A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy LanguageSimson, Walter
History
A History of the Gipsies: with Specimens of the Gipsy Language
Simson, Walter
Romanies; Romanies -- Languages
The whole of the Gipsies in the field, females as well as males, were
armed with bludgeons, excepting some of the Taits, who carried
cutlasses, and pieces of iron hoops, notched and serrated on either
side, like a saw, and fixed to the end of sticks. The boldest of the
tribe were in front of their respective bands, with their children and
the other members of their clan in the rear, forming a long train behind
them. In this order both parties boldly advanced, with their weapons
uplifted above their heads. Both sides fought with extraordinary fury
and obstinacy. Sometimes the one band gave way, and sometimes the other;
but both, again and again, returned to the combat with fresh ardour. Not
a word was spoken during the struggle; nothing was heard but the
rattling of the cudgels and the strokes of the cutlasses. After a long
and doubtful contest, Jean Ruthven, big with child at the time, at last
received, among many other blows, a dreadful wound with a cutlass. She
was cut to the bone, above and below the breast, particularly on one
side. It was said the slashes were so large and deep that one of her
breasts was nearly severed from her body, and that the motions of her
lungs, while she breathed, were observed through the aperture between
her ribs. But, notwithstanding her dreadful condition, she would neither
quit the field nor yield, but continued to assist her husband as long as
she was able. Her father, the Earl of Hell, was also shockingly wounded;
the flesh being literally cut from the bone of one of his legs, and, in
the words of my informant, "hanging down over his ankles, like beef
steaks." The earl left the field to get his wounds dressed; but
observing his daughter, Kennedy's wife, so dangerously wounded, he lost
heart, and, with others of his party, fled, leaving Kennedy alone, to
defend himself against the whole of the clan of Tait.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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