spellbound ") bore reference to the mesmeric influence.
The statement made by Glanvil's scholar-gypsy would lead
one to believe that the Gypsies inhabiting England in the
seventeenth century possessed other branches of learning.
They have always been famed for their alleged prophetic
power, exercised through the medium of astrology .and
chiromancy or palmistry, and also by the interpretation of
dreams; this last-named phase .being distinctly specified
in Scotland in i6u.f It does not appear th.it any modern
Gypsies profess a knowledge of astrology. Nevertheless, it
is interesting to note that Groome } was shown by a Welsh
Gypsy-man the form of the written charm employed by his
mother in her fortune-telling, and that form is
unquestionably a survival of the horoscope. Both mother
and son were obviously unaware of that fact, and made no
profession of astrology; but they had inherited the scheme
of the horoscope from ancestors who were astrologers.
The practice of chiromancy is still a Gypsy art, as it has
been for ages. A curious belief was current in mediaeval
times to the effect that the three Kings or Magi who came
to Bethlehem were Gypsies, and in more than one religious
play they are represented as telling the fortunes of the
Holy Family by means of palmistry. This circumstance has
evoked the following suggestive remarks from C. G.
Leland.j]
" As for the connection of the Three Kings with Gypsies,
it is plain enough. Gypsies were from the East; Rome and
the world abounded in wandering Chaldean magi-priests, and
the researches which I am making have led me to a firm
conclusion that the Gypsy lore of Hungary and South
Slavonia has a very original character as being, firstly,
though derived from India, not A ryan, but Shamanic, that
is, of an Altaic, or Tartar, or' Turanian' stock. ....
Secondly, this was the old Chaldean-Accadian ' wisdom ' or
sorcery. Thirdly—and this deserves serious examination—it
was also the old Etruscan religion whose magic formulas
were transmitted to the Romans. ....
" The Venetian witchcraft, as set forth by Bernoni, is
evidently of Sclavic-Greek origin. That of the Romagna is
Etruscan, agreeing very strangely and closely with the
Chaldean magic of Lenormant, and marvellously like the
Gypsies'. It does not, when carefully sifted, seem to be
like that of the Aryans. .... nor is it Semitic. To what
degree some idea of all this, and of Gypsy connection with
it, penetrated among the people and filtered down, even
into the Middle Ages, no one can say. But it is very
probable that through the centuries there came together
some report of the common origin of Gypsy and ' Eastern '
or Chaldean lore, for, since it was the same, there is no
reason why a knowledge of the truth should not have been
disseminated in a time of a traditions and earnest study
in occultism."
These surmises on the'part of a keen and accomplished
student of every phase of magic, written and unwritten,
are deserving of the fullest consideration. By following
the line indicated by Leland it may be possible to reach
an identification of the " traditional kind of learning"
possessed by the Gypsies in the seventeenth century.
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