The name also appears as Fall, Falla (President Roosevelt's little scotty dog?), Failey and Faw, says the site. It also mentions Baillies. If Mitt Romney also turns out to have Gypsy heritage, will he take an interest in the plight of the downtrodden minorities among us? See Romney, Rom'nie as Gypsy surname. Perhaps. Perhaps there is no connection. Need the geneologists here.
1. Gypsies and Folktales. See Gypsy Stories Old and New at The Journal of Mythic Arts News and Reviews at entry dated January 12, 2007. Site at ://endicottstudio.typepad.com/endicott_redux/myth_folklore_fairy_tales/index.html
2. Gypsies in Song. "The Raggle Taggle Gypsies, O!"
Hear this fine lady who said Nuts to her own lifestyle and what it offered. She ran off with them and is very happy there, thank you, and you can take your goosefeather bed and stuff it. Rough summary. See //www.kinglaoghaire.com/site/lyrics/song_350.html. It has a dark side - read at//www.hisdarkmaterials.org/srafopedia/index.php/Faa%2C_John, about her fate - the hanging of Johnny Faa by her aristocratic husband, and then her own imprisonment overlooking the gallows site. How much of this is fiction? Need to check.
3. Hear the Raggle Taggle Gypsies, O!" These are Scots Gypsies. The photo is a glen in Scotland. Imagine a caravan just down that road. Moving.
GO HERE AND THE MUSIC STARTS ON A CONCERTINA AND YOU CAN SING RIGHT ALONG- WITH THE RAGGLE TAGGLE GYPSIES, O!
Music site and its sub-sites:
//www.contemplator.com/child/wraggle.html. This also provides a history from the 18th Century about the ballad. This is the way to teach history - find a ballad, listen to it, look it up, find the references.
Her is a variation, called "Johnny Faa" * at://www.contemplator.com/child/johnnyfa.html; and another variation called "The Gypsy Laddie" at //www.contemplator.com/child/gypsylad.html
Francis J. Child in the late 1800's catalogued British ballads, Irish, Scots, etc., and you get more music here at http://www.contemplator.com/history/epedia.html#child
4. This site includes a verse not included in the earlier ones: a fair use quote - and perhaps the first no-fault divorce when one rides east and the other rides west, one rides high and one rides low. See it at ://www.celticnots.com/music/raggle.html. It is also here: ://www.iol.ie/~murphypj/christy/Raggle.txt. Now that I am looking, I do see it elsewhere.
"Often you rode east when I rode west
You rode high when I rode low
I'd rather have a kiss of the yellow gypsy's lips
Than all of the cashier's money, O."
5. This site excludes the verse with the kiss, oh my, The Baldwin Project, "A Child's Own Book of Verse" - redacted and sterilized according to the author's fears, at http://www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=skinner&book=verse2&story=raggle.
For adults: When money doesn't do it. Hear the echoing, ancient and very real lure of a midnight mystique attributed to a minority, and when then becomes threatening. Is that a universal? And the magnet of a lifestyle different from one's own - not regimented (in the same way) as the mainstream culture - and what may happen when one rides east and the other is riding west, regardless of money. Another universal?
6. The last verse is excluded here as well - do these exclusions mean, and must there always be, a sexual fear about minorities?? see //www.mainlesson.com/display.php?author=skinner&book=verse2&story=raggle
Listen and view on YouTube - here they are and I just haven't time to go on with this particular exploration - ://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsMWvuuiEY8
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* Johnny Faa - this site says he was a Gypsy in Scotland when the Gypsies were banished in 1624, he disobeyed the order and was hanged. See ://sniff.numachi.com/pages/tiWRAGYPSY;ttWRAGYPSY.html
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