Which is a long way off from the Gipsies.  Let us return.  We had spoken of patteran, or of crosses by the way-side, and this led naturally enough to speaking of Him who died on the Cross, and of wandering.  And I must confess that it was with great interest I learned that the Gipsies, from a very singular and Rommany point of view, respect, and even pay him, in common with the peasantry in some parts of England, a peculiar honour.  For this reason I bade the Gipsy carefully repeat his words, and wrote them down accurately.  I give them in the original, with a translation.  Let me first state that my informant was not quite clear in his mind as to whether the Boro Divvus, or Great Day, was Christmas or New Year’s, nor was he by any means certain on which Christ was born.  But he knew very well that when it came, the Gipsies took great pains to burn an ash-wood fire.

“Avali—­adusta cheirus I’ve had to jal dui or trin mees of a Boro Divvus sig’ in the sala, to lel ash-wood for the yag.  That was when I was a bitti chavo, for my dadas always would keravit.

“An’ we kairs it because foki pens our Saviour, the tikno Duvel was born apre the Boro Divvus, ’pre the puv, avree in the temm, like we Rommanis, and he was brought ’pre pash an ash yag—­(Why you can dick dovo adree the Scriptures!).

“The ivy and holly an’ pine rukks never pookered a lav when our Saviour was gaverin’ of his kokero, an’ so they tools their jivaben saw (sar) the wen, and dicks selno saw the besh; but the ash, like the surrelo rukk, pukkered atut him, where he was gaverin, so they have to hatch mullo adree the wen.  And so we Rommany chals always hatchers an ash yag saw the Boro Divvuses.  For the tickno duvel was chivved a wadras ’pre the puvius like a Rommany chal, and kistered apre a myla like a Rommany, an’ jalled pale the tem a mangin his moro like a Rom.  An’ he was always a pauveri choro mush, like we, till he was nashered by the Gorgios.

“An’ he kistered apre a myla?  Avali.  Yeckorus he putchered the pash-grai if he might kister her, but she pookered him kek.  So because the pash-grai wouldn’t rikker him, she was sovahalled againsus never to be a dye or lel tiknos.  So she never lelled kek, nor any cross either.

“Then he putchered the myla to rikker him, and she penned:  ‘Avali!’ so he pet a cross apre laki’s dumo.  And to the divvus the myla has a trin bongo drum and latchers tiknos, but the pash-grai has kek.  So the mylas ’longs of the Rommanis.”

(TRANSLATION.)—­“Yes—­many a time I’ve had to go two or three miles of a Great Day (Christmas), early in the morning, to get ash-wood for the fire.  That was when I was a small boy, for my father always would do it.

“And we do it because people say our Saviour, the small God, was born on the Great Day, in the field, out in the country, like we Rommanis, and he was brought up by an ash-fire.”

Here a sudden sensation of doubt or astonishment at my ignorance seemed to occur to my informant, for he said,—­