Gypsy Life - Not As Romantic As It Sounds

A pipe-smoking mother tends to her children in a rather windswept Romany encampment on the Epsom Downs, circa 1910.

... I am so sorry, but this series of old photos has been moved to my new website, Gypsy Magick and Lore, and can be found in their entirety here: Gypsy Life - Not as Romantic As It Sounds

The Romani Flag

The Roma flag is comprised of blue and green traditional colors

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The Gypsy Vardo

There are six design types. They are known by various names but are perhaps best called the Reading, the Ledge and the Bow-top. The Bow-top is the most typically Romani; the now extinct Brush – characteristic of brush, broom, rush and wickerwork makers; the Burton – most typically showman; and, the more modern one, the Open-lot.



Being individually built, no two wagons are exactly alike. They vary according to customer requirements, price, skill and location of builder and period. At the same time they have certain exterior features in common, and with few exceptions the interiors conform to a set plan or layout. Thus, the vardo is always one-roomed on four high wheels, with door and moveable steps in front (the Brush wagon the only exception), sash windows, a rack called the ‘cratch’ and a pan-box at the rear....

I am so sorry to do this to you, but this post has been moved to my new website, Gypsy Magick and Lore (hosted at shirleytwofeathers.com) and can be found in its entirety here: The Gypsy Vardo

Gypsy Fortune Telling

Gypsy women, as long as we have known anything of Gypsy history, have been arrant fortune-tellers. They plied fortune-telling about France and Germany as early as 1414, the year when the dusky bands were first observed in Europe, and they have never relinquished the practice. There are two words for fortune-telling in Gypsy, bocht and dukkering. Bocht is a Persian word, a modification of, or connected with, the Sanscrit bagya, which signifies 'fate.' Dukkering is the modification of a Wallaco-Sclavonian word signifying something spiritual or ghostly. In Eastern European Gypsy, the Holy Ghost is called Swentuno Ducos.

Gypsy fortune-telling is much the same everywhere, much the same in Russia as it is in Spain and in England. ...

... I am so sorry to do this to you, but this post has been moved to my new website, Gypsy Magick and Lore, hosted at shirleytwofeathers.com, and can be found in its entirety here: Gypsy Fortune Telling