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A little more poetry by William Butler Yeats:
The last four lines of "Among School Children": It seems to me that Yeats is questioning the settled life in the first two lines and the traveling life in the last two. What do you think?
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
And some by Hardy:
This calls to mind some winters that I've spent in South Texas: Galveston and Rockport:
Weathers
This is the weather the cuckoo likes,
And so do I;
When showers betumble the chestnut spikes,
And nestlings fly:
And the little brown nightingale bills his best,
And they sit outside at "The Travellers' Rest",
And maids come forth sprig-muslin drest,
And citizens dream of the south and west,
And so do I.
What happened to Synge?
To tell the truth, I remember what I wanted to quote fairly well but I haven't been able to find it posted or written down somewhere so I can copy it. I also would like to find a copy of Yeats' "The Ballad of Wandering Aengus," to take an excerpt from.
A newer Joke:
This is for the dookerers out there.
An out-of-work ventriloquist hangs out a "Reader/Advisor" shingle. On her first day, a woman comes in and says, "I would like to speak with my husband, who died several years ago. If you can get him to speak to me from the beyond, I will pay you $10,000."
Her reply was "Madam, for $10,000, he will speak to you as I drink a glass of water."
(:>D)
Here's more of the correspondence with a Young Rom in Norway:
Yes, your people were lucky not to leave any mark in the
history of Ireland, so you were not given to much attention,
like my people often were given. To much attention from
the settled peoples often lead to more dicrimination and
racism, both the Romani and the Irish Travellers know that!
Yes and no! We don't have much in the way of our own oral history either, which is a bit unsettling.
That's a pun, by the way; again I'm unsure how well it translates, although your English is excellent.
I would like to know more about everyday life among your
people in the old times, did you always have wagons? Did
you live as beggars? Did you trade and work as tinsmiths?
And how is everyday life among IT's today in the "modern"
Ireland and USA? Do you know any IAT songs or poems?
No, we didn't always have wagons. Many years ago, we were called "The Walking People"
by the country folk in Ireland.
Later on many of the Irish Travellers used carts, then open wagons, then squared off caravans with boxy living
quarters, and finally the barrel wagons bought or copied from the Romanichal.
And no, I wouldn't say we ever lived as beggars. I know a few places a man could get seriously hurt just for suggesting
that.(:>D) In tough times, our women once might have asked for "A penny for the children, mum," or
some food from farmers but they were more likely to be peddling goods like buttons or needles or cloth (light stuff)
in towns they passed by, or by the roadsides near where they camped. Or craft work; when I was a child the women
and kids still made flowers out of paper. They probably still do somewhere. Irish Origami, you might say. LOL The
men either followed a trade or did general labor working for country people when they had to. But the British colonial
"workhouses" were labor-camp death-traps to be avoided at all costs.
There is an Irish-American Traveller poet in the American Midwest named Tommy Hamilton, I've heard, and Jim Carroll,
in South Carolina. I haven't run across any of their work so far, but I'd love to read some of their stuff. To
tell the truth, it's only since this site has been up and running __less than 2 months__ that I've been made aware
of them by Traveller correspondents. I would hope that they might be generous in including me among their number
as a poet and a Traveller, but the jury is probably still out on that one. In the British Isles, I think that both
the Pavee Point people and the University of Liverpool have some poetry up on the Web from ITs there.
Speaking of Ireland, there are historical reports of traveling Tinkers there going back 1500 years. The word "tinker"
comes from the Gaelic words "tin" for "tin," (no coincidence, that) and for "smith"
and it was a proud trade, if not exactly a profession in the eyes of the Irish. The old Travellers over there used
a rhyming slang version of that Irish word to name the trade and themselves in IT Cant, "minker" or "minkar." I know that word was
in use in Ireland and in America during the last century, but no longer here. Thus the use of "Minceir Misli" ("Tinkers
on the Move" is my guess) by the contemporary ITs to name their political action committee, I expect.
In the 15th century groups of Norwegian Romanies went to
Scotland by boats.
Not very traditional, boats, but they probably saved a lot of lives that way. (:>D)
They scattered all over Scotland + parts
of Ireland, and had intermarriage with the travelling peoples
there. According to some Scottish Travellers, these Roma
from Norway were their ancestors. And the tribe of Scottish
Travellers on the borders between England and Scotland
actually have VERY MUCH in common with the Romanies of
Norway. So please, if you ever get in touch with a SAT, please
tell me. How is the relationship between your people and the
Scottish Travellers? How are they different from you, and do
you know much about them, their history, language and culture?
The possible assimilation of some of your people into some of mine would make an interesting story
but I don't have any direct knowledge about that, nor do I know how to get it from any Traveller sources here.
Why not check with an IT in Ireland (or Scotland)?
I find the Scottish Travellers to be very nice people and I am in e-mail contact with a few. Like the Irish they're
very intelligent and love a good time. Naturally, once in a while, being competitors at times for work, whiskey
or women, the young men of each clan might mix it up a bit with those of the other but no more than any other extended
family. Not like Cain and Abel; not usually, at any rate. (:>D)
You'd be disappointed, I think, in trying to mine the collective oral traditions of our Travelling People in America.
Things have gone pretty well for these Clans over my lifetime; certainly better than for most of our cousins in
Ireland. But I don't sense much in the way of interest on our part in the past, or in the future; maybe because
of past successes and/or fear of future failures. Most of us just want some sort of idealized version of the present
to go on forever. Matter of fact, most of my cousins probably think I'm a little crazy. Could be. Just blame it
on the part-needjy (gaj) upbringing. LOL
Munya Cess!
__________________
But Bahai,
Dick
A short bit of free verse about nothing:
Always questions, we say,
far more than answers;
yet answers lie abandoned,
strewn upon the universe,
while questions go begging
for parents to conceive them.
The Cant:
An English scholar named Charles Leland encountered a man he named as Owen MacDonald about 120 years ago in Philadelphia, PA. Leland commented on the Scottishness of the surname and spelled it with a "Mac," but insisted that the man was Irish, and a Traveller to boot. I believe the Irish Traveller was my grandfather's uncle. That given name has descended through succeeding generations in the McDonald family, of which I am part. And the surname "McDonald" or "MacDonald" was a rare one among Travellers at the time; there were few enough of us at all in the American northeast then.
Whatever his reasons for sharing some of the vocabulary of the Cant, I am grateful that he did. Had he not done so, many of the Cant words that my family used when they came to the "Grooth Munkeri" (New World) would be lost forever.
I promised a few forgotten Cant words last week.
One of these words isn't exactly lost, just used differently. Many Travellers in Ireland, perhaps most, now call themselves "Pavee" as a group. I surmise that they intend it to mean "Merchants" and that sounds like a fine and suitable name to me.
One word my great-grandfather would have used frequently, that I have never heard among my family is "minker," probably pronounced more like "minkar" to the American ear. That Cant word stood for "Tinker": a fine Gaelic-sourced name for a respectable trade long before it became an insult on the lips of many settled people overseas. That only occurred after it turned out that they no longer needed such tradesmen, as the Industrial Revolution caught up with Ireland. The Irish Travellers today spell that word "minceir" but I think that the pronunciation is similar.
NEXT WEEK HERE:
A few more Cant words from Old Times in the Old Country and maybe a paragraph on the meaning of the expression, "Tinker's Dam." Anyone want to guess? If you do, drop me an e-mail. Hint: It has something in common with safe-cracking; although legal in every way.
I was recently e-mailed a Web site address overseas for Scots Travellers and of course I have a number of such URLs personally bookmarked for the Irish Traveller links in the Old Country, as well. I'll put together a page of those links soon and add it to this site for your convenience.
I'll also try to get to more poetry by Yeats and Synge. By the way, any poetry on these pages that is not attributed to another person was written by myself and is copyrighted as such.
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