"Hmmm....unless they've been watching a lot of TV."
Hmmm.... sounds like literacy snobbery to me! - it's a myth that if you don't read, you don't know anything.
The 'Egyptian' and Middle Eastern connection is quite common among Travellrs - Gordon Boswell spoke at length on it during the making of The Travelling People.
Travellers were said to have been first condemned to take to the roads as a punishment for making the nails for Christ's crucifixion. , and their part in building the pyramids is a common piece of folklore among then - read Borrow.
It's not beyond the realms of fantasy that itinerant tribes were sold into slavery - basically, the song is a boast on the well-proven fact that Travelleers are capable of turning their hands to anything to make a living, wherever they are.
Johnny was a Traveller activist who learned to read (sort of) shortly before we met him in 1973, while a guest of Her Maj in Winson Green Prison for his activities.
He wrote a chapter of Jeremy Sandford's book, 'Gypsies', which is how we got to know him.
He became an Irish representative on the European Gypsy Council, where he met Travellers from all over the world, while at the same time, collecting scrap in London.
Amazing what you can do when you set your mind to it - even if you only have the rudimentarys of reading - one amazing man.
Jim Carroll