The Romany Rye

of six years the dingle re-awakes to life, Lavengro's hammer shatters the stillness, and the blaze of his forge again lights up its s

looded courtship of poor Isopel, playing with her feelings as a cat with a mouse. The dingle episode is divided equally between the two works; and had not 'Glorious John,' after a series of pe

as 1843 Borrow writes to Murray that he is engaged upon his life; and as late as 1862, in an account of himself written for Mr. John Longe of Norwich, Borrow says that 'in 1851 he published "Lavengro," a work in which he gives an account of his early life.' There is indeed no doubt that the earlier part of 'Lavengro' is, in the main, a true history of the l

s 'Faustus,' published on April 18, 1825. About this time, then, when Borrow was literally reduced to his last shilling, he describes himself as visiting a fair in the neighbourhood of London. He refuses a loan of 50 pounds from Jasper Petulengro, and, returning homewards, notices in a publisher's window a request for a tale or novel. Subsisting on bread and water, he writes in a week the 'Life of Joseph Sell,' for which he receives 20 pounds, and twelve days after attending the fair leaves London. Passing t

ion and the dogs, which they say is a disgrace to a Christian country.' The prize-fight between Baldwin and Cooper was fought on Tuesday, July 5, 1825, near Maidenhead. The combat between the lion, Nero, and six dogs took place at Warwick on Tuesday, July 26, and for months beforehand had been the subject of much discussion in the London and provincial press. 4 The Wednesday, therefore, when the gypsies visited Borrow in the dingle must have fallen between these two events - i.e., must have been the 6th, 13th, or 20th of July. The fair to the sout

's adventures, from the day on which he left London to that o

ar

ves London, afternoon; walks nine mi

ry] before dawn; sees Stonehenge; crosses Av

rsday, May 2

alisbury; walks N.W., about twelve

to Tuesday, May 31]. Walks N.W., t

aches small town, meets author and accomp

eaves early; walks N. for two hours; buys Slingsby's pony and cart; aft

June 3]. Learning

, June 4, to Monday, June

ay, June 7]. Vi

y, June 8]. Collec

sday, June 9, to Frida

Herne's cake; saved by intervention of Welsh pr

r Williams preaches; Borrow bath

day, June 13]

une 14]. Peter promi

day, June 15, to Thursda

, June 17]. Pete

ay, June 18]. Pe

ay, June 19].

June 20]. Borrow t

e to Welsh border; meets Mr. Petulengro; returns with him

June 22, to Friday, June 24].

]. Succeeds (after four day

June 26]. Better;

day, June 27]

t with Flaming Tinman; meets Isop

says fight took place day before); meets Man in Black; give

day, June 30, to Saturd

. Landlord tells Borrow o

ay, July 4, to Tuesday

sday, July 6].

day, July 7, to Saturda

to Tuesday, July 12]. Landlord's

13]. Landlord proposes fig

o Friday, July 15]. On one of these da

day, July 16, to Sunday

8]. Thunderstorm; postil

f 'Lav

alls him an old fool, whereas a fortnight ago it was he who called Hunter a fool. The date, then, of this last visit of Borrow's to the public-house must have been on or about July 13. The defeat of the landlord's game-cocks has been noised abroad for the past three days (July 10, 11, 12), and since the landlord had referred ten days before to the fact that the fight was about to come off on the following Wednesday,

g of 'Rom

Makes linchpin; postillion de

20]. Arrival of gypsies; B

uly 21]. Gypsies feas

y, July 22, to Saturday

on church at M-; talk with Ursula u

Landlord in despair; eveni

Attends fair with gypsies; la

y, July 27]. Gypsi

sday, July 28, to Frid

ly 30]. Belle's letter

rd in luck; horse at public-house;

day, August 1

s dingle; rescues old man's ass; pu

st 3]. Reaches posting ho

of the events recorded by Borrow? In reply to my enquiry whether the Wolverhampton Chronicle contains any reference to a thunderstorm occu

hedge from a violent thunderstorm. They had not been long there before one of them was struck with the electric fluid, causing his immediate

the dingle, he saw Isopel Berners for the last time 'standing at the mouth, 7 the beams of the morning sun shining full on her noble face and f

th Ursula is less satisfactory. 'On arriving at the mouth of the dingle, which fronted the east, I perceived,' says Borrow, 'that Charles's Wain was nearly opposite to it high above in the heavens, by which I knew that the night was tolerably well advanced.' But on July 24, as I learn, Charles's Wa

le June 1, visited by Leonora on the 5th, and drugged by Mrs. Herne on the 8th. He passes Sunday, June 12, and the following week with Peter Williams and his wife, on the 21st he sees them to the border, turns back with Petulengro and settles in Mumpers' Dingle. His fight with the Flaming Tinman, Professor Knapp tells us, must have occurred about the end of June. The Professor's chronology, however, seems

nviction to Professor Knapp's mind, 14 seems to me a singularly inauspicious one, especially when coming from a writer who, like Pakomovna, was 'born not far from the sign of the gammon,' and who boasts in his appendix of having inserted deliberate misstatements in his books in order to deceive and mislead his critics. 15 But why should Borrow pretend to have written this book? Chiefly, I think, to emphasize that independence of character of which he so frequently boasts, and which, after his marriage fifteen years later

t North Road, where he remains for an undefined but considerable period, and meets again with Francis Ardrey and the Rev. Mr. Platitude. On leaving the inn he refuses to accept the landlord's offer of an honorarium of 10 pounds, and sets off with his horse to Horncastle Fair. He meets with an accident a day's journey f

days, this leaves no time at all for his experiences at the inn, where he must have stopped for some weeks, and apparently a much longer period, as 'a kind of overlooker in the stables.' If, on the other hand, we al

tler's tales of Abershaw and Co. are obviously reminiscences of Borrow's 'Celebrated Trials.' But the Horncastle story is weaker still. The 'Lord'-Lieutenant, so free and young,' is pilloried, because eighteen years afterwards he did not see his way to make Borrow a J.P. (Who would?) Murtagh is introduced merely as a lay

sh, 19 as you well know,' says Jasper. 'I suppose you have not forgot, how, fifteen years ago, when you made horse-shoes in the little dingle by the side of the Great North Road, I lent you fifty cottors 20 to purchase the wonderful trotting cob of the innkeeper with the green Newmarket coat, which three days later you sold for t

orrow. Ten miles further still is a town, and five miles from the town the famous dingle. Mr. Petulengro describes it as 'surprisingly dreary'; 'a deep dingle in the midst of a large field about which there has been a law-suit for some years past; the nearest town five miles distant, and only a few huts and hedge public-houses in the neighbourhood;' 23 and Borrow speaks of it as 'a

dnance surveys written 'Mumber Lane,' is known to all. At the top of this lane on the east side of the bridge lies the 'Monmer Lane Ironworks,' which Professor Knapp, a little carelessly, assumes to have been the site of the dingle; 28 and to the west a large flat, bare, uncultivated piece of land, Borrow's 'plain,' cut in two by the Bentley Canal, which runs through it east and west. A walk of 500 yards along the tow-path brings us to a small bridge crossing the canal. This is known as 'Dingle Bridge,' the little hawthorn-girt lane leading to it is called 'Dingle Lane,' and a field opposite bears the name of 'Dingle Piece.' The dingle itself has

ent visits there - on the right-hand side of the highroad to Walsall, along which the brewer proposed to establish 'a stage-coach and three to run across the country', and a little nearer Willenhall, on the north side of the road, is Bentley Hall, the 'hall' from which the postillion must have been returning when overtaken by the thunderstorm. The church attended by Borrow and his gypsy friends, when Mrs. Petulengro horrified the sexton by invading the nobleman's vacant pew, may confidently be i

Professor Richard Pischel, of Berlin, finds to describe Borrow's etymologies; while Pott, in quoting from the 'Zincali,' indicates his horror by notes of exclamation; or, when Borrow once in a way hits on the right etymon, confirms the statement with an ironical 'Ganz recht!' Though Borrow had read Borde, it was reserved for a Viennese s

ds as asarlas, 'at all, in no manner' (mistaking helpasar les for help asarlas, pp 18, 110); cappi, 'booty, gain' (to lel cappi, pp 28, 176 = 'to get blankets'); ebyok, 'sea' (? the gypsy questioned, mishearing 'ebb-eye' for 'ebb-tide'); is, 'if,' p. 51; kokkodus, 'uncle' (perhaps mistaking some such phrase as 'like my koko does' for 'like my kokkodus'); lutherum, 'sleep'; medisin, 'measure' (perhaps because medicine is measured out); moskey, 'a spy' (? mistaking dikamaski for dik! a moskey); o, 'he' (mistaking kai jivela for kai jivvel o, p. 53); pahamengro, 'turnip' (probably mistaking pusamengro, 'pitchfork,' for the turnip it was used to uproot); pazorrhus, 'indebted' = 'trust us'); pios, 'drunken as a health' (aukko

e perfect - and they must have had a greater stock of strange secrets. I almost wished that I had lived some two or three hundred years ago, that I might have observed these people when they were yet stranger than at present. I wondered whether I could have introduced myself to their company at that period, whether I should have been so fortunate as to meet such a strange, half-malicious, half good-humoured being as Jasper, who would have instructed me in the language, then more deserving of note than at present. What might I not have done with that language had

old us the origin of the mysterious Ingrams, for one of whom he was himself mistaken; 31 he might have learned from Black Ellen some of the three hundred folk-tales with which she is credited; he might have sat at the feet of that fairy witch Alabina the Meleni, or have described 'Taw' as a girl in her teens. We may sigh for the pictures which the word-mast

ed in this series; references to 'Romano Lavo–Lil' and 'Wild Wales' are to the original editions.

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