Lavengro by George Borrow (read me a book txt) 📕

The waiter withdrew, and I said to the jockey: “How did you become acquainted with the Romany chals?”

“I first became acquainted with them,” said the jockey, “when I lived with old Fulcher the basketmaker, who took me up when I was adrift upon the world; I do not mean the present Fulcher, who is likewise called old Fulcher, but his father, who has been dead this many a year; while living with him in the caravan, I frequently met them in the green lanes, and of latter years I have had occasional dealings with them in the horse line.”

“And the gypsies have mentioned me to you?” said I.

“Frequently,” said the jockey, “and not only those of these parts; why, there’s scarcely a part of England in which I have not heard the name of the Romany Rye mentioned by these people. The power you have over them is wonderful; that is, I should have thought it wonderful, had they not more than once told me the cause.”

“And what is the cause?” said I, “for I am sure I do not know.”

“The cause is this,” said the jockey, “they never heard a bad word proceed from your mouth, and never knew you do a bad thing.”

“They are a singular people,” said I.

“And what a singular language they have got,” said the jockey.

“Do you know it?” said I.

“Only a few words,” said the jockey; “they were always chary in teaching me any.”

“They were vary sherry to me to,” said the Hungarian, speaking in broken English; “I only could learn from them half a dozen words, for example, gul eray, which, in the czigany of my country, means sweet gentleman, or edes ur in my own Magyar.”

“Gudlo Rye, in the Romany of mine, means a sugar’d gentleman,” said I; “then there are gypsies in your country?”

“Plenty,” said the Hungarian, speaking German, “and in Russia and Turkey too; and wherever they are found, they are alike in their ways and language. Oh, they are a strange race, and how little known! I know little of them, but enough to say that one horse-load of nonsense has been written about them; there is one Valter Scott⁠—”

“Mind what you say about him,” said I; “he is our grand authority in matters of philology and history.”

“A pretty philologist,” said the Hungarian, “who makes the gypsies speak Roth-Welsch,315 the dialect of thieves; a pretty historian, who couples together Thor and Tzernebock.”316

“Where does he do that?” said I.

“In his conceited romance of Ivanhoe, he couples Thor and Tzernebock together, and calls them gods of the heathen Saxons.”

“Well,” said I, “Thur or Thor was certainly a god of the heathen Saxons.”

“True,” said the Hungarian; “but why couple him with Tzernebock? Tzernebock was a word which your Valter had picked up somewhere without knowing the meaning. Tzernebock was no god of the Saxons, but one of the gods of the Sclaves, on the southern side of the Baltic. The Sclaves had two grand gods to whom they sacrificed, Tzernebock and Bielebock;317 that is, the black and white gods, who represented the powers of dark and light. They were overturned by Waldemar, the Dane, the great enemy of the Sclaves; the account of whose wars you will find in one fine old book, written by Saxo Gramaticus,318 which I read in the library of the college of Debreczen. The Sclaves, at one time, were masters of all the southern shore of the Baltic, where their descendants are still to be found, though they have lost their language, and call themselves Germans; but the word Zernevitz near Danzig, still attests that the Sclavic language was once common in those parts. Zernevitz means the thing of blackness, as Tzernebock means the god of blackness. Prussia itself merely means, in Sclavish, Lower Russia. There is scarcely a race or language in the world more extended than the Sclavic. On the other side of the Dunau you will find the Sclaves and their language. Czernavoda is Sclavic, and means black water; in Turkish, kara su; even as Tzernebock means black god; and Belgrade, or Belograd, means the white town, even as Bielebock, or Bielebog, means the white god. Oh! he is one great ignorant, that Valter. He is going, they say, to write one history about Napoleon. I do hope that in his history he will couple his Thor and Tzernebock together. By my God! it would be good diversion that.”

“Walter Scott appears to be no particular favourite of yours,” said I.

“He is not,” said the Hungarian; “I hate him for his slavish principles. He wishes to see absolute power restored in this country, and Popery also⁠—and I hate him because⁠—what do you think? In one of his novels, published a few months ago, he has the insolence to insult Hungary in the person of one of her sons. He makes his great braggart, Coeur de Lion, fling a Magyar over his head. Ha! it was well for Richard that he never felt the grip of a Hungarian. I wish the braggart could have felt the grip of me, who am ‘a’ magyarok közt legkissebb,’ the least among the Magyars. I do hate that Scott, and all his vile gang of Lowlanders and Highlanders. The black corps, the fekete319 regiment of Matyas Hunyadi, was worth all the Scots, high or low, that ever pretended to be soldiers; and would have sent them all headlong into the Black Sea, had they dared to confront it on its shores; but why be angry with an ignorant, who couples together Thor and Tzernebock? Ha! Ha!”

“You have read his novels?” said I.

“Yes, I read them now and then. I do not speak much English, but I can read it well, and I have read some of his romances and mean to read his Napoleon,