Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger BaitingRobinson, Jacob
History
Wrestling and Wrestlers: Biographical Sketches of Celebrated Athletes of the Northern Ring; to Which is Added Notes on Bull and Badger Baiting
Robinson, Jacob
Wrestlers; Wrestling
His fair escort pushed him into the ring with an air of
pride and confidence, as much as to say, "Now, you
shall see what a gipsy can do." The young man was about
twenty-five years of age, and nearly six feet high,
with a handsome, aristocratic, and cheery countenance;
and as he took off his jacket and handed it to his fair
one, and thus stood stripped to the waist, there was a
buzz of admiration from the whole crowd. He was
slightly made, but all was sinew. Laughingly, and half
modestly, he shook his powerful antagonist by the hand,
and then the walk round commenced, the young gipsy
talking and laughing all the time. It seemed as though
neither liked to be the first to begin; when suddenly
the Bulgarian turned sharp upon his antagonist, and
tried a favourite catch, but quick as lightning the
lithe figure of the gipsy eluded the grasp, and a sigh
of relief went up from his clan. The excitement was now
intense, and the young girl perfectly quivered with
nervous anxiety as she watched every movement of her
swain. She would have made a splendid picture! They
were still walking round, and it seemed as though the
struggle would never begin, when, lo! a simultaneous
cry went forth from the whole crowd, as the great
Bulgarian lay sprawling, and half stunned, upon the
ground.
The movements of the gipsy had been so quick, that it
was impossible to say how the throw was done, but the
Bulgarian was turned almost a somersault in the air,
and came down with a heavy thud. The young champion
shook him by the hand, lifted the heavy man high into
the air, and then set him on his feet. The face of the
young girl, as she handed back her hero his jacket, was
pleasant to look upon. Lucky man! As she took him by
the hand, and led him away to wherever he came from, I
began to think there might be a worse fate than being a
gipsy....
I was so attracted by the wrestling scene at
Barakli-Djumaa, that I lost much time, and had to push
on quickly, in order that we might reach a khan,
perched up in a small village amongst the mountains
which lay between us and Salonica.
OLD ENGLISH WRESTLING.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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