I've learnt how to do cropped screenshots on my new MacBook, which is so cool for newspaper excerpts on my current projects, which right now were about witchcraft and the slave girls of the Caucasus, in the same manner as I had done for the gypsies. Basically I was making a presentation on my genealogy website, looking deeply into these matters, in accordance with surviving newspaper articles which I'd earlier made note of, while adding more of current research. This began with a paper from back in 1679 relating to the witches of Bo'ness, or Barrowstones as it was written back then. They were a bunch of widows, in the main, who were accused of consorting with the devil. As it was written on the official paper, the crime of witchcraft is declared to be a horrid abomination, capital crime, punishable with the pains of death. Annabel Thomson, one of the witches, was said to have encountered a black man on more than one occasion while out and about, and it was he who was said to be the devil. The first time she'd met him, he'd expressed empathy for her struggles in life, promising her that if she followed him her life would be so much better. She didn't take him up on his proposal, not until coming across him again five weeks later. I do wonder if this romance she then found herself in was indeed with a man of colour, and maybe even a man of the gypsy travelling community, who were indeed known for their magical powers. At the time of their second encounter she'd been on her way to the coal hill, early in the morning, and upon her accepting that this time she would follow him he threw her to the ground and they had 'carnal copulation'. From then on, he and another man friend, William Craw, would meet her in the nights, with other ladies too, to party and dance and drink ale, the 'black man' playing a pipe to provide the music. It was in her final meeting with him, when she was on her way to the Grange coal hill, that he invited her to drink ale with him in the salt pans. Another woman, Margaret Pringle, also had carnal copulation with this black man. They'd held hands together, after which for eight days her hand was in pain. Another widow, Margaret Hamilton, had been lovers with this man for 8 or 9 years. They'd first met at the town well, where they had got into conversation. She took him back to her home where they drank ale and got intimate, for which in gratitude he'd given her a gift of gold. Another woman, also with the name Margaret Hamilton, had known this man for the longest. She recalled experiencing him as a black man in copulation, and yet upon his leaving he having the appearance of a black dog. Although the sentence for such consorting was to be burnt at the stake, the witches were first to be 'wirried', that is they were estranged by wire, their bodies thereafter being burnt to ashes. Some of the newspaper articles after that time referenced the Auto de Fé's of Spain and Portugal, in which the monks of the inquisition regularly made victims of not only witches, but also polygamists and converso's, who had in the past converted from Judaism to christianity, but who were observed to be lapsing back into their old ways. I'd seen of this before in regard to Goa in India, where Portuguese settlers who were too much familiarising themselves with the ways of Hinduism themselves became victims to the Inquisitors. Sometimes those accused of being witches were simply healers who had cured people of that considered to be incurable. This included a man who was a surgeon and had merely been too good at his job. In 1726, at the village of Burnt Pelham (now known as Brent Pelham), near St Albans, an old lady was brought to trial as a suspected witch, only for the judge to on but a glance dismiss her, as he could not take seriously that such a homely old woman would be involved in witchcraft. And this was even though it had always been the old women who were more largely the ones being prosecuted. In consequence of the judges words it was after reported that by current opinion of the learned, none but the young and beautiful were truly the witches. This created a panic among the beautiful young ladies of the area, serval of whom absconded for fear of being targeted as witches, for all the men about who were charmed by them. In Hungary, at Segedin, witches continued to be burnt alive, as was recorded in the British newspapers in 1728. One of the victims there was an 82 year old man, who'd been a former judge of the town, said to have practised the dark arts for 50 years. Another was a midwife who'd baptised 200 children in the name of the devil. Meanwhile in England attitudes to witchcraft were changing, the intellectual classes generally dropping such superstitions, while country folk themselves clung longer onto such beliefs. This meant that although the authorities no longer took such accusations seriously, the general poor were still blaming local calamities upon old widows, and sometimes without any authority would take such matters into their own hands. One example, in 1731, occurred at Frome in Somerset. A child of the Wheeler family, who live in the forest, had taken ill with 'extraordinary fits', for which it was assumed that she had been bewitched. The culprit was assumed to be an old lady known as Goody Richards, who lived at nearby Witham Friary. And so this old lady was dragged out of her home by a mob, and was taken two miles on horseback to a millpond where she was stripped of her upper clothes, her legs tied together and a rope around her waist, and she was thrown into the water. 200 spectators were there making noise and abetting the riot. She swam like a cork, even though they plunged her several times. Whenever dunked she consumed plenty of water, for which she was pulled out almost dead. Brandy was poured into her mouth to revive her, she was dragged into a horse stable and there thrown into the sewage, still in her wet clothes. In but an hour she was dead. 40 people had directly taken part in plunging her, and masses of witnesses had been there, but all remained silent when the authorities did their utmost afterwards to find out who had been the ringleaders of this affair. The locals remained satisfied that the old witch, as they called her, had been destroyed, and for the 'fine sport' they'd had in 'swimming her'. By 1735 the statute against witchcraft was repealed and those who continued to duck witches would now themselves be guilty of crime. And yet still the lynchings continued. In that same year, at Nantby, a poor shoemaker, John Kinsman, was suspected to be a wizard who had conspired with the devil, and all because the 'lazy' dairymaid seemed no more able to make good butter and cheese. John was taken by the mob to be ducked at a pond in Kelmarsh, whereon another younger and stronger man, named Barwick, intent on saving his life, offered to be ducked in his place. He survived those waters, whereas the shoemaker likely would have not. And so these stories continued. And the question arises, why were suspected witches dunked in water and if floating considered guilty, and the answer is that the witch would have renounced her baptism by water, for which the water now would not receive her. At another ducking, at Oakley, in Bedfordshire, a visiting gentleman who was a bystander to such an event ultimately stepped in to save the life of the targeted woman. In Bedfordshire, in that area, so prevalent was the belief in witches that, as the gentleman said, 'One would think oneself in Lapland were you to hear their ridiculous stories'. It was a 50 years old lady at that time being ducked, which she was in agreement to, to save hers and her children's reputations. What is more the parish authorities had offered her a guinea if she should sink. The appointed place was at the river Ouse, by a mill, and there were 500 spectators. At eleven in the morning she arrived and was tied into a sheet, but for her face and hands showing, her thumbs tied together, and likewise her big toes, and her hands being tied to the small of her legs. A rope was fastened around her waist and into the water she was thrown. Unhappily for her she didn't sink, even though for as long as a minute and a half her head was under water. She was taken out, half dead, and when she'd managed to take a breath the experiment was repeated. Each time she floated, for which the crowd were shouting 'A witch, a witch, drown her'. The poor lady was lain once more down upon the grass, unable to speak and almost dead, as people threw insults at her, not any pity nor compassion, but for the visiting gentleman who now took it upon himself to protect her. He cut the strings which bound her and carried her to safety in the mill, and he reasoned with the people, at risk to himself, near to being mobbed by the crowd. He appealed to them that this was an unreliable experiment, as any woman of her age tied up in a sheet would float. In Portugal, the Auto de Fé's continued, there always being Jews in trouble for not being authentic converted christians, all of whom were burnt, and there even being a nun accused of being a sorceress. It's so that Joan of Arc had been regarded by the English to be a witch, an article in 1748 looking back on this. The English soldiers so believed her to have been sent by the devil that her very presence terrified them. At length, she was convicted of witchcraft and burnt, that it may be fulfilled, which was spoken of by the prophet, 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'. In 1749, a ship off the Capes of Virginia, being blown far off course by a rough storm, led to an elderly woman on board, suspected of being a witch causing all of this, being thrown overboard. All such perpetrators would in turn be punished, and yet people kept upholding the need for such actions to be taken against witches, supported by the mobs around them. I still see this in people today, just as deluded, ignorant and aggressive, lacking in intellectual reason, those who make up part of our democratic evolved lands, who get included in all our devision making, so that as with friends I know even, sickness is not something natural, but is to be blamed on chemtrails, evil plots and the depopulation agenda of those who govern us, and rogue tyrants who gain power and create havoc are portrayed as saviours, and even terrorists gain worldwide support from those whom they would in turn destroy. Such low consciousness in people is potentially brutal and dangerous, as can be seen with the witch hunts of the past, but such people never seem to have the ability to see all this themselves. This has always been one of humanities struggles, with at least some of the elements within society pursuing ignorant causes, whether those in leadership, or the general people, or both. Witchcraft persecutions are the craziest example of this. All our ancestors lived in such a climate, whether victims themselves, astounded bystanders, or perpetrators and their collaborators. Until there came the Age of Enlightenment, looking to scientific and logical explanations for what happens in the world, rather than aligning with sinister and harmful superstitions. I always said it, that the people of my own village would have had me done for a witch years ago. there's a reason why scapegoating others is still called making a witch hunt. To survive in those olden times one needed to be humdrum and the same as most others, and in no way exceptional, unless one had the privilege of wealth and nobility, and even then at times one may have become a victim. The freedom we now have, to be as we are by nature, so long as it harms no other, is as precious as a jewel and should never be taken for granted. Again, in 1751, there was a mob action against suspected witches, for which the ringleader of the attack, Thomas Colley, was later executed. The victims that time were an elderly couple, the Osborne's of Tring. It was announced in three separate markets that they were to be ducked, for which 10,000 people came to witness and take part in their demise. The mob pulled down a portion of the workhouse where the couple stayed, and set fire to the rest, only to discover the couple were actually taking shelter in the church vestry. The mob broke in there, tied the old couple together by their thumbs and big toes, and carried them to the water for their ducking, during which the old lady, Ruth Osborne, perished, and Thomas Colley had to take account before the law for what he had done. Even into the 1800's such incidents continued, so stubborn that the people were about not giving up their old ways. In a Biblical context these actions were sanctioned by Scripture, touted confidently by the witch hunters, for the line 'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live'. Therefore in seizing and burning witches these people were carrying out the word and command of God. In such a way the Bible was turned from being a helper of humanity to a hinderer of progress, which should serve as a warning to people that just because a church or any religion teaches something or other does not mean that thing is true. It was back in 1848 that the Pope had first ordered the inquisitors to hunt out and put to death all practisers of the diabolic art, after which the Reformation changed little in this regard, protestants being just as eager to condemn any woman suspected of selling her soul to the devil. The old Biblical reaction against witches is still believed in by born again Christian types, like one ex new ager lady I know, who online sensationalises the witchery issue and goes on and on about it, gaining fame in such circles for herself for being an 'ex witch', now repentant and exposing all, although she was never truly an old style sorceress but merely someone who'd been exploring the divine feminine, now sharing regularly former stunning photos of herself when she'd been doing the devils work, along with artful videos, aesthetic and compelling to see, but still damning, the modern PR of demonising those who explore their spirituality in any way other than evangelical Christianity. She's a beauty and content in her world, but does no favour to women and their natural explorations into the world of goddesses and the divine feminine. Even herbal healing she dismisses and demeans as demonic, like the inquisitors of old who had turned on healers and midwives. In this she never relents, feeding unnecessary ignorance into her small minded American based community. In olden times the witch would not have been suffered to live. She is an enabler and a driving force for where all this is at in current times, within that very specific sect of western christianity. It's bizarre. Like one wanders here who really got into the clutches of the demonic, the free spirited one or the accuser whose weapon as always is their favourite scripture.
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While in a café, Freaks, in Carcassonne, sheltering from the cold in a cosy chair, I perused from the book shelf a brill old gypsy book with super black and white photos from the 60's and 70's, 'Tsiganes et Gitanes' by Hans Silvester and Jean-Paul Clebert. So good the photos were that I was sharing them with my gypsy friend Ella May, who so delighted in them that she instantly ordered the book second-hand online. Such an olde way of life was portrayed, even through from not so far back, photos of gypsies dwelling in caves, travelling with bears and monkeys, which would dance to the beat of their tambourines, and such a beautiful photo of a young girl kissing the deity of Sara Kali at St Marie de la Mer.
It's very heartening to hear of the fondness Queen Victoria had for the gypsies, regardless that many others of the time were not so well disposed towards them. The Queen even painted pictures of those she chanced to meet while out strolling, to whom she donated firewood, soup, clothes and blankets.
I have been researching old newspapers online, mostly the history of gypsies, in a social regard, adding to other likewise articles I have found. I have chronologically referenced some of these stories, to be seen in a fuller blog on my website, beginning in the early 1700's with the main issue having been the habitual fortune telling of the gypsy women and a wish to suppress this. For all the ethusiasm among women to know their fortunes and to have insights into love, it can be seen that along with this there was some intentional fraudulence going on. It's not that this was a reflection on the gypsies at large, but it was surely there for some elements among them. Gypsies of the New Forest appear to have had a good reputation, and Queen Victoria herself had a fondness for these peoples, but this fine picture was not to be experienced everywhere, as will be seen. 1725 - Gypsies are put into prison for the pretense of telling peoples fortunes. Six of their women and three of their men are said to have been 'pilfering about the country'. 1733 - A 'country wench', aged 18, who was journeying alone to a village, was on the way attacked by a 'travelling tinker and his whore'. They stripped her naked and took away all she had. On then tying her to a tree with a strong cord, they set their dog on her, in such a manner that he almost tore off one of her breasts. A gentleman, happening to be passing at a distance, heard the dog barking and for curiosity rode up, hby which time the couple had disappeared, although the dog was still there with his hold upon the girl. The man made the dog let go, untied the girl, wrapped her up in his great coat, and followed the dog, who soon went to his master at an alehouse in the town, where he was there seized and sent to Nottingham jail. On going back to the poor girl, the man found that she was dead. 1736 - A years imprisonment and four stands in the pillory, it is announced by parliament, will be given to all those who tell fortunes or who employ 'crafty science' to find stolen goods. This was resorted to in response to 'ignorant people being frequently deluded and defrauded'. 1739 - A false prophetess, from among the idle strollers in summer times who 'pretend to tell fortunes' and who pose to have the 'gifts of prophecy', has bewitched a gentlemans money away from him in Essex. Sitting under a hedge listening to the gypsy talking, she persuaded him to give her all the money he had in his pockets, to go to his friends house and in the orchard to dig under a certain walnut tree where he would find 15 lottery tickets, all of which would win a prize, and in each ticket would be a diamond of considerable value. Before digging he was instructed to scrape all the bark off the tree and this instruction the infatuated gentleman followed and he dug deeply, before realising he had lost out and so had his friend. Warrants were now out to apprehend the false prophetess. 1758 - Susannah Fleming is imprisoned for a year for telling fortunes and is to be pilloried every quarter of a year for one hour during market day. 1758 - Of a gang of near 20 gypsies in different parts of Norfolk, the men have been robbing houses and the women have been telling fortunes. Two of them, Lomas Smith and James Lacey, have been committed to the castle jail for burgling the house of a widow in the night time. Lomas Smith is a gypsy, a tinker by trade. James Lacey sells buckles and knives. Theyr women tell fortunes. Ten of the gypsies are in the neighbourhood of Southrepps, Bacton, Trunch and about the sea coast. One of those gypsies, who is their captain, wears a laced hat and rides a good horse. 1768 - A fortune telling woman, accused of stealing near Banff in Scotland, has been ill treated by a mob. She had been going around the country telling fortunes, only to then be suspected of stealing some clothes, for which she was taken by a mob and dragged along the streets to the shore, where they ducked her, tying her hands to a cart and hoisting her up and down into the water. This barbarous exercise they carried on for so long that she would have died at their hands, but for someone more humane than the others freeing her. She then crawled about the streets, begging for shelter from the inclement weather, until at four in the morning a woman showed her to an outhouse. She was almost frozen to death by now and she soon after expired. The principal men behind this horrid affair, being sailors, were found and now lie in prison. 1808 - Gypsies sell a pony, then pick pocket the buyer. This happened at the Marlborough fair. 1811 - An 86 year old leader of a gypsy gang has married a 22 year old. The man, Lawrence Winsor, was a celebrated fiddler and travelling brazier, his young bride being Joanna Skelton. 1811 - A farmers servant girl named Elizabeth Collier was robbed and attacked by gypsies, whom she came upon while travelling by foot. Elizabeth had been sent on a misson by her mistress to purchase a bottle of wine for a sick cottager and was on her return, it being ten in the morning, when a gypsy woman came to her and insisted on telling her her fortune. Elizabeth was endeavouring to get away when two men rushed out from a park, grabbed her and dragged her some way from the road, where they took from her a pound and some silver, a shawl and the port wine. Not content with having already robbed and ill treated her, they most inhumanely stabbed her with a penknife under her right breast. The poor girl made it back home and reported what had happened, for which the farmer, procuring the assistance of a soldier, went in pursuit and found them. One did escape, but on some gypsies being rounded up, and Elizabeth being present to identify the culprits, he was captured, he being Adam Lee. 1812 - The two gypsies, Thomas and Adam Lee, who had robbed and stabbed the servant girl Elizabeth Collier, were executed for highway robbery. They were part of the gypsy gangs that travelled Hampshire, Sussex, Surrey and Kent, and for years had been accomplices in various depredations. Thomas's wife, having been part of the robbery, was sentenced to be transported for life. A most affecting scene took place after their sentences were given, just previous to their being taken to separate cells, where on taking final leave of one another, the 'wretched criminal' Thomas, in a passionate manner, alternately embraced his wife and their little infant which she held in her arms. Thomas and Adam were taken to the scaffold with halters around their necks and their arms pinioned, the while of which Thomas Lee presented a most melancholy scene, being obliged to be carried and weeping in a most lamentable tone. Upon the scaffold, they had a few moments of prayer, then were launched off, and their bodies, after being suspended the usual time, were cut down and delivered to their relatives and several of their fraternity, who were more in number than had ever been remembered on such an occasion. 1813 - A gang of gypsies pitched their tent on waste ground in Herefordshire and an old gypsy woman from among them called at the house of a man named Gritton, saying she would tell him his fortune. She persuaded him that a large amount of gold lay concealed in his home and that he should put a large sum of money into a parcel, which she would endow with a charm, and then sew into the side pocket of his coat. The more money the parcel contained, the more considerable would be the treasure he should find, for which he put together £70 in gold, silver and bills. Nine days this was to remain in his coat, at the end of which she promised to return and that a coffer of guineas was to arise from the ground, to at once enrich her 'credulous dupe'. She never returned though and when he opened up the parcel he saw to his utter confusion that the 'witch' had turned that gold and silver into halfpence, stones and waste paper. Much of that money the man had borrowed from his neighbours and if he had been able to procure more he would have. As for the gypsy woman, she had escaped with her 'booty'. 1815 - New laws against vagrancy are affecting gypsies. By strict application of the law, magistrates are to apprehend and bring to punishment common beggars, gypsies, and other persons wondering about, who refuse or unable to give good account of themselves. 1820 - Two gypsies, Thomas Smith and William Lee, stole two horses from a field and were caught up with in Romford where they were offering the horses for sale. 1823 - Constables are fined 20 shillings if gypsies or other vagrants camp on the waste lands in their parishes , in accordance with the Vagrancy Act. 1832 - The death in a tent on a race ground has occurred of the 'King of the gypsies' alias Charles Lee, the 'monarch' of a 'murky tribe', maybe aged 74, but maybe much older. He has left about 50 children and grandchildren behind him. At his funeral, ten of his relatives attended, the rest of his family being absent at different fairs and races. A thousand spectators came to the church yard, curious to witness the funeral of 'so exalted a character'. 1833 - On entering certain countries the gypsies passed themselves off as Christians of Egypt who had been expelled from their land by the Saracens. In this article the dates are given for their arrival in Europe, in Hungary in 1417, as likewise in Bohemia, the German states and France. It was in France, as recorded by Pasquier, that they gave out the story about being Egyptians, saying they had come via Bohemia. In 1418 they arrived in Switzerland. In 1422 they came to Italy. From France they passed into Spain and Portugal. It was later, in the reign of Henry VIII that they came to England. The whole of this 'outcaste race' now amounted to five million, there being a million in Europe, 400,000 in Africa, a million and a half in India, and two million in the rest of Asia. 1836 - The gypsies have been overunning the Basque lands and turning to violent crime. Innumerable bands of gypsies there no longer confine themselves to their old system of begging, frauding the credulous, and taking hens from roosts and rabbits from hutches and occasionally sheep too, but have taken to violent robberies, sometimes even mudering, watching the farmers on their return from market, to steal from them their moneys for the sales of cattle and all else. When pursued in France they escape to Spain and vice versa. Orders have been given to arrest all the gypsies, 30 of these 'dark complexioned marauders' having already been captured. It is despaired of though that never will these vagabonds acquire fixed habits of industry, but that they will return to their evil courses once released. It has been observed that there are at least 2,000 of this wandering tribe, who have no means of subsistence but fraud, robbery and murder. Therefore, the only way to rid the country people of this scourge is to seize 'the whole of these wretches' and to 'transport them en masse beyond sea'. Such gypsies are not to be considered as Frenchmen, as they are outcastes to all society and are alien from the laws. They are altogether strangers in the land to which they are a burden. 1838 - A girl caring for children repelled gypsy burglars with a gun. Her master, of Woodford Hall, had gone to church with all the other servants, leaving her with his three children, all under the age of ten, her name being Eliza Whitmel. Two gypsy men came demanding admittance, which upon her denying them, they tried to batter in the door. Eliza told them from the first floor window to go away, and that she would rather die than let them rob the house. Disregarding her, they continued to batter the door, upon which she got her masters gun and fired it at them four times. The oldest daughter, who was nine, was supplying her with powder and shot so that she could keep reloading. The thieves, finding her to be determined, and having small wounds already from the shots, they gave up and left. 1841 - Talk of the early persecution of gypsies, their hiding in caves and holes, and their habits since then. So it begins, that shortly after their first arrival in England, which is upwards of three centuries since, a dreadful persecution was raised against them, the aim of which was their utter extermination. Being a gypsy was esteemed a crime worthy of death and the gibbets of England groaned beneath the weight of gypsy carcasses, and the miserable survivors were literally obliged to creep into the earth in order to preserve their lives. These days passed by, their persecutors became weary of pursuing them, and so they showed their heads from the holes and caves where they had hidden themselves. Venturing forth, they increased in numbers, each tribe of family choosing a particular curcuit, they fairly dividing the land among them. In England the male gypsies were all horse dealers, who sometimes would mend the tin and copper utensils of the peasantry. The gypsy women were fortune tellers. They would pitch their tents in the vicinity of a village or small town, by the roadside, under the shelter of the hedges and the trees. Their complexion is dark, but not disagreeably so. Their faces are oval, their features regular, their foreheads low, and their hands and feet small. The men are taller than the English peasantry and are far more active. They all speak the English language fluently. In their gate and demeanour they are easy and graceful, whereas the peasantry are slower, uncouth and in manner dogged and brutal. This report is gleaned from Borrows 'Gypsies of Spain'. 1842 - A remarkable circumstance is noted to have been the ceremonial expulsion of one of the gypsies of the New Forest, by the name of Lee. Between 300 and 400 gypsies, both men and women, belonging to different tribes, including the Lees, Stanleys and Coopers, assembled at Boltons Bench near Lyndhurst. The offender, a handsome looking man, in his 30's, was placed in the middle of a ring, comprised of the king of the gypsies and the patriarchs of the different tribes. A second ring was made up of the rest of the men and an exterior ring to that was made up of the women. The King, who was one of the Lees, a 'venerable old man', looking to be in his 90's, addressed the culprit for nearly an hour in a tongue that was strange to any bystanders, spoken impressively with vehement gesticulations. Only the gypsies themselves knew what was this mans crime, but it must have been very obnoxious, as the act of expulsion among them is exceedingly rare. When the king finished his speech he spoke to all present, saying in English that Jacob Lee was expelled from among them and was no longer of their fraternity and must leave the camp of the gypsies forever. The king then went and spat on him and the circles opened to allow the mans departure, they hitting him with branches as he did so. The meeting then broke up, all going their different ways, some having come to witness this from a considerable distance. The whole ceremony took place under an imposing ancient oak tree. 1848 - Sophia Locke, the daughter of a gypsy traveller, was born in a cave near Crocker Wood, and was one to always roam the land in male attire. She posed as a man, calling herself John Smith, working either as a tinker or a scissor grinder. For 14 years she even had a woman lover, with whom she travelled all over England. In 1847 it is to be seen that the two of them were picking hops in Worcestershire. They lived very happily together and would earn around a guinea a day. Upon her death, Sophia was buried as John Smith and a great many people came to witness her funeral. 1851 - Two gypsy men, David Yelding and Joseph Barton, assaulted a French man named Jacques Ponsonque who travels with his bear named Bruin. On meeting them on the Canterbury road, the gypsies began taunting the bear, playing tricks, and when Jacques tried to stop them they beat him up. 1887 - A description is given in the Thanet Advertiser of the gypsy woman, she being not always handsome in later life, but as a maiden is always attractive. Even when older though, she never loses her glowing eyes, nor is she ever feeble. As a rule they outlive their gypsy men. She has an apparently wondrous power of sorcery and divination. Her spirit is exhaustless. She has a certain personal charm and an untrained intuitive intellect, for which she may even be considered to be the brightest of women.
Me and Amanda had some interesting talk about gypsies, as maybe I was descended from them (maybe not), but as for Amanda it was said that her maternal grandfather, Thomas Shaw, had been a gypsy. He had sold newspapers on a street corner in Liverpool. When her granny, Ellen Spencer, had fallen for him she was forbidden to marry him, for which they had dated in secret for many years and on Ellen's fathers death they were at last able to marry. Amanda wanted that I would look more into this, but there were so many Thomas Shaw's in Liverpool at that time, for which I needed more clues. I did crack more of Amanda's vaster genealogy though, of her humble Scousers, one of whom had been a mariner from St John's Newfoundland, and there being generations of shoe makers and carters. The carters would generally have had a horse and cart by which to transfer produce from one location to another. I caught onto someone elses research from hereon, which led to a Welsh family, and yet I could see this shared information was incorrect. Although for sure there was Welsh blood and Irish too. Amanda, although it was not so clear to see, had red hair, which was from both sides of her family, her father having like mine been a redhead. Some days later I again looked to Amanda's genealogy, this time cracking her 'gypsy' Shaws. This was thanks to a phone call between Amanda and her mother which revealed the date of birth I'd needed to distinguish the one Shaw fellow from a host of others.
Thomas Shaw's mother, Gertrude, had not been favourably recalled for she had been a tough woman, all in black, who would threaten to set her dog on Amanda's mother when she'd been a little girl. So they were understood to be a bunch of gypsies, that family, although going back in time it could be seen that they were solid working class types. And further back there was an alderman and mayor of Chester. Amanda was relieved to at last find someone of success and repute. Amanda and I both looked into the genealogy of her ex, Richard Stanley the film maker, but she could present nothing to work on other than that he was the son of Leonard Stanley and Penny Elton Miller. They had been South Africa based, but I could find nothing on them. Richard's great grandfather, who Richard had often talked of, also written of in his wikipedia, was the great explorer, Henry Moreton Stanley, of the famed 'Livingstone I presume' quote. And yet on examining this I found that it could not be so. Henry Moreton Stanley was a most controversial figure, who was brutal in his African conquerings and a bisexual lover of boys, one of whom was his adopted black African son. But as for biological children, that didn't happen, at least not with his wife, with whom he had adopted a son, Denzil, not a blood descendant at all. Nor had Denzil had any children, himself merely adopting a step-son. This proclaimed ancestry was pas possible. The next day I was back to trying to suss Richard's family tree, not this time his professed descent from the explorer, Henry Moreton Stanley, which I had seen was nothing more than a fantasy. His family I could see was indeed African based, his father Leonard being in the civil service in Rhodesia. I even found Leonard's birthday and ship journeys he'd been on between England and Africa, but nothing more. As for his mothers side, with her I could go back a-plenty, to the old Mallet family of Devon, who held lands there since as far back as the times of Henry VIII. Typically Stanley was a gypsy surname and Richard did have something of the gypsy look, being black haired and black eyes. (to be continued)
My hoped for link to the gypsies falters yet more when I seen that even on the DNA oracles others in my online Romany group have had specific mention of there being Romany ethnicity and I have not. They have all been raised in the travelling lifestyle though, and if I do have links myself they are further back. So who knows. The thing with autosomal DNA its that it really looks at recent generations. Which does make my central Asian, Caucasus, Middle Eastern, and Mediterranean results all the more curious. What to speak of the African traces to ancient jungle dwelling pygmies, probably the most fascinating African type of DNA one can have. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I joined on facebook a Romany gypsy group 'Romany Ancestry UK' to see of this can help me to discover if I have genuine gypsy roots or not. The surnames I have in my family, which I suspect to be gypsy, were indeed authenticated as being so. Many of the gypsies in the group totally know their ancestry and are full blown traveller gypsies, and while on the one hand their welcoming friendliness goes deep and provokes an excitement in me, I on the other hand fear I am an imposter. Matching my Gedmatch to theirs was not at first yielding anything, until I came upon a Jones member, gypsy raised and still identifying as such. She and I hadn't got a close link, but it was a link nevertheless. My gypsies, if indeed they were so, diverged a long time back, so finding any connection is good. On that Gedmatch I discover further anayltical tools that can detect so much more in relation to ones ancestral types, as if what the testing companies normally tell us is but the cream on the cake only. How reliable such tools are I don't know, but I begin to look at them for more information. Like on this I can see there is a link to India, and really if I am gypsy this is relevant, this being where gypsies originated. Even the suspected African pygmy link is there - the Baka pygmies, Hadza and Khoi-San. Mediterranean and Asian is confirmed, and at higher amounts than I'd previously been told. Even the Red Sea component is shown. When along came Ian on his scooter, and I made him some tea, naturally we got to talking about my gypsy researching, and Ian told me something he had not before, which was that he was part gypsy. His mother had told him this. So I just had to get into looking at that side of his ancestry. I had researched his mothers line before, right back to French Huguenots, but this research was lost, disappeared with the death of a former computer. His gypsies were from Wales, relocated to London. His gypsy great grandfather was never spoken of by the modern family, in an effort to bury the memory of him. Naturally I am one set to revive him and bring him back to life. And my childhood boyfriend, having the name of Chris Lee, I messaged him asking him if he was of the gypsies, and he told me that indeed he was. Even his father had told him they were descended from Gypsy Rose Lee. It's like Luke Owen said, there are many of us around, but you have to ask the right questions. Meanwhile, I was getting more and more responses from the British Romany's that we did have, albeit distantly, some blood connections. I have never quite known if it is my fantastical thinking that always seeks some exotic people to identify with. And after all, the exotic would still only be a smaller part than what is my greater solid chunk of Britishness. But regardless of what is in the majority, that is not all I am. Such is incomplete, and it is the more mysterious parts of myself I seek to know. This journey I've been on, of trying to understand, has been a long one. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. Luke Owens art gallery up at Rennes le Chateau was open and so I went to say Hi, and when Luke asked me how I am I couldn't be totally positive about that, well, I'd thought I was OK, but really my status as a village reject was sensitively exposed and paining me, and then tears were in my eyes and I jolly well told Luke of many things and he tolerantly and kindly listened to all. The conversation with Luke became very interesting. I was tying into my explanation that I am an outcaste that theory I have about one reliving and feeling so deeply what was also the way for the ancestors. I told Luke why, even without any proof, there are clues to my having a gypsy heritage, such as my Mediterranean DNA, the outcaste lives of my ancestors in Greenwich, the distinctive appearance of my ancestress Maria, and such talk got two responses from Luke. Firstly, he confesses that like me he is only ever on the peripheries of society, for he is shy of such worlds, and is content to avoid so called civilised places in which there is yet so much judgement and hypocrisy. Secondly he reveals that he himself is a gypsy. He totally identifies with my dilemma, while with emphasis telling me I should not conclude that by this treatment I am a 'reject', but rather that the outskirts of society in which he dwells, as do the gypsies in general, is the best place to be. When one has no need to conform then can arise the arts and more natural ways which do then end up improving the society which itself had easily rejected us. And does one ever really want to be in such judgemental spaces. He necer accepts a word such as 'reject' and neither should I. Although my own family, somewhere along the way, covered up their gypsy past, so it may never be rediscovered, his own is recent and he totally knows it. His father was an out and out gypsy. He'd not told me this before, leaving his fathers side a mystery. But that exceptional appearance of my ancestress Maria Harrison, which had so long both fascinated and puzzled me, his aunts had totally that same look, exactly the black hair and alabaster skin, and it is one of the known appearance of some of the Irish gypsies. The gypsy folk have not only that look, they vary a lot, one of his aunts having a darker olive complexion. And it makes sense now, how it is that I'd previously thought him to have some middle eastern influence on his fathers side, it being the gypsy influence, those brown eyes and his eastern look. It just fascinates me to know he is a gypsy, and if I'd not been babbling on about my own theories he wouldn't even have told me that. His fathers side still travelled in caravans and even his mothers side was of gypsy heritage, though further back, being people who had tried to settle and conform into society. And of course they wanted to hide their origins in order to avoid societies prejudices, which is what my own family has done. This so aligns with Maria's appearance, so Luke confidently asserts, that she was a gypsy. Even her daughter Mary Ann's chestnut hair, blue eyes, high cheek bones and sucked in face is another look of the gypsies, this Luke tells me. In conversation with Luke I do feel I have found one of my lost tribe. Totally calm, content and radiant he insists I should embrace this separateness and non-belonging, this being our great ancestral heritage. Luke is total gypsy, whereas my own gypsyness if of undefined amount, mixed with Shetland Viking and some Welsh. It is quite something to reflect on this more. Elder family members had told me my Greenwich ancestry was 'rough and ready', which was maybe a way of saying 'gypsy' without totally giving it away. Somehow 'gypsy' is a secret never to be mentioned to younger generations. Just how much had they known but not been able to say. Like my nanny Eileen who had summed up her mother Florence's family as 'Irish', when really it was only Florence's mother, and not her father, who had been born in Ireland. Maybe what my nanny meant to say, and yet could not, was 'gypsy'. I so wish I had known more when my elders were still alive. I could have talked with more depth and unearthed so much more. So many clues are there too that my fathers side was gypsy, but never anything within records to confirm this as fact. The Irish-Mediterranean DNA I have from both my mother and father, and such a weak English element that wasn't even passed onto me, cries out gypsy all the more. Florence was not at all accepted by her husband Percy's Dovercourt and Harwich based family, and when my nanny Eileen had talked to me of this she stopped short of saying, while maybe part of her wanted to say it but did not dare, that the reason she really was ostracised was because she was gypsy. Only on this day do I understand what has been between the words which no one else would tell me. "There are many gypsies all around us" Luke told me. "One just has to know what questions to ask." AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. I watched some documentaries about gypsy peoples, always fascinating, of Bulgarians, Russians, and Romanians, their child marriages, barefoot dancing, and of girls staying home. When I see such old style traditionalism something there has an appeal. Its that bohemian kind of freedom, of no school and nomadism, of ethnic long skirts, and yes, bare feet. Its a kind of hippy style I myself have had. It is interesting that my mother has this 2% eastern European and myself 1%. I have already considered that the Mediterranean DNA I have may be gypsy. And now, on looking at an Irish gypsy documentary, I see a picture of old world traditional gypsies with the features of my County Kerry Irish. This is the first time I consider that my Sugrue/Sheehans may also have been gypsy. The gypsy theme in my families past is really but a fanciable one with no solid facts, but I do have some fascination about this. Modern gypsies don't have a good reputation for their feuding and crimes and for the dominance of their men over the women. But I do see that there were certain qualities further back, in regard to their closeness to nature, their love of music, the closeness of families that help one another in life's journeying, and their living separate from societies overbearing demands and rules and regulations, posings and limitations. I watched more gypsy documentaries, one being a tragic perspective, and one a so interesting historical account. On a visit round to Jeremy's I talked with him about gypsies, this being topical now, and on account of realisations I'm now having that a real reason why I find myself unacceptable in the eyes of some people, how I get judged and have even had social services bloody turned onto me, basically being disregarded, is because I have 'the gypsy' in me. So does Jeremy and he also is easily dismissed. I have at least, potentially that is, 11% of me being gypsy and that is just of the Mediterranean type, as whatever else in me is of gypsy derivation would up that number to an unknown amount. Those Irish travellers I may be linked to, it may be that they are descended from the original nomads of Ireland, before all other invaders came and took over their lands. Either way, eastern or western, these gypsies have kept themselves freer from societies neurotic imposed standards and hoity-toity impositions. I am free too in this regard. My kids may get dirty in their play, so what. I know how to rough it and don't mind clutter and chaos in my life. I don't poof up in general my appearance. I don't insist my kids go to school or do homework. I prefer them to be free, to just be natural. I accept handouts if need is there without getting hung up or guilty. I stole as a child. I can't be done with small talk. And I don't know how to deal with authorities and even avoid all that. And right now I feel that all this is because of the gypsy in me, that 11% plus. I get this from both my parents. And then there's Jeremy, with plenty of money and yet he chooses to scavenge food in bins. Its not that we are 'low class' as lower classes don't accept us either. And middle classes exceptionally judge. Higher classes, rather curiously, can actually accept because they have no need to prove themselves and appreciate individuality, that old British eccentricity. Both Jeremy and I have gypsy in us, as far as I can work out, and not from modern times, but further back. And I have so been attracted to India where the gypsies originated. My Irish Sugrues were dysfunctional, this I have discovered, and this has kind of helped me to understand more my own dysfunctionalism. And to comprehend all now within the greater context of gypsyness makes more sense and has more impact. Because this is as if a whole family clan which was lost is now refound. And for this I have attained some identification along with group pride, and this sense that all the hoity-toity judges do just that because they sift through those around them marking out who is of worth and who is of them, their type, their people, and all this even though their people have enslaved, attacked and persecuted others. This is why I refer to their ill placed hoity-toity superiority complex. So I would sum up one trouble stirring critic from my village with her 'oh you come to the pub and lay your sleeping child on a bench while partying' (horror of horrors) - not worthy of being a mother then, this being what is in her head. Yes, well, I breastfed my children, I carried them around, and slept with them. I stayed with them, rather than going off chasing money and a career, rather than leaving them with a child minder. I took them along with me on all my travel adventures. I have a nomadic soul. I am free and you are not. But its your society, your rules, and you can just phone anonymously child protection services and get my darlings taken away from me. Because the way you and others think life should be lived is so limiting and all not in your box is condemned. So long I thought others picked on me because I am gentle and not assertive. How could I have any satisfaction in this matter, that being pleasant makes me inadequate. With new understanding, that it is my gypsyness attracting hostility, then its not so personal and against my own lack. It is rather a war on my tribe. And now I have a people to align with and I would rather feel I am with them than your uptight communities in which I never belonged. I have always been an outcaste, an outsider. My standards are different to yours, more relaxed. You are the lines on the pavement and I am the spaces between and beyond. My mother has 7% English in her, unlike me, and its that Anglo-Saxon in her that despises all that is not of civilisation and posturing. I don't have that same brake on me, of what has been more free flowing in our ancient peoples and their ways of relating to the world. This is how I can attune more to more natural elements in my being. So it is, that of such things I talked to Jeremy, though not in such detail. And people nowadays call the travellers Romanys, not gypsies, or at least some people assert this. But either way such names reflect places long lived in since leaving India, whether Romania or Egypt. The gypsy word gets labelled as fake and erroneous along with the statement that never really had travellers come from there. And yet the brilliant documentary I'd watched revealed that the gypsies did go to Egypt and still are there, and even by that north African route had travelled to the south of Spain. Around Granada they lived in cave houses and spoke of coming from Africa, and this is even though others of their people crossed Europe and came down into Spain from other directions. Even in Egypt, some family stories talk of having been in Hungary before going down to Africa. Although associated with musicians historically gifted to Persia, gypsies also have plenty of military words in their vocabulary hinting that they had also been employed as warriors, maybe against the Islamic colonisations of the near East. In Egypt, although it has put them in danger, there are still gypsies who have kept apart from Islam. Either way, in Egypt they have lived on the peripheries, surviving through their music, by their dancing girls, even prostitution, whatever must be done to survive. The Egyptian gypsies admit that crime has also been a part of their overland journey. Although long in Persia, Islam drove them out from there into Turkey which was then safely still part of the Byzantine Empire. With ottoman conquerings they had to travel on yet again, into eastern Europe. There they were legally forced by the civilisation around them into slavery. This brutal history of imposed slavery could go a long way to explaining the modern degradation still affecting these people, their impoverishment, drug and alcohol addictions, family neglect, and unsafe settlements. For they had been broken. Hitler had rounded up so many of them for his death camps. But some escaped all that, having instead gone down to Egypt and all the way round to southern Spain. Their music and songs are also their healing, from all past inflicted sufferings, emotional turmoils channeled into creative sustenance. That passionate music has anciently the quality of depth still found in Indian bhajans. And they never lost their goddess Kali, transforming her at the very least into the Christian Sara Kali in the Carmargue of France. Those gypsies that crossed Europe, I am both of them and the southern Spanish. And it appears that the gypsies soon enough both encountered and interbred with the nomadic Irish. When I see in my DNA that I am Anatolian, middle eastern, eastern European, Greek, Italian, Spanish, and have some French too, well, this is all the journey they took. More and more, then, I make sense of this Mediterranean Europeanness I have as being, at least in part, of gypsy derivation. Anciently gypsies had a sense of their own nobility as a people and when they first came to Britain were even seen as such. But attitudes changed and they had to adapt or disguise who they were or else soldier on regardless. I can't even express just how much happiness I have knowing my roots all the more and how much that means to me. And others will say that the past is irrelevant, but such words are of no consequence to me, because for me our family roots are part of our divinity even. And by this we find our vital historical place amongst the teeming masses of faceless people who have no stories. Not at all is the past an irrelevance and I have long known this. I have travailed so hard over the years to uncover such forgotten history, that which was reduced to but mysteries and disregarded shadows, while yet being essentially part of who we are, unknown and yet vital. I know that new age spiritually motivated people, of whom I have often situated myself, want to escape the body and the material, into a void, and I had originally accepted something of this dismissiveness, but not anymore. Because it is the totality that is relevant, being part of the miracle of evolving life, being precious, divine, and deserving to be honoured. All my research now leads somewhere and it feels so good. I am gypsy; it is the only way to make sense of the diverse patch-work of association with so many countries, places they travelled through and dwelt in. I'm happy to know. I'm gypsy and viking and Irish and Welsh. My dad disliked his Welshness and my mum her Irishness, but I love it all. And my squatters of the Forest of Dean, who were people outside of any parish, they were travellers too! Red haired, natural, rebelling against any imposed authority, they had no home but the forest, where they made their huts and repeatedly saw them destroyed, and then built more. Evicting them was a nonsense as they were homeless and belonged nowhere. There was nowhere else for them to go. They were extraneous to the system. All lands beyond the forest had been enclosed, partitioned and claimed, everywhere divided into parishes where people belonged, but not them. And what kind of travellers they themselves were, who knows. But I am so happy. I have made sense of a past that otherwise would not have been known. And I knew of Shetland Vikings and Welsh and Irish and Forest of dean, but I never knew of gypsies. If some of the elders of our family knew of this they preferred it forgotten. But I have discovered it anyway. It wakens a whole part of me, reinvigorates what was lost and yet was always there. And that feels so good. AuthorSusie Harrison and her hobby of genealogy, always looking into her own and her friends family trees. |
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