Part 14 (1/2)
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 cla.s.ses of society, in public or private a.s.semblies, 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 circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.syrians, 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 quant.i.ty 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 a.s.syrians, 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 c.h.i.n.k in the part.i.tion of the room. A bottle of whiskey, and a wine gla.s.s, were produced by the girl, and the sorceress filled the gla.s.s, 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, sc.r.a.ped part of it into the mixture.
Certain figures now appeared in the gla.s.s, 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 gla.s.s, 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 gla.s.s 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 gla.s.ses 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 princ.i.p.al 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 Dougla.s.s-mill, in Lanarks.h.i.+re, 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 Fifes.h.i.+re, 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 ill.u.s.trious 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 sh.e.l.l, 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 subst.i.tuted 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 fas.h.i.+on, 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]
Subst.i.tute 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 b.a.l.l.s and other military stores, for the Bishop Sigismund, at Funf-kirchen.”
In the year 1565, when Mustapa, Turkish Regent of Bosnia, besieged Crupa, the Turks having expended their powder and cannon b.a.l.l.s, the Gipsies were employed to make the latter, part of iron, the rest of stone, cased with lead.