Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 10, 1899.djvu/279

 Reviews. 241

In Britain at all events, whatever may be the case in other parts of Europe, the facts are plain. The Gypsies came here in the latter part of the fifteenth century, settling first in Scotland. Any British tales assigned to Gypsy origin must therefore belong to the last four centuries. But where did the Gypsies come from ? It has been often asserted that their arrival in Europe from India was comparatively recent, as late indeed as the fourteenth century, but Mr. Groome, repeating the arguments of earlier writers and adding much to them, shows conclusively that they were well known in Central Europe as far back as the thirteenth century, and contends, with great plausibility, for their existence in South Eastern Europe as far back as the sixth century a.d. He even puts forward, very tentatively it is true, the possibility of their having entered Greece as early as the sixth century B.C. He also cites the interesting fact that Romani, an undoubted Neo-Indian dialect, is, in a few of its forms, more primitive than even Pali or the Prakrit. If the migration of the Gypsies from East to West has to be carried back a couple of thousand years they have ob- viously had time to forget much of what they may have brought with them, and to pick up an immense amount of new material. In any case, it does not lie with those who impugn the capacity of European peasants for the oral preservation of legends and tales to claim it in a very high degree for the Gypsies. Thus, if the advocates of early Gypsy immigration to Europe are correct, it is Continental European rather than Indian folk-tales they would have brought with them.

Turn we now to Mr. Groome's twenty-five British-Gypsy folk- tales. Four of these, Nos. 73-76, are Gaelic tales, for which a Gypsy origin is claimed because there is some evidence to show that their teller, John Macdonald the tinker, was a Gypsy. Now three of his tales begin thus : " There was once a king in Erin," i.e.^ they retain the traditional locale which the Gaelic story-tellers brought with them from Ireland to Scotland over three centuries ago at least. In all other respects they approve themselves genuinely Gaelic alike in subject-matter and in form of narrative, exhibiting characteristics which can be traced back in Irish romantic litera- ture to the early middle ages. There is not a word or incident in any of these tales which requires outside influence to account for it. If then Macdonald really was a Gypsy, all one can say is that he became a thoroughly naturalised Gaelic story-teller, assimilat-

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