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It may be true, as he says in "The Zincali," that "once in the south of France, when he was weary, hungry, and penniless, he observed one of these patterans or Gypsy trails, and, following the direction pointed out, arrived at the resting place of some Gypsies, who received him with kindness and hospitality on the faith of no other word of recommendation than patteran."
He had to stand in the stirrups to pluck a long- stemmed, five-fingered fern with which to bind the sprays into a cross. When the patteran was fashioned, he tossed it on the trail before him and noted that Selim passed over without treading upon it. Glancing back, Graham watched it to the next turn of the trail. A good omen, was his thought, that it had not been trampled.
She danced like a moth in a flame a wandering woman in the fire unquenchable that burns convention out of gipsy hearts, and makes the patteran the trail the only way worth while.
The people on the road looked at them curiously, passed a rough jest, and sent them on the merrier. Markham had destroyed his road map and now they followed the patteran, leaving their destiny to fortune. In the late afternoon, on their way through a forest, Clarissa suddenly halted and, in spite of much urging, refused to go on.
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.
Tobacco Pipes as old as the world. "Duveleste; Avo. Mandy's kaired my patteran adusta chairuses where a drum jals atut the waver," which means in English "God bless you, yes. Many a time I have marked my sign where the roads cross."
"You saw your husband's patteran?" "Yes, brother. Do you know what patteran means?" "Of course, Ursula; the gypsy trail, the handful of grass which the gypsies strew in the roads as they travel, to give information to any of their companions who may be behind, as to the route they have taken. The gypsy patteran has always had a strange interest for me, Ursula."
The patteran was like a miniature log cabin without a roof, and across the top one large stick was laid, pointing upward along the mountain road. Two brown and slender fingers on the big braid which dropped over her shoulder, the princess meditated, a shiver of fear running through her. What, she asked herself, could this mean?
She told me the word for leaf was patteran, which our people use now for trail, having forgotten the true meaning. She said that the trail was called patteran, because the gypsies of old were in the habit of making the marks with the leaves and branches of trees, placed in a certain manner.
Suddenly she checked her horses and sprang down. The patteran for which she was looking was laid beneath a clump of the flowering weed which the Romanys call "stars in the sky." The gorgios know it as Queen Ann's lace, and the farmers curse it by the name of the wild carrot.
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