Children Stolen By Travelling Folk (Gypsies, Carnies, Nomads): UL?

[uair01]

I rode home from Berlin and I sat in a compartment with a German couple, my age, 50-ish. I told how I once was trespassing (and met a german shepherd watchdog and how the guard said "don't be afraid, she only bites when I tell her to") and then she told me this:

Yes they're very good watchdogs. When I was four years old, our german shepherd saved me from being stolen by the gypsies. I was playing in my room upstairs and a group of gypsies had distracted my grandma at the front door. Others came around the back and entered the house by the back door. They came up the stairs and into my room. Then the dog was at one of the gypsies' throat and it immobilized the guy against a wall. If it had not been there they would have stolen me.

I was pleasantly surprised by this bit of modern folklore:
1) Yes, Gypsies do this kind of thing, it's a classic trick.
2) But Gypsies steal normal useful things, not children.
3) The lady was really very convinced that the Gypsies were after her. So that must be a part of local folklore in the Westfalian countryside.
4) It reminded me of the stories of fairies stealing children.

 

[JamesWhitehead]

It's also the plot of Hepworth's Rescued by Rover, one of the most successful early British films! :shock:

Come to think of it, Rover (real name Blair!) finds the child after the evil gypsy hag has stolen it, so it is not quite the same.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlhNxHfyWTU

 

[Mythopoeika]

Well, I don't know about gypsies stealing children - perhaps they used to do that - but there has been a recent case where it was discovered that a family of gypsies were keeping slaves.
There was a court case about it recently.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...nised-crime-ring-running-family-business.html

I suspect they've been doing it for rather a long time.

 

[escargot]

Danny Collins, in this book, puts forward the idea that Madeleine McCann was abducted by gypsies after waking up and leaving the holiday apartment in search of her parents.

Why they'd abduct her isn't clearly explained. He reckons they'd get her across to north Africa quite easily, possibly in a car boot, but what they'd do with her when she's there is another matter.

For more on the McCann case specifically, see:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-madeleine-mccann-disappearance.29691/

 

[Quake42]

Well, I don't know about gypsies stealing children - perhaps they used to do that - but there has been a recent case where it was discovered that a family of gypsies were keeping slaves.

These were Irish Travellers, not Gypsies - a very different group.

 

[ally_katte]

A friend of mine said that his grandmother was once kidnapped by 'gypsies' because they thought she was one of their own.

Just a wee anecdote, I didn't particularly believe him but he was very handsome so I let him finish the story anyway.

 

[liveinabin]

My folks live in a small village and have a field next to their house.
Once a year or so a family of Romany Gypsies would stay in the field for a few days. They would always ask first and left no mess behind. The would use the outdoor tap and that was about all we would see of them.
One year they turned up in their traditional caravan just as I was coming home from school. The man of the family asked if I would like a ride in the caravan and my mum said it was OK.

I sat up front with him and we went down to the next village turned round and came back.

My mother could trace my route through the village by the 'phone calls she was getting asking if she knew I was in the caravan and had I been stolen by gypsies.

That said one of the things my Dad used to say was that he was going to give me away to the gypsies. Like how dads say they are going to put you in the bin or in the washing machine.

 

[Cavynaut]

The disappearance of Ben Needham in 1991 has been linked to gypsies...

Ben's grandparents, Christine and Eddie, met with a prisoner named Andonis Bedzios who was serving time in Larrisa Prison. He named people he said were involved in holding Ben. He had witnessed that Ben was in the "care" of the Kerimi family in Veria. He had escaped from prison in 1991 and returned to the Kerimi family as his son, Rambo had been living there at the time. The Kerimis are a very well known gyspy family. On his visit there, Bedzios questioned who the unknown boy was who was in the camp. He was told by the head of the family that they had got him from Kos.

http://www.helpfindben.co.uk/investigation.html

For more on the Ben Needham case see:
https://forums.forteana.org/index.php?threads/the-ben-needham-disappearance.50497/

 

[ramonmercado]

A friend of mine said that his grandmother was once kidnapped by 'gypsies' because they thought she was one of their own.

Just a wee anecdote, I didn't particularly believe him but he was very handsome so I let him finish the story anyway.

Interesting story. If you remember any more details of it please post them. I don't think it sounds credible either but its interesting to hear an addition to the mythos.

 

[ally_katte]

I believe it was around the Royston area of the Herts/Cambs border.

They were a white british family but they did have quite tan looking skin considering their ethnicity, my friend was apparenly born with skin almost as dark as the Jamaican midwife who delivered him and then his skin paled as he got older...but yeah, they discovered that the grandmother was adopted and the group of travellers saw her and thought that she was of their kind and took her. There was a bit of a torches and pitchforks chase and they managed to bargain to get her back.

I believe they were eastern european/Roma as opposed to Irish Travelers.

Cor! It's surprising how much you can remember something a pretty man tells you (don't tell my husband )

 

[Cochise]

I went off with the Gypsies once - was reminded by someone in another forum who was told the old rhyme about 'you never should...play with the gypsies in the wood'.

Was with my parents visiting an aunt in - I think - Waltham Cross - somewhere on the edge of Epping Forest. Lovely fine day and I was the only child there as far as I can remember - or it may have been I was allergic to their white cat - in any case I was let out to play outside, got friendly with some children who had a horse. (pony, probably). It might have been the first horse I'd ever seen close up. Anyway, I ended up riding the pony (with them leading it - no saddle, just a rope to hold on to) while we went off in to the woods.

I remember having a great time with my new friends - it was a lovely sunny day - but I can't remember how I got back, though I obviously did. Or what we did, actually, I just remember being very happy riding the pony.

It just occurred to me that this is all a bit surreal. But I was only somewhere between 8 and 10 at the time, so I'm not surprised I don't remember everything.

So anyway, I did play with the Gypsies in the Wood and apparently was none the worse for it.

 

[amyasleigh]

This thread brings to mind a passage which I'm fond of, from E. Nesbit's Five Children and It. The child protagonists get into a mess as a result of dealings with their friend the Psammead, an ancient and irascible supernatural being who is able magically to grant them wishes -- which usually backfire on them in unwelcome ways, but expire at sunset, at which hour things revert to their normal condition. Fed-up with having to look after their baby brother and take him around with them, they rashly express a wish that everybody else might want him for their own; and have to spend the rest of the day fending off everyone they meet, who now greatly desire to capture the little lad, that he may become theirs.

Fairly late in the day, to their alarm, they stumble upon an encampment of gypsies -- with their predilection in the popular mind, for stealing children. Like everyone else encountered that day, all the gypsies express an intense desire for the adorable kid to become their own; but that aside, they are polite and well-behaved toward the children, and invite them to share a late lunch of stew made from sundry wild creatures. Things get tense later, re keeping babe out of itinerants' hands; but fortunately the sun sets before anything ugly occurs. The gypsies are shown as feeling sheepish about their recent altered mental states, and they and the children part on reasonably good terms. One gypsy woman says to them, "I don't know what made us go to behave so silly. Gypsies don't steal babies, whatever they may tell you when you're naughty. We've enough of our own, mostly. But I've lost all mine."

I like the thought of E. Nesbit -- liberal in her general world-view by turn-of-19th/20th-century standards -- seeking to convey to her young readers the message that gypsies are OK people, just with certain rather unusual but harmless ways and customs.

 

[maximus otter]

These were Irish Travellers, not Gypsies - a very different group.

I had occasion to - interact - with numerous - travellers - over the years. That was a common assertion of theirs. I regard it with deep scepticism, even proceeding from the assumption that there’s a discernible difference.

lt seems to me to be like the genealogy of many Americans, a surprising proportion of whom claim that their umpteen-greats granny was a “Cherokee princess”.



maximus otter

 

[PeteS]

I went off with the Gypsies once - was reminded by someone in another forum who was told the old rhyme about 'you never should...play with the gypsies in the wood'.

Was with my parents visiting an aunt in - I think - Waltham Cross - somewhere on the edge of Epping Forest. Lovely fine day and I was the only child there as far as I can remember - or it may have been I was allergic to their white cat - in any case I was let out to play outside, got friendly with some children who had a horse. (pony, probably). It might have been the first horse I'd ever seen close up. Anyway, I ended up riding the pony (with them leading it - no saddle, just a rope to hold on to) while we went off in to the woods.

I remember having a great time with my new friends - it was a lovely sunny day - but I can't remember how I got back, though I obviously did. Or what we did, actually, I just remember being very happy riding the pony.

It just occurred to me that this is all a bit surreal. But I was only somewhere between 8 and 10 at the time, so I'm not surprised I don't remember everything.

So anyway, I did play with the Gypsies in the Wood and apparently was none the worse for it.

I play with a Gypsy on a regular basis (but not in the woods) - some of them inhabit a very strange world indeed.

 

[Min Bannister]

I like the thought of E. Nesbit -- liberal in her general world-view by turn-of-19th/20th-century standards -- seeking to convey to her young readers the message that gypsies are OK people, just with certain rather unusual but harmless ways and customs.

Walter Scott's Guy Mannering sees gypsies blamed for stealing a child. Not only did they not do it but the head gypsy woman saves the day more than once.

 

[Xanatic*]

There's a bit here about irish travellers and their ancestry.

https://www.ed.ac.uk/usher/news-events/news-2017/gene-study-reveals-irish-travellers-ancestry

Though I am thinking of that story about roma in Scotland hiring out their children. If they can do that to their own children...

 

[ramonmercado]

I had occasion to - interact - with numerous - travellers - over the years. That was a common assertion of theirs. I regard it with deep scepticism, even proceeding from the assumption that there’s a discernible difference.

lt seems to me to be like the genealogy of many Americans, a surprising proportion of whom claim that their umpteen-greats granny was a “Cherokee princess”.



maximus otter

Gypsies tend to look a lot different. Dare I mention skin colour? Whereas Irish Travellers are pale-faced.

 

[amyasleigh]

Walter Scott's Guy Mannering sees gypsies blamed for stealing a child. Not only did they not do it but the head gypsy woman saves the day more than once.

I've never read Guy Mannering -- this rather inspires me to do so. I find that old Sir Walter is often a good deal more fun than one expects him to be...

 

[Min Bannister]

I've never read Guy Mannering -- this rather inspires me to do so. I find that old Sir Walter is often a good deal more fun than one expects him to be...

I love him. Guy Mannering has gypsies, pirates, murder and astrology. What's not to like? :bob:

 

[Cochise]

Gypsies and travellers are very different, and not fond of each other.

 

[RyoHazuki]

My mother (in her 70s) has very fond childhood memories of the Romany gypsies that used to camp on her parents' farm in the Essex countryside. Clean and conscientious people who worked hard and paid their way. There was one couple in particular that she liked: the wife would do tailoring jobs and was a demon with a crochet hook, while the husband (who couldn't read or write) built beautifully-detailed, and fully-functioning, scaled-down models of steam engines, from scratch.
She has no time whatsoever for Irish travellers, on the other hand, and if anyone refers to them as 'gypsies' she'll launch into a lengthy and impassioned explanation of the vast difference.

 

[James_H]

Gypsies and travellers are very different, and not fond of each other.

I once went to a community event put on by the local council for Roma gypsies and travellers. The travellers were mainly from a settled population in that London borough, whereas the gypsies were recent immigrants from Bulgaria. They were just meeting each other for the first time and were asking each other a bunch of questions, neither group being that familiar with the other's culture.

 

[Cochise]

Glad it went well. And lucky, too.

 

[Blind Davey]

Hi, I come from a Scottish Highland Traveller family.
I remember my grandad telling me that there was a grain of truth in the story of Travellers taking children. When they came to a croft that was poor and had too many children (mouths to feed) , a child might be given to the Travellers to take away and bring up as their own. .
In this way, all benefitted. The Crofters were relieved of a mouth to feed and the Travellers gained an addition to their clan to help and also deepen the gene pool, there was always a lot of intermarrying in our community, until very recently in fact. Thats why I have so many 'cousins' lol.
As the Travellers always followed a set route in their perambulations, the child and family often, at least once a Travelling Season (year), would be reunited.
In all cases the 'adopted' child would take on the family name and be treated as an equal and on of them.

 

[Xanatic*]

Did the travellers blind you?

 

[Blind Davey]

No, but it does come in useful when my giro is late

 

[Gambeir]

Should add here that in America there's no such thing as gypsies any longer. You're never going to hear anyone talking about gypsies. When I was child of about 5 or 6 I saw a long line of cars and trailers being escorted by the cops out of the city. I remember this very clearly and I asked my pop what was going on, and he said: "Gypsies." I took it that gypsies weren't a good thing, whatever they were. It was a big show for a 5 year old back in the day.

 

[Xanatic*]

So where were the US gypsies transported to? Did they put them in camps?

 

[RyoHazuki]

I took it to mean that they were being escorted out of the city, rather than being transported somewhere. I suspect that for whatever reason, they probably ended up settling somewhere, or maybe just disappearing into the great outdoors (easier to do in the US, I imagine).

 

[Xanatic*]

Perhaps, but are they really the types to be living off the land?