Gypsy Folk-Tale

There was once a beautiful young Gypsy woman. She had neither father nor mother, nor brothers nor kindred – all were dead. She lived alone in a little cottage, and no one ever came to visit her, and she never went to visit any one. One evening a handsome stranger came to her house, and opened the door, and cried, ‘I am a wayfarer and I come from afar. Fain would I rest here. I can go no farther!’ The young woman said to him, ‘Stay here, then! I will give thee a pillow to sleep upon, and if thou desirest food and drink, I will give thee of that which I have.’ The stranger laid himself down and said, ‘Now I am going to sleep once more: long is it since I have slept!’ The young woman asked him, ‘Tell me how long it is since thou hast slept.’ Said the man, ‘Sweet woman, I sleep but once in a thousand years!’ Then she laughed and said, ‘Thou mockest me, dost thou? Thou art a bad fellow!’ But the fair stranger was already asleep. In the morning when he rose, he said to her, ‘Thou art a beautiful young woman. If thou wilt, I will stay here a week.’

The woman gladly had it so, for she was already in love with the stranger.

( What happens next )

Transylvanian Gypsy Folk-Tale

in The Wind on the Heath: a Gypsy Anthology (1930)
ed. John Sampson (1862–1931)


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