That the ordinary Christian Cross should be called by the English Gipsies a trin bongo drum—or the three cross roads—is not remarkable when we consider that their only association with it is that of a “wayshower,” as Germans would call it. To you, reader, it may be that it points the way of eternal life; to the benighted Rommany-English-Hindoo, it indicates nothing more than the same old weary track of daily travel; of wayfare and warfare with the world, seeking food and too often finding none; living for petty joys and driven by dire need; lying down with poverty and rising with hunger, ignorant in his very wretchedness of a thousand things which he ought to want, and not knowing enough to miss them.
Just as the reader a thousand, or perhaps only a hundred, years hence—should a copy of this work be then extant—may pity the writer of these lines for his ignorance of the charming comforts, as yet unborn, which will render his physical condition so delightful. To thee, oh, future reader, I am what the Gipsy is to me! Wait, my dear boy of the Future—wait—till you get to heaven!
Which is a long way off from the Gipsies. Let us return. We had spoken of patteran, or of crosses by the way-side, and this led naturally enough to speaking of Him who died on the Cross, and of wandering. And I must confess that it was with great interest I learned that the Gipsies, from a very singular and Rommany point of view, respect, and even pay him, in common with the peasantry in some parts of England, a peculiar honour. For this reason I bade the Gipsy carefully repeat his words, and wrote them down accurately. I give them in the original, with a translation. Let me first state that my informant was not quite clear in his mind as to whether the Boro Divvus, or Great Day, was Christmas or New Year’s, nor was he by any means certain on which Christ was born. But he knew very well that when it came, the Gipsies took great pains to burn an ash-wood fire.
“Āvali—adusta cheirus I’ve had to jāl dui or trin mees of a Boro Divvus sig’ in the sāla, to lel ash-wood for the yāg. That was when I was a bitti chavo, for my dádas always would keravit.
“An’ we kairs it because foki pens our Saviour, the tikno Duvel was born apré the Boro Divvus, ’pré the puv, avree in the temm, like we Rommanis, and he was brought ’pré pash an ash yāg—(Why you can dick dovo adrée the Scriptures!).
“The ivy and holly an’ pine rukks never pookered a lav when our Saviour was gaverin’ of his kokero, an’ so they tools their jivaben saw (sār) the wen, and dicks selno saw the besh; but the ash, like the surrelo rukk, pukkered atut him, where he was gaverin, so they have to hatch mullo adrée the wen. And so we Rommany chāls always hatchers an ash yāg saw the Boro Divvuses. For the tickno duvel was chivved à wadras ’pré the puvius like a Rommany chal, and kistered apré a myla like a Rommany, an’ jālled pāle the tem a māngin his moro like a Rom. An’ he was always a pauveri choro mush, like we, till he was nashered by the Gorgios.
“An’ he kistered apré a myla? Āvali. Yeckorus he putchered the pash-grai if he might kister her, but she pookered him kek. So because the pash-grai wouldn’t rikker him, she was sovahalled againsus never to be a dye or lel tiknos. So she never lelled kek, nor any cross either.
“Then he putchered the myla to rikker him, and she penned: ‘Āvali!’ so he pet a cross apré lāki’s dumo. And to the divvus the myla has a trin bongo drum and latchers tiknos, but the pash-grai has kek. So the mylas ’longs of the Rommanis.”
(TRANSLATION.)—“Yes—many a time I’ve had to go two or three miles of a Great Day (Christmas), early in the morning, to get ash-wood for the fire. That was when I was a small boy, for my father always would do it.