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
"But, surely, this would be the last tinker that ever he would dub (a
knight). If we may judge from what happened, one might imagine he,
(James V,) would be heartily sick of them, (tinkers,) being taken
prisoner by three of them, and compelled to stay with them several days,
so that his nobles lost all trace of him, and being also forced, not
only to lead their ass, but likewise to assist it in carrying part of
the panniers! At length he got an opportunity, when they were bousing in
a house at the east end of the village of Milnathort, where there is now
a new meeting-house built, when he was left on the green with the ass.
He contrived to write, some way, on a slip of paper, and gave a boy
half-a-crown to run with it to Falkland, and give it to his nobles,
intimating that the guid-man of Ballangiegh was in a state of captivity.
After they got it, and knew where he was, they were not long in being
with him, although it was fully ten miles they had to ride. Whenever he
got assistance, he caused two of the tinkers, that were most harsh and
severe to him, to be hanged immediately, and let the third one, that was
most favourable to him, go free. They were hanged a little south-west of
the village, at a place which, from the circumstance, is called the
Gallow-hill to this day. The two skeletons were lately found after the
division of the commonty that recently took place. He also, after this
time, made a law, that whenever three tinkers, or Gipsies, were found
going together, two of them should be hanged, and the third set at
liberty."[60]
[60] Small's Roman Antiquities of Fife, pages 285 and 286. Small also
records a song composed on James V dubbing a Tinker a knight.
The following order in council is, perhaps, the one to which this
tradition alludes:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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