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They are darker than the sátoros czijányok, or tented Gypsies. Sinfi heard much talk among the Hungarians of the splendours of the early leaders of the continental Romanies. She was told of Romany kings, dukes, and counts. She accepted, with that entire faith which characterised her, the stories of the exploits of Duke Michael, Duke Andreas, Duke Panuel, and the rest.
'But, Sinfi, I mean that, apart from all this superstition of yours, you have reason to think she's alive? and you think she's with the Romanies? 'I know she's alive, and I think she's with the Romanies. She must be, brother, with the Shaws, or the Lees, or the Stanleys, or the Boswells, or some on 'em.
'My poor mammy used to say, "The Gorgios believes when they ought to disbelieve, and they disbelieve when they ought to believe, and that gives the Romanies a chance." 'Sinfi Lovell, said Wilderspin, 'that saying of your mother's touches at the very root of romantic art.
As an instance of the cuckoo instincts of the true Romany, he told me that in North America—for which land, alas! so many of our best Romanies even in Borrow’s time were leaving Gypsey Dell and the grassy lanes of old England—the gipsies have contracted a habit, which is growing rather than waning, of migrating southward in autumn and northward again in spring.
The Norwich Castle Hill provided Borrow with many opportunities of observing the habits of the East Anglian Romanies, who, in his day, attended in considerable numbers the horse sales and fairs that were held in the old city.
Something that dropped from one of the Lees as to the traditions and superstitions of the Hungarian Gypsies with regard to people suffering from dementia set me thinking; and at last I came to the conclusion that if I really believed Winifred to have taken shelter among the Romanies, it would be absurd not to follow up a band like these Hungarians.
At one time a gipsy never married out of his or her own tribe; but that day has gone, and there has been reared a mixed race with little of the true blood in them. Marrying into the ‘mumping’ and house-dwelling families has brought this about, and soon there will be no true Romanies left.
The whiche maner, was observed of the Romanies. Then leavyng after these lodgynges on everie parte, a space of xxii. yardes and a halfe, whiche shoulde make awaye, that shoulde be called the one, the firste waye on the righte hande, and the other the firste waie on the lefte hand, I woulde pitche on everie side an other order of xxxii. double lodgynges, whiche should tourne their hinder partes the one againste the other with the verie same spaces, as those that I have tolde you of, and devided after the sixtenth in the verie same maner for to make the overthwarte waie, where I would lodge on every side iiii. battailes of footemen, with their constables in bothe endes.
Watts calls a “spiritual biography,” and it is evident that whenever anything particularly striking pertaining to the Romanies occurs to Borrow the Romanies themselves promptly appear to illustrate it. Yet we know that Jasper Petulengro was a genuine character, even if he comes to us under a fictitious name.
Indeed, the great speciality of the Romanies is the superiority of the women to the men—a superiority which extends to everything, unless, perhaps, we except that gift of music for which the gipsies are noticeable.
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