The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain — John Shaqi
The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of SpainBorrow, George
History
The Zincali: An Account of the Gypsies of Spain
Borrow, George
Romanies -- Languages; Romanies -- Spain
The principal Gypsy tribes at present in existence are the Stanleys,
whose grand haunt is the New Forest; the Lovells, who are fond of London
and its vicinity; the Coopers, who call Windsor Castle their home; the
Hernes, to whom the north country, more especially Yorkshire, belongeth;
and lastly, my brethren, the Smiths,—to whom East Anglia appears to have
been allotted from the beginning.
All these families have Gypsy names, which seem, however, to be little
more than attempts at translation of the English ones:—thus the Stanleys
are called Bar-engres {25}, which means stony-fellows, or stony-hearts;
the Coopers, Wardo-engres, or wheelwrights; the Lovells, Camo-mescres, or
amorous fellows the Hernes (German Haaren) Balors, hairs, or hairy men;
while the Smiths are called Petul-engres, signifying horseshoe fellows,
or blacksmiths.
It is not very easy to determine how the Gypsies became possessed of some
of these names: the reader, however, will have observed that two of them,
Stanley and Lovell, are the names of two highly aristocratic English
families; the Gypsies who bear them perhaps adopted them from having, at
their first arrival, established themselves on the estates of those great
people; or it is possible that they translated their original Gypsy
appellations by these names, which they deemed synonymous. Much the same
may be said with respect to Herne, an ancient English name; they probably
sometimes officiated as coopers or wheelwrights, whence the
cognomination. Of the term Petul-engro, or Smith, however, I wish to say
something in particular.
There is every reason for believing that this last is a genuine Gypsy
name, brought with them from the country from which they originally came;
it is compounded of two words, signifying, as has been already observed,
horseshoe fellows, or people whose trade is to manufacture horseshoes, a
trade which the Gypsies ply in various parts of the world,—for example,
in Russia and Hungary, and more particularly about Granada in Spain, as
will subsequently be shown. True it is, that at present there are none
amongst the English Gypsies who manufacture horseshoes; all the men,
however, are tinkers more or less, and the word Petul-engro is applied to
the tinker also, though the proper meaning of it is undoubtedly what I
have already stated above. In other dialects of the Gypsy tongue, this
cognomen exists, though not exactly with the same signification; for
example, in the Hungarian dialect, _Pindoro_, which is evidently a
modification of Petul-engro, is applied to a Gypsy in general, whilst in
Spanish Pepindorio is the Gypsy word for Antonio. In some parts of
Northern Asia, the Gypsies call themselves Wattul {26}, which seems to be
one and the same as Petul.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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