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learn more, go to patreon

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.com slash trifles or trifles

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.substack .com Welcome

0:16

to Trifles, a weekly podcast about

0:18

the Sherlock Holmes stories. It

0:20

is, of course, a trifle, but

0:23

there is nothing so important as

0:25

trifles. Yes,

0:28

the thumb was engineered, the foot was deviled,

0:30

and the Peter was black, but

0:32

there are so many other details to pick apart in

0:34

the stories. Pray be

0:36

precise as to details. You

0:39

know the plots, but what

0:41

about the minutiae? Have you ever

0:43

stopped to wonder what a basket chair is? Or

0:46

why Watson's medicine of choice is

0:48

always branding? Or what a

0:50

coal scuttle is and why cigars would

0:52

be there? You are very inquisitive, Mr.

0:55

Holmes. It is my business to know

0:57

what other people don't know. Scott

1:01

Monty and Bert Wolder will have the

1:03

answers to these questions and more

1:05

in Trifles. The

1:09

Games of

1:11

Foot Episode

1:13

434

1:15

Gypsies Hello

1:20

and welcome to Trifles, the Sherlock Holmes

1:23

podcast, where we get into the

1:25

details and the Sherlock Holmes stories. I'm

1:27

Scott Monty. I'm Bert Waldor.

1:29

And Bert, do you still have

1:31

your wandering way about you? I

1:34

do. I have my wandering way. I

1:36

also have my wandering wand. And

1:39

I'm dousing for water in about an hour

1:41

and a half. I wander about

1:43

you. Well, you're not

1:45

dousing enough. Well,

1:49

we have a good show planned

1:51

for today, one that was

1:53

suggested by a listener. We

1:55

have to thank Anna Barrens for

1:57

this. Anna, we

1:59

will send you a little something

2:01

from the company vaults

2:04

here, the trifles vaults,

2:06

to thank you

2:08

for your thoughtful suggestion.

2:11

As you heard in the title,

2:13

we're going to be talking about

2:15

gypsies and I should be clear. That's

2:17

a term that's really not in

2:19

favor anymore. Um, I

2:22

guess it's looked at as some

2:24

sort of a pejorative, although we

2:26

certainly don't intend it to be

2:28

as we're talking about it,

2:30

but this of course is

2:32

the terminology that was

2:34

used in, uh, Victorian

2:36

times and in the cannon. And

2:39

there are a couple of instances of gypsies in

2:41

the canon that we're going to hit by

2:43

the end of the show. So I want you

2:45

to put your thinking cap on as we

2:47

begin to stroll through

2:49

history here to understand

2:52

the context and just the

2:54

depth of knowledge about

2:56

gypsies during Sherlock Holmes's time.

3:00

We encourage you in the meantime

3:02

to get on over to Patreon

3:04

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3:06

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3:17

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3:31

And while you're at

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3:44

We want other Sherlockians to

3:46

tune in here and be interested

3:48

because that's how we grow

3:51

this hobby together. Well,

3:59

we said

4:01

we're going to be talking about gypsies, but I

4:04

suppose we should

4:06

mention what they prefer to

4:08

be known as today. Is

4:11

that nomad -o -europeans? Well,

4:15

that sounds very analytical.

4:17

Well, it's the Roma, the

4:19

Romani people, the traveler

4:21

communities. I'm

4:24

not quite up to

4:26

speed on exactly how folks in those

4:28

communities want to be referred to,

4:30

but it certainly isn't gypsy, I don't

4:32

believe. Hmm. Yeah. Well,

4:34

that's, of course, that is the terminology

4:36

we come across in the Sherlock

4:38

Holmes stories. And

4:41

before we began the research

4:43

for this episode, you

4:45

and I certainly knew

4:47

one Sherlock Holmes story

4:49

that we found Gypsies in. But

4:52

did you know the second story without

4:54

giving away the name of it? Did

4:56

you know what the second story was

4:58

before we began our research? No. No,

5:00

once, once I. I tumbled to

5:02

it immediately when it was mentioned. But no,

5:04

off the top of my head, I didn't. Because

5:06

it wasn't that prominent in the case. It

5:08

is not. It is not prominent. It's one of

5:11

those, well, I guess it's a trifling mention. So

5:15

there are a couple of sources

5:17

that we have. I think we're

5:19

going to start with the Victorian

5:21

web. And we'll have links to

5:23

both of these sources in the

5:25

show notes if you want to

5:27

check those out. the Victorian

5:29

web, what do they tell

5:31

us about the history of

5:33

gypsies? Well, you

5:36

know, in the context of the

5:38

Victorian age, you have to look

5:40

at the social attitudes. You

5:43

know, there were marginalized groups

5:45

like the Roma or the

5:47

Romani people or the gypsies.

5:50

And as you would expect

5:52

in the ordered Victorian society,

5:54

they were thought of with

5:56

suspicion, and that's why they appear as

5:58

they do in these two instances in

6:00

the cases of Sherlock Holmes,

6:03

because they're sort of

6:05

catchalls for suspicion and fear

6:07

and exoticism. And

6:09

this is in the context of what

6:11

was going on in the Victorian age,

6:13

which is industrialization, a drive

6:15

to the city's anxieties about

6:18

the social order. And

6:20

these kinds of communities

6:22

feel Oh, very

6:24

exotic. They're perceived to be

6:26

free. They're perceived to be connected

6:28

to nature. They're perceived and

6:30

associated with things like

6:32

musicality. They've got

6:34

supposed mystical leanings.

6:37

They're fortune tellers.

6:40

They know about herbal remedies.

6:43

And then as you'll see in the cases

6:45

of Sherlock Holmes, they're suspected

6:47

as being, oh, you

6:49

know, thieves and vagrants

6:51

and mysterious and I

6:53

don't know. It's sort

6:56

of like, you know,

6:58

outside the bounds of civilization, things

7:00

like that. Yeah. Well,

7:04

Victorian web has a

7:06

reference to a book

7:09

called Gypsies and

7:11

Other Itinerant Groups, A

7:13

Sociohistorical Approach, from 1998

7:15

by Leo

7:17

Lacassan, Wim Willems,

7:19

and Anne -Marie Cotter.

7:22

They say that

7:25

the general way

7:27

of life of these people is

7:29

well known and was really

7:31

familiar to the Victorians

7:33

because Typically,

7:36

these groups stayed for quite

7:38

a while in one place. They

7:41

were itinerant people, but they did

7:43

kind of make encampments. And

7:46

this source says, in century

7:48

England, many Gypsies settled

7:50

down during the winter months

7:53

and made all kinds of

7:55

products, like clothespins

7:57

and skewers, flowers, et cetera.

8:00

At the beginning of the spring, they

8:02

started to travel and they would

8:04

sell. their manufactured goods

8:06

as well as all kinds

8:08

of services and during the

8:10

summer many of them were hired

8:12

on as seasonal laborers and in

8:14

the autumn they visited fairs and

8:17

of course this is

8:19

where we get more

8:21

of that whimsical element

8:23

with

8:25

the fortune

8:28

tellers and side shows, amusements,

8:30

other things you would see

8:32

at a fairground. And they

8:34

pitched tents and they pitched

8:37

their services right alongside some

8:39

of these other fair people.

8:43

So that's where you would see them

8:45

as you're traveling across the country or

8:47

from town to town at some of

8:49

these fairs. Well, you

8:51

know, all of these things

8:53

about how this community,

8:55

these communities are viewed in

8:58

Victorian society, you really

9:00

have to underscore the fact that it's

9:02

got no relationship to reality. These

9:04

kinds of portrayals reflect what

9:06

people are anxious about and

9:08

their own fantasies rather than

9:10

accurate depictions of anybody. Even

9:13

before we get to Conan Doyle,

9:15

there are these things in

9:17

literature that you can sort of put

9:19

your finger on. I mean, the Bronte

9:21

sisters, so for example, Jane Eyre. My

9:24

memory is there's a scene in Jane

9:26

Eyre where Mr. Rochester

9:28

dresses up as a

9:30

gypsy fortune teller, sort

9:32

of to have this conversation

9:35

with Jane Eyre to find

9:37

out how he actually feels

9:39

about her, and then You

9:42

know, and that was Charlotte Bronte,

9:44

and then her sister Emily did,

9:46

wrote Wuthering Heights, and my memory

9:48

there is that Heathcliff is sort

9:50

of suspected or kind of associated

9:52

with sort of an exotic background

9:54

like... Maybe he's called a gypsy

9:56

brat. Oh, he was?

9:58

Oh, that's right. Yeah. Well, I haven't

10:00

read Wuthering Heights in a long time.

10:02

But, and it pops up in poetry,

10:05

you know, and I

10:07

think... Hardy, I

10:09

think, had something about these kinds

10:12

of communities. But, you know,

10:14

it's a real fact of the

10:16

literary landscape and a fact

10:18

of society there. Yeah.

10:21

And as we

10:23

were doing this research, we

10:25

found a link, a

10:28

description of

10:30

Queen Victoria's interest

10:33

in gypsies. That

10:37

that took us to another

10:39

section of Victorian web. So

10:42

I did a wider search

10:44

and found the Roma heritage

10:46

website and there's a section

10:48

there of Queen Victoria's journals

10:50

and these were transcribed

10:52

from a time

10:54

period of December 1836

10:57

through

10:59

January of

11:02

1837 so

11:04

And then she of course

11:07

was either princess or lady

11:09

Victoria at this point. She

11:11

was not queen Victoria. She

11:13

would not become queen until

11:15

June of 1837. So this

11:17

is a good six months

11:19

before ascending to the throne,

11:21

but she wintered at Claremont

11:23

house in Esher in Surrey. And

11:27

that was, it was part of

11:29

the royal estate at the time.

11:31

And during her stay, she'd go

11:33

on. daily walks around the grounds

11:35

and the surrounding area with her, her

11:38

advisor and companion.

11:40

And she chanced upon

11:43

an encampment of Gypsies, of

11:45

Cooper Gypsies. And

11:48

they, they had a very

11:51

strong effect on her so

11:53

much that she wrote about

11:55

them in her journal and not

11:57

just once or twice,

11:59

but nearly daily

12:01

entries for for two

12:03

months. As

12:05

we're looking through this Roman,

12:08

this Roma heritage website,

12:10

there are extensive journal entries

12:12

here that begin

12:14

on, what's the

12:16

first one, December

12:19

3rd and extend all

12:21

the way through January,

12:24

no, excuse

12:27

me, 14 February. Yeah,

12:32

I really recommend you listeners take

12:34

a look at the link in

12:37

the show notes and read it's

12:39

really fabulous because Victoria's writing goes

12:41

all the way up to Christmas

12:43

and She you know you can

12:45

see her understanding and interest in

12:47

this community deep in and deep

12:50

in and then what happens is

12:52

on the 25th of December

12:54

in 1836 She finally writes and

12:56

this is after all of these

12:58

other entries about the people and

13:00

the babies and the community

13:02

and the hardship and the cold weather,

13:05

she writes, Mama has ordered broth

13:07

and fuel to be sent

13:09

tonight and also two blankets. And

13:12

several of our people have sent old

13:14

flannel things for them. Mama

13:16

has ordered that the broth and fuel is

13:18

to be sent each day till the

13:20

woman is recovered. And

13:22

oh, and they all looked out

13:25

and bowed most gratefully, and

13:27

then they were given directly a

13:29

sovereign. I cannot say

13:31

how happy I am that these

13:33

poor creatures are assisted, for

13:35

they are such a nice set

13:37

of gypsies, so quiet, so

13:39

affectionate to one another, so

13:42

discreet, not at all forward

13:44

or important, and so grateful,

13:47

so unlike the gossiping,

13:49

fortune -telling race gypsies. And

13:54

she said, this is such a

13:56

peculiar and touching case. And

13:59

that's it's interesting because

14:01

she is clearly saying these

14:03

are not your steroid stereotypical

14:05

gypsies. But yeah, well, I

14:07

should if she would know. That's

14:09

the thing, right? Yeah. This is

14:11

her first run in. Yeah. But for

14:13

all she knows, this could be

14:16

what most gypsies are like. Yeah. And

14:18

yet, you know, it really is

14:20

charming. She says, I went to bed

14:22

with a light heart knowing these

14:24

poor good people were better off and

14:26

would not feel the cold quite

14:28

so much. Yeah.

14:32

I mean, she was very, uh,

14:34

compassionate, uh, about

14:36

these people and very concerned

14:38

about them. Um,

14:42

uh, we, we get farther down

14:44

and She's

14:47

been reading The Gypsy's

14:49

Advocate. Is

14:52

that their newsletter? No, it's

14:54

a book. It's

14:56

a book I gather

14:58

by a fellow named Mr.

15:01

Crabb. He beseeches

15:03

and urges those who have kind

15:05

hearts and Christian feelings to think of

15:07

these poor wanderers, who have many

15:10

good qualities and who have many good

15:12

people amongst them. He says

15:14

and alas I know well

15:16

I too well know it's truth

15:18

from experience that whenever any

15:20

poor gypsies are in camped anywhere

15:22

and crimes and robberies occur

15:24

It is invariably laid to their

15:26

account which is shocking and

15:28

if they are always looked

15:30

upon as vagabonds, how can they

15:33

become good people? Now

15:38

that is well that takes

15:40

this to Sherlock Holmes and that

15:42

certainly does So

15:44

this, this

15:46

should be an easy one for

15:48

anyone who's listening. And

15:50

Bert, I know you have

15:53

a reputation based on the

15:55

answer that you typically give to

15:57

the canonical couplet over on I hear

15:59

of Sherlock everywhere. No, no,

16:01

no. This one is one of

16:03

the easiest lobs over the plate

16:05

that I'm going to give you.

16:08

Yes. What Sherlock

16:10

Holmes story is most

16:12

famous? for mentioning gypsies.

16:14

Oh, it's the

16:16

Speckled Band. Yes. Yes,

16:19

very good. The Band.

16:21

Very you. The Speckled Band.

16:23

Yeah, and in what

16:25

context do we find gypsies

16:28

in the Speckled Band?

16:30

Do you remember? Oh, yeah.

16:32

Well, it's poor old,

16:34

poor old crazy old Grimsby

16:36

-Roylet has made things a favorable

16:38

resting place for Gypsies and Stoke Moran

16:40

as long as they don't get

16:42

eaten by any of his livestock. And

16:45

that's just another

16:47

example of his, you

16:50

know, craziness,

16:52

his bizarre, his

16:54

bizarre behavior that

16:56

he tolerates this,

16:58

this suspicious encampment.

17:01

Yeah, he, his daughter, Helen,

17:03

tells us that he had

17:05

no friends at all. Save

17:08

the wandering gypsies and he would

17:10

give these vagabonds leave to

17:12

in camp on the few acres

17:14

of bramble -covered land which represent

17:16

the family estate and would accept

17:18

in return the hospitality of

17:20

their tents wandering away with

17:22

them sometimes for weeks on

17:25

end Is a passion also

17:27

for Indian animals etc

17:29

etc so and if

17:31

you happen to watch

17:33

the Granada Sherlock Holmes

17:36

the the opening

17:38

scene of that

17:40

episode shows a Gypsy

17:43

child making off

17:45

with some iron from

17:47

the local blacksmith. The

17:49

blacksmith chases him to

17:51

this encampment and finds

17:53

Grimsby Royl out there

17:56

defending them. And this

17:58

is where we see that the local

18:00

blacksmith gets hurled over

18:02

a parapet into a stream

18:04

by Grimsby. Royla.

18:07

Yeah, I thought that

18:09

was very clever. Well,

18:11

it perfectly encapsulated what

18:13

we were just mentioning

18:16

or reading in Queen Victoria's journals

18:18

where, yes,

18:21

for the sake of this

18:23

series, they showed the kids

18:25

stealing, but the local folks,

18:27

the local people in Surrey

18:29

at that point would be apt

18:31

to blame the Gypsies for Uh,

18:34

goods that go missing. So

18:36

it, it, it, uh, was, was

18:38

brought to light. And here was,

18:41

uh, Grimsby Roy

18:43

lot, almost doing an

18:45

honorable thing and defending the

18:47

gypsies and sending the, the

18:49

blacksmith over the parapet. Well,

18:53

it's clever because they, you know,

18:55

they created a motivation for it.

18:57

And when we first hear about

18:59

it in the case, actually, there

19:01

isn't any motivation. And just so

19:03

it seems like a really aberrant

19:05

behavior. So I thought that was

19:07

good for the dramatization. Yeah.

19:11

So, um, well,

19:13

we have, uh, so that, that's,

19:16

that's the speckled band. That's the

19:18

easy one. Um,

19:20

but if we had to

19:23

say, if your life

19:25

depended on it, can you

19:27

identify another

19:29

mention of gypsies anywhere in

19:31

the cannon? Oh, yeah.

19:35

You, Mr. Horschach. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,

19:38

well, you know, you have

19:40

to say to yourself, well,

19:42

the gypsies are sort of

19:44

a catch -all suspicious group.

19:46

So what event of, you

19:48

know, what mysterious maybe example

19:50

of thievery in the canon

19:52

is something where you could

19:55

use a scapegoat on? Oh,

19:57

Sir Henry's boot getting stolen

19:59

from the hotel. Yes.

20:01

Yes, gypsies at the Langham

20:03

Hotel. Oh,

20:06

and on the third floor in the Gypsy

20:08

Sweden. No, it's in Northumberland. That's why they

20:10

thought they were in Northumberland. They thought they

20:12

were in Northumberland, and it turns

20:14

out they wandered into the Northumberland Hotel. Yeah,

20:18

and you know, the sense of

20:20

direction was off. You know, Gypsies,

20:22

they only want one boot because

20:24

it's part of their strange religion, the

20:27

worship of the right foot. I

20:30

can't believe I missed the perfect reference

20:32

here. I'm in the airport editing this now,

20:34

and it only just came to me.

20:37

The gypsies clearly were

20:39

Buddhists. I'm

20:41

sorry. That

20:44

calls out

20:46

the true wanderer.

20:49

It's Silver Blaze,

20:51

where, you know, a race

20:53

source has disappeared. How could

20:56

that be gone? Completely gone,

20:58

just vanished. Well,

21:00

talk about the supernatural

21:02

and something mysterious and

21:04

enigmatic and mystical. Boy,

21:07

oh boy, gypsies would be a

21:09

great one to pin that on.

21:11

It's perfect because you've got this

21:13

vast area of land. Huge

21:16

tracks of land

21:18

between the two training

21:20

areas on Dartmoor, right?

21:23

Tavistock was two miles to

21:25

the west while across the

21:27

moor. Also about two

21:30

miles distant is the larger training

21:32

establishment of Mapleton, which belongs

21:34

to Lord Backwater and is managed

21:36

by Silas Brown. In every

21:38

other direction, the Moor is a

21:40

complete wilderness inhabited only by

21:42

a few roaming Gypsies. That's

21:46

the description of the

21:48

landscape in which

21:50

Silverblaze escaped. Fabulous.

21:57

And of course, Holmes

21:59

gets a download of exactly

22:01

what had been happening as to

22:03

the missing horse. There

22:05

were abundant proofs in the mud, which

22:07

lay at the bottom of the

22:09

fatal hollow where Straker had been there

22:11

at the time of the struggle.

22:14

And from that morning, Silver

22:16

Blaze has disappeared. And

22:18

although a large reward has been offered

22:20

and all the gypsies of Dartmoor are

22:22

on the alert. No news

22:24

had come of him.

22:26

So in a way they

22:29

were acting like the Moore's

22:31

Baker Street Irregulars kind of

22:33

fanning out and keeping their

22:35

eyes and ears open for

22:37

the horse Later the inspector says

22:39

we've we found traces which

22:41

show that a party of gypsies

22:44

and camped on Monday night

22:46

within a mile of the spot

22:48

where the murder took place on

22:50

Tuesday They were gone Now,

22:52

presuming there was

22:54

some understanding between

22:56

Simpson was the

22:58

racetrack tout and these

23:01

gypsies might

23:04

not he have been leading

23:06

the horse to them when

23:08

he was overtaken and may

23:10

they not have him now. So

23:14

now the more is being

23:16

scoured for the gypsies. Good

23:20

luck. But

23:25

of course later as, as

23:27

Holmes is ruminating on this, he

23:29

goes, well, why, why should

23:31

the gypsies kidnap him? His

23:33

people are always clear. They, they clear out when

23:35

they hear of trouble and they don't want

23:37

to be pestered by the police.

23:39

They couldn't help to, they could

23:41

not hope to sell this kind

23:43

of a horse. They'd run great

23:46

risk and gain nothing by taking him

23:48

surely that much is clear. Hmm

23:52

Yeah, it's a shame too that

23:54

you know a general long generally

23:56

I think completely in fiction in

23:58

the Victorian age You know these

24:00

communities, you know, they have

24:02

in contemporary terms, we would

24:04

say they have no agency

24:07

They have no real voice.

24:09

They're not really fully developed

24:11

individuals. In fact Queen Victoria

24:13

in her journals does more

24:15

to develop them as individuals

24:17

than much of the literature

24:19

you can read in which

24:21

they feature as characters. They're

24:23

just all seen through the

24:26

lens of Victorian concerns as

24:28

some sort of suspicious and

24:30

curious and otherworldly thing. When

24:33

really all they were

24:35

was itinerant. And

24:38

that

24:40

is just a trifle. It

24:42

is, of course, a trifle, but there

24:44

is nothing so important as trifles. Please

24:47

join us again next week for another

24:50

installment of Trifles. Show

24:52

notes are available on SherlockHolmesPodcast

24:54

.com. Please subscribe to

24:56

us on Apple Podcasts and be sure

24:58

to check out our longer show,

25:00

Eye Hero Sherlock Everywhere, where we interview

25:02

notable Sherlockians and share news of

25:04

the Sherlockian world. You've

25:08

taken my breath away, Mr Holmes. When

25:14

you combine the ideas of

25:16

whistles at night, the

25:18

presence of a band of gypsies on

25:20

intimate terms with the doctor, the

25:23

dying illusion to a

25:25

speckled band, well, there's

25:27

good ground to believe that the mystery

25:29

may be cleared along those lines.