APPENDIX.

PROESTEN EILERT SUNDT'S WORKS ON THE NORWEGIAN GIPSIES.

THE very important works relating to the Norwegian gipsies which have been compiled and published for the Norwegian Government, by Præsten Eilert Sundt, are peculiarly interesting, not only as affording the most recent and reliable information regarding this singular people, but from the many details and facts which are noted, as to their modes of life, language, religion, customs, and occupations. The first work, "Beretning om Fante-eller Landstrygerfolket i Norge,' published in Christiania in 1850, followed by another edition, published, Christiania, 1852, contain the results, and the most reliable information that Præsten Sundt, then a candidate for holy orders, could collect during two years' patient and persevering research. During this period, he was able to obtain with tolerable accuracy, their probable number, and a great amount of reliable information, relating to their habits, means of existence, and, above all, the prospect of inducing them to abandon their ordinary mode of life. Præsten Sundt had many facilities to aid him in accomplishing this undertaking, with the sanction and authority of the Norwegian Government. He had free access to all local and public records and documents, and thus had unusual opportunities of satisfying himself, from time to time, and testing the truth and falsehood of the accounts given to him by the gipsies. Again, his clerical character was a ready passport to every village clergyman and Præstgaard.

Præsten Sundt describes the Norwegian gipsies as a race of yellowishbrown, black-haired people, having dark, piercing eyes, and who are of foreign and suspicious aspect. Wandering incessantly, up and down the country, they frequent the most devious and solitary roads and ways between Stavanger and Agershuus, and, northwards, away to Throndjhem and Finmark.

"An account of the Gipsies of Norway," both editions, of 1850 and 1852, are exactly the same in title, number of pages, and contents. We had not seen the first edition of 1850 until after page 13 of this work was printed.

Their bands vary in number, and consist of men, women, and children, provided, sometimes, with horses, carts, and some few domestic animals, particularly pigs. They assume the most varied characters, and some of them are tinkers, sievemakers, horsedealers, and horse-doctors, and, in fact, follow many of those occupations generally adopted by the gipsies of every country, as most compatible with a roving life. Præsten Sundt also states that many are plunderers and robbers, and our own experience has clearly shown, that the gipsies, deservedly or otherwise, have acquired a very indifferent reputation in Norway. They are clearly regarded with far less favour than in England, where the romantic life they lead has furnished endless incidents for the novel, the drama, and the feuilleton of the press. This, and their strange, wandering life, and mysterious origin, may account in some degree for the passing interest they at times create and obtains for them, here and there, par souffrance though it be, occasional shelter and protection. The earliest mention, according to Præsten Sundt, of the gipsies in Norway, is to be found in an Ordinance of 1589, and he is of opinion that they did not enter by way of Denmark and South Sweden, but through the north of Sweden, and Duchy of Finland; in fact, through North Russia.

Another reason stated by Prosten Sundt, why the gipsies are re

"earth

* We have been told that the Norwegian gipsy is sometimes called an digger." Possibly at times, in winter, they may shelter themselves in holes as some of the gipsies do in Transylvania. We have only been able to ascertain one instance of "gipsy earth dwellings" in England. Our informant, now advanced in life, remembers, when shooting in the winter, about the year 1818, on Finchley common, near London, to have seen excavations in the common used as dwellings by gipsies. One kind of earth-dwelling, he remembers, was formed by sinking a deep hole, from the bottom of which an excavation made at right angles served the gipsies for sleeping purposes. Another kind of earth-dwelling he then remembers was an oblong excavation, at no very great depth, below the surface of the soil, having an arched covering above ground formed with branches cut from the pollard oaks near, and covered with turf. In a paper read before the Anthropological Society of London, by Dr. R. S. Charnock, F.S.A., F. R. G.S., on the 4th May, 1866, entitled "The peoples of Transsylvania," an interesting account is given of the gipsies inhabiting that country. Dr. Charnock says that the gipsies of Transylvania ordinarily dwell in tents in the summer, and their winter habitation are holes in the earth which they excavate for the purpose. The holes are usually from eight to twelve feet deep. Dr. Charnock also says that many of the gipsies have fixed habitations in Transylvania, and keep wine shops and public-houses. The dwellings are usually situate on the outskirts of a town or village. Some dwell in the suburb of the capital of Vásárhely. A little hill outside the town of Klausenberg is covered with gipsy dwellings. The located gipsies are generally honest, and their females virtuous. Many of the located gipsies are skilled in music. Dr. Charnock states that the number of gipsies in Transylvania is variously estimated at 78,923 and 60,000.

gårded with a mixed feeling of fear and aversion, is on account of a belief, of which the Norwegian peasant cannot altogether divest himself, that the foreign-looking "Fanter" has power to bewitch both man and beast.

They invest these wanderers with supernatural powers, a power which has occasionally been attributed to some of the peaceful Laplanders, who dwell in Norwegian Finmark; for Laing says, in his work on Norway, page 411, when referring to the Laplanders, "The idea of witchcraft is not entirely worn out; and the bonder have many tales of the supernatural powers of the old fjelde women."

Originally, these wanderers were all of pure gipsy blood; but in recent times they have gradually become, in many instances, mixed with a section of the Norwegian population, vagrant outcasts or "Skoiern," a class which they would at one time have refused all intercourse with; and the result is, the occasional mixture of fairhaired children.

The blending of such a strain of Norwegian blood would not improve, but rather have a deteriorating effect. This has not happened to the same extent in England, where the admixture has often been from those of the better class of the English population, to the proportionate advantage of the gipsy tribe.

Yet, even in England, there is a feeling among gipsies, once still stronger than it is, against mixed marriages, and one of their own people is generally preferred to the gorgios.

Since the beginning of the present century, Norwegian laws relating to gipsies have been made much less stringent, and therefore more easily enforced. The regulations, also, with regard to all persons being required, at a certain age, to know how to read and write, and to be confirmed, has consigned many gipsies to prison, until they were sufficiently instructed, as mentioned at page 301 of this work.

From inquiries made by Prosten Sundt, it appears that gipsies who remember "the good old times," deeply lament their admixture with other blood, and formerly, according to their accounts, a gipsy woman who had consorted with a fair-skinned man, became "food for fire;" that is, she was tied to a stake, and burnt. In the case of male offenders, the old gipsy law was less severe; for they were expelled the tribe. His doom-" fallen i brodt"-was pronounced, and he became an outcast for ever.

It would appear that Præsten Sundt's efforts to reclaim the Norwegian gipsies met with little success, and he found much which led him to fear, that it is very improbable they will ever adopt the habits of civilised life. An irrepressible desire to wander seems natural to

the race; and even their children, adopted and well-treated by farmers and clergymen of the country, generally run away to the woods, in search of their relatives, as soon as they are able. From the accounts given by Præsten Sundt, it would seem that the Norwegian gipsies are much lower in morality than the gipsies of some other countries. It is a mere chance if they are baptized; they seldom, if ever, frequent church; an impenetrable mystery surrounds the death of their aged people. No Norwegian pastor has ever been present at the burial of a gipsy, unless, indeed, we except such as may have died in prison. Though Præsten Sundt carefully questioned the gravediggers of the parishes wherever he went, one alone was able to remember that he had once dug a grave for a gipsy.*

Nothing being known as to what becomes of their dead, it is not singular that the Norwegian people believe that the gipsies kill their aged parents and relatives, to save themselves the trouble of taking care of them. This conclusion is quite contrary to our own experience of the English gipsies, who exhibit great affection towards their aged

Our enquiries incline us to believe that in England gipsies usually seek the baptismal rite for their children, and that their dead are generally buried in consecrated ground. On some occasions the attendance at a funeral has been large, and a tomb or grave-stone erected to the memory of the gipsy who sometimes was said to be a gipsy king, as, for instance, James Boswell, buried at Rossington, near Doncaster, 1708-9; also the instance of a gipsy said to be a gipsy king mentioned in "Notes and Queries" as having been. buried at West Winch, Norfolk. In the "Gentleman's Magazine" mention is made of Henry Boswell, said to be a gipsy king, who died in affluent circumstances, and was buried in 1687, at the parish of Wittering. We are also informed that a grave-stone marks the grave of a gipsy in the churchyard of Winchcombe, Gloucestershire. In the churchyard of Calne, Wiltshire, a handsome tomb was erected to the memory of Inverto Boswell, said to have been the son of a gipsy king, who was buried there, 1774. In "Notes and Queries," series 4, vol. 4, page 206, it is stated that a grave-stone erected on the grave of a gipsy buried in the churchyard of Coggeshall, Essex, has the following inscription :

"In Memory of

CASSELLO CHILCOTT,

Who died in this Parish,

Sept. 29, 1842,

Aged 28 Years.

Cassello Chilcott truly was my name,

I never brought my friends to grief or shame;

Yet I have left them to lament. But why

Lament for death? 'Tis gain in Christ to die!"

We could cite many other instances, if space permitted; and we believe that the nonburial of their dead in consecrated ground in England has occurred only under very exceptional circumstances.

L

people, many of whom have survived to great ages, receiving to the last constant care and attention.*

Præsten Sundt says the gipsies vehemently deny that they kill their old people, but state that, in former days, the aged people killed themselves, and that even yet, weak folk end their days as their fathers did.

It may be imagined by some, that the gipsies may have been of the same race as the nomadic Laplanders, but it is conclusively shown that the Norwegian "Tatare" or "Fantefolket" are not in any way belonging, either in blood, or in language, to the Laplander of Finmark. With regard to language, it is entirely different, and we have extracted from Præsten Sundt's work, published in 1852, some words of comparison between the Norwegian gipsy and the Norwegian Lap, having added the synonymous English, English gipsy, Hindee, and Sanscrit words.

advanced period of life. Margaret wandered over England, at length Her fame as a fortune-teller brought

Gipsies have occasionally attained to a very Finch, who, during the greater part of her life, settled at Norwood, and died at the age of 109. many visitors to her camp to consult her, and she had the title of queen of the gipsies. She was buried at the parish of Beckenham, in Kent, on the 24 Oct., 1740. Her funeral was said to be attended by two mourning coaches, a funeral sermon was preached on the occasion, and a great concourse of people attended her funeral. It is stated in "Dugdale's England and Wales," that, from the habit of sitting on the ground with her chin resting on her knees, her sinews at length became so contracted, she could not rise from that posture, and after her death they were obliged to enclose her body in a deep square box. At an inn called the "Gipsy House," at Norwood, her picture adorned the sign-post. Another instance is that of "Liddy the Gipsy," who not many years since wandered through Radnorshire and the adjoining counties. She is said to have danced at a wedding at the age of 100. Towards the close of her life, she travelled with a knife-grinder, sleeping at the towns on her route. She was of active, restless, blithesome temperament, and was lost in a snow drift whilst crossing through Radnor Forest, at the age, it was said, of 104. We afterwards questioned one of her people, and he said she was only 102.