Gypsies, tramps and thieves

[Boreades]

Yesterday here in Britain, we were getting the results of a different kind of "beating the bounds". Beating the bounders?

The UK's political boundaries are being redrawn wholesale. The new distribution looks, however, vaguely familiar. Like tribal boundaries or DNA-distribution maps, with a western-fringe.



Viewers in the US of A might find something else familiar about this as well.

[Mick Harper]

[Boreades]

Yawn.
Until you tell us why three Saint Marys (not just one or two)

[TisILeclerc]

'Until you tell us why three Saint Marys (not just one or two)'

Marys always come in threes. As in 'Last Night there were Three Marys' a dirge popular in the sixties.

Tony Robinson mentions these three in a video on youtube. Turns out it's a different three Marys to the one popularised by Dan Brown. The programme is about debunking the Da Vinci Code. So if anybody doesn't want to be disappointed it's not for them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAtoP5nFhh4

As you are interested in boats, borry, there's another one you may have missed regarding the old boat found at Dover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4OylAKusMw

[Mick Harper]

In TME we pointed out that gypsies and other similar travellers were mimicking The Megalithics in various ways eg nomadic long distance travelling, metalbashing, very horsey, clannish, being outside normal society etc etc. We could only speculate that the Gypsies were actual latterday Megalithics stranded by the advances of normal society because we could never make any actual connection.

The legendary arrival of Mary Magdalen in Europe is (in TME anyway) taken as a Megalithic event. We do not say this happened, only that it was taken up for various purposes by the Megalithics. So for gypsies to choose this very spot for a big jamboree is either coincidental or significant.

[hvered]

Appleby in Cumbria hosts the largest gathering of gypsies, Roma, Travellers & co., so large that it was featured on Newsnight. The site on the northern edge of Appleby is called Fair Hill, a Gallows Hill though without a gibbet. The hill is 187 metres according to Google Earth, the same as Silbury Hill, and like Silbury is on a long-distance route that goes north-west to Carlisle.

This noticeably straight route bisects another Fair Hill at Penrith, also on the northern edge of the town. Again according to Google Earth, the elevation is 192 metres but on the OS map 182 is marked, thirty-three feet lower. Such places are both marginal and in full view, not apparently remarked on unless used for hangings or whatever.

[hvered]

Another link between Appleby, Penrith and Carlisle are the medieval friars. The ever-reliable Victoria County History says that within fifty years four orders established themselves, the Dominicans and Franciscans in Carlisle, the Austin Friars in Penrith and the Carmelites in Appleby. http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/cu ... /pp194-199

I'm not sure if this fits here but will park it for the time being because sociologically there may be some similarities in attitudes to gypsy travellers and mendicant friars. Mendicant refers to begging, perhaps not far removed from mendacious. Either way, the friars rather than 'proper' clergy seem to have been called upon as negotiators and also to help at the end of people's lives. Both functions, carried out by 'friars eremites', are of course associated with Hermes.

[Boreades]

Re the Three Marys revered by the gypsies.

In the Trade Secrets topic, we discussed the Egyptian Mari tradition. Some high priestess of Egypt from Miriam (Mery Amon) onwards have names like Mary, even while in exile, through to Mary Magdalan.
viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1908&hilit=aaron&start=450

This may have slipped into European tradition via the Greek Moirai, traditionally numbered as a trio of wise women.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moirai

Are these the same as the Mouras Encantadas in Portugal and Galicia? These have strong megalithic connections.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enchanted_Moura

[TisILeclerc]