[147] It is known that the rock-raven, or corbie, seldom preys upon the flocks around her nest; but the moment she is deprived of her young, she will, to the utmost of her power, wreak her vengeance on the young lambs in her immediate neighborhood. I have known the corbie, when bereaved of her brood, tear, with her beak, the very foggage from the earth, and toss it about; and before twenty-four hours elapsed, several lambs would fall a sacrifice to her fury. I have also observed that grouse, where the ground suits their breeding, are generally very plentiful close around the eyrie of the relentless falcon.
[148] After recovery from child-birth, the Gipsy woman recommences her course of begging or stealing, with her child in her arms; and then she is more rapacious than at other times, taking whatever she can lay her hands upon. For she calculates upon escaping without a beating, by holding up her child to receive the blows aimed at her; which she knows will have the effect of making the aggrieved person desist, till she finds an opportunity of getting out of the way.—Grellmann on the Hungarian Gipsies.—Ed.
[149] The following facts will show what a Scottish Tinkler, at the present day, will sometimes do in the way of “sorning,” or masterful begging.
One of the race paid a visit to the house of a country ale-wife, and, in a crowded shop, vaulted the counter, and applied his bottle to her whiskey-tap. Immediately a cry, with up-lifted hands, was raised for the police, but the prudent ale-wife treated the circumstance with indifference, and exclaimed: “Hout, tout, tout! let the deil tak’ a wee drappie.”
On another occasion, a Gipsy woman entered a country public-house, leaving her partner at a short distance from the door. Espying a drawn bottle of porter, standing on a table, in a room in which were two females sitting, she, without the least ceremony, filled a glass, and drank it off; but before she could decant another, the other Gipsy, feeling sure of the luck of his mate, from her being admitted into the premises, immediately proceeded to share it with her. But he had hardly drank off the remainder of the porter, ere a son of the mistress of the house made his appearance, and demanded what was wanted. “Want—want?” replied the Gipsy, with a leering eye towards the empty bottle; “we want nothing—we’ve got all that we want!” On being ordered to “walk out of that,” they left, with a smile of satisfaction playing on their weather-beaten countenances.
Such displays of Gipsy impudence sometimes call forth only a hearty laugh from the people affected by them.—Ed.
[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 Assyrians, 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.
[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.