“It has cut off many a head,” said John Nano, “and I have seen it before!”
I do not think that I have gone too far in attaching importance to the gypsy legend of the origin of the word chen-kan or zingan. It is their own, and therefore entitled to preference over the theories of mere scholars; it is Indian and ancient, and there is much to confirm it. When I read the substance of this chapter before the Philological Society of London, Prince Lucien Bonaparte,—who is beyond question a great philologist, and one distinguished for vast research,—who was in the chair, seemed, in his comments on my paper, to consider this sun and
moon legend as frivolous. And it is true enough that German symbolizers have given us the sun myth to such an extent that the mere mention of it in philology causes a recoil. Then, again, there is the law of humanity that the pioneer, the gatherer of raw material, who is seldom collector and critic together, is always assailed. Columbus always gets the chains and Amerigo Vespucci the glory. But the legend itself is undeniably of the gypsies and Indian.
It is remarkable that there are certain catch-words, or test-words, among old gypsies with which they try new acquaintances. One of these is kekkávi, a kettle; another, chinamangrī, a bill-hook, or chopper (also a letter), for which there is also another word. But I have found several very deep mothers in sorcery who have given me the word for sun, kam, as a precious secret, but little known. Now the word really is very well known, but the mystery attached to it, as to chone or shule, the moon, would seem to indicate that at one time these words had a peculiar significance. Once the darkest-colored English gypsy I ever met, wishing to sound the depth of my Romany, asked me for the words for sun and moon, making more account of my knowledge of them than of many more far less known.
As it will interest the reader, I will here give the ballad of the sun and the moon, which exists both in Romany and Roumani, or Roumanian, in the translation which I take from “A Winter in the City of Pleasure” (that is Bucharest), by Florence K. Berger,—a most agreeable book, and one containing two Chapters on the Tzigane, or gypsies.
THE SUN AND THE MOON.
Brother, one day the Sun resolved to marry. During nine years, drawn by nine fiery horses, he had rolled by heaven and earth as fast as the wind or a flying arrow.
But it was in vain that he fatigued his horses. Nowhere could he find a love worthy of him. Nowhere in the universe was one who equaled in beauty his sister Helen, the beautiful Helen with silver tresses.
The Sun went to meet her, and thus addressed her: “My dear little sister Helen, Helen of the silver tresses, let us be betrothed, for we are made for one another.
“We are alike not only in our hair and our features, but also in our beauty. I have locks of gold, and thou hast locks of silver. My face is shining and splendid, and thine is soft and radiant.”