{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_13032/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_13032","id":"gutenberg_13032","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13032","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Humour","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Fools and jesters","Tales","Tricksters"],"text":"THE\n\nBOOK OF NOODLES:\n\n_STORIES OF SIMPLETONS; OR,\nFOOLS AND THEIR FOLLIES_.\n\nBY\nW.A. CLOUSTON,\n\n_Author of \"Popular Tales and Fictions; their Migrations and\nTransformations_\"\n\n\"Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling when all\nis done.\"--_Twelfth Night_.\n\n\n\nLONDON:\n\nELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW.\n\n1888.\n\n\n\n\nLibrary of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-24351\n\n\n\n\nTO MY DEAR FRIEND\n\nDAVID ROSS, LL.D., M.A., B.Sc.,\n\nPRINCIPAL OF THE\nCHURCH OF SCOTLAND TRAINING COLLEGE,\nGLASGOW,\n\nTHIS COLLECTION OF FACETI\u00c6\n\nIS DEDICATED.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n_PREFACE_.\n\n\n_Like popular tales in general, the original sources of stories of\nsimpletons are for the most part not traceable. The old Greek jests of\nthis class had doubtless been floating about among different peoples\nlong before they were reduced to writing. The only tales and apologues\nof noodles or stupid folk to which an approximate date can be assigned\nare those found in the early Buddhist books, especially in the\n\"J\u00e1takas,\" or Birth-stories, which are said to have been related to his\ndisciples by Gautama, the illustrious founder of Buddhism, as incidents\nwhich occurred to himself and others in former births, and were\nafterwards put into a literary form by his followers. Many of the\n\"J\u00e1takas\" relate to silly men and women, and also to stupid animals, the\nlatter being, of course, men re-born as beasts, birds, or reptiles. But\nit is not to be supposed that all are of Buddhist invention; some had\ndoubtless been current for ages among the Hindus before Gautama\npromulgated his mild doctrines. Scholars are, however, agreed that these\nfictions date at latest from a century prior to the Christian era._\n\n_Of European noodle-stories, as of other folk-tales, it may be said\nthat, while they are numerous, yet the elements of which they are\ncomposed are comparatively very few. The versions domiciled in different\ncountries exhibit little originality, farther than occasional\nmodifications in accordance with local manners and customs. Thus for the\nstupid Brahman of Indian stories the blundering, silly son is often\nsubstituted in European variants; for the brose in Norse and Highland\ntales we find polenta or macaroni in Italian and Sicilian versions. The\nidentity of incidents in the noodle-stories of Europe with those in what\nare for us their oldest forms, the Buddhist and Indian books, is very\nremarkable, particularly so in the case of Norse popular fictions,\nwhich, there is every reason to believe, were largely introduced through\nthe Mongolians; and the similarity of Italian and West Highland stories\nto those of Iceland and Norway would seem to indicate the influence of\nthe Norsemen in the Western Islands of Scotland and in the south of\nEurope._\n\n_It were utterly futile to attempt to trace the literary history of\nmost of the noodle-stories which appear to have been current throughout\nEuropean countries for many generations, since they have practically\nnone. Soon after the invention of printing collections of faceti\u00e6 were\nrapidly multiplied, the compilers taking their material from oral as\nwell as written sources, amongst others, from medi\u00e6val collections of\n\"exempla\" designed for the use of preachers and the writings of the\nclassical authors of antiquity. With the exception of those in Buddhist\nworks, it is more than probable that the noodle-stories which are found\namong all peoples never had any other purpose than that of mere\namusement. Who, indeed, could possibly convert the \"witless devices\" of\nthe men of Gotham into vehicles of moral instruction? Only the monkish\nwriters of the Middle Ages, who even \"spiritualised\" tales which, if\nreproduced in these days, must be \"printed for private circulation\"!_\n\n_Yet may the typical noodle of popular tales \"point a moral,\" after a\nfashion. Poor fellow! he follows his instructions only too literally,\nand with a firm conviction that he is thus doing a very clever thing.\nBut the consequence is almost always ridiculous. He practically shows\nthe fallacy of the old saw that \"fools learn by experience,\" for his\nnext folly is sure to be greater than the last, in spite of every\ncaution to the contrary. He is generally very honest, and does\neverything, like the man in the play, \"with the best intentions.\" His\nmind is incapable of entertaining more than one idea at a time; but to\nthat he holds fast, with the tenacity of the lobster's claw: he cannot\nbe diverted from it until, by some accident, a fresh idea displaces it;\nand so on he goes from one blunder to another. His blunders, however,\nwhich in the case of an ordinary man would infallibly result in disaster\nto himself or to others, sometimes lead him to unexpected good fortune.\nHe it is, in fact, to whom the great Persian poet S\u00e1d\u00ed alludes when he\nsays, in his charming \"Gulist\u00e1n,\" or Rose Garden, \"The alchemist died of\ngrief and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure under a ruin.\"\nMen of intelligence toil painfully to acquire a mere \"livelihood\"'; the\nnoodle stumbles upon great wealth in the midst of his wildest vagaries.\nIn brief, he is--in stories, at least--a standing illustration of the\n\"vanity of human life\"!_\n\n_And now a few words as to the history and design of the following\nwork. When the Folk-lore Society was formed, some nine years since, the\nlate Mr. W.J. Thoms, who was one of the leading men in its formation,\npromised to edit for the Society the \"Merry Tales of the Mad Men of\nGotham,\" furnishing notes of analogous stories, a task which he was\npeculiarly qualified to perform. As time passed on, however, the\ninfirmities of old age doubtless rendered the purposed work less and\nless attractive to him, and his death, after a long, useful, and\nhonourable career, left it still undone. What particular plan he had\nsketched out for himself I do not know; but there can be no doubt that\nhad he carried it out the results would have been most valuable. And,\nsince he did not perform his self-allotted task, his death is surely a\ngreat loss, perhaps an irreparable loss, to English students of\ncomparative folk-lore._\n\n_More than five years ago, with a view of urging Mr. Thoms to set\nabout the work, I offered to furnish him with some material in the shape\nof Oriental noodle-stories; but from a remark in his reply I feared\nthere would be no need for such services as I could render him. That\nfear has been since realised, and the present little book is now offered\nas a humble substitute for the intended work of Mr. Thoms, until it is\ndisplaced by a more worthy one._\n\n_Since the \"Tales of the Men of Gotham\" ceased to be reproduced in\nchap-book form, the first reprint of the collection was made in 1840,\nwith an introduction by Mr. J.O. Halliwell (now Halliwell-Phillipps);\nand that brochure is become almost as scarce as the chap-book copies\nthemselves: the only copy I have seen is in the Euing collection in the\nGlasgow University Library. The tales were next reprinted in the\n\"Shakespeare Jest-books,\" so ably edited and annotated by Mr. W. Carew\nHazlitt, in three volumes (1864). They were again reproduced in Mr. John\nAshton's \"Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century\" (1882)._\n\n_It did not enter into the plan of any of these editors to cite\nanalogues or variants of the Gothamite Tales; nor, on the other hand,\nwas it any part of my design in the present little work to reproduce the\nTales in the same order as they appear in the printed collection. Yet\nall that are worth reproducing in a work of this description will be\nfound in the chapters entitled \"Gothamite Drolleries,\" of which they\nform, indeed, but a small portion._\n\n_My design has been to bring together, from widely scattered sources,\nmany of which are probably unknown or inaccessible to ordinary readers,\nthe best of this class of humorous narratives, in their oldest existing\nBuddhist and Greek forms as well as in the forms in which they are\ncurrent among the people in the present day. It will, perhaps, be\nthought by some that a portion of what is here presented might have been\nomitted without great loss; but my aim has been not only to compile an\namusing story-book, but to illustrate to some extent the migrations of\npopular fictions from country to country. In this design I was assisted\nby Captain R.C. Temple, one of the editors of the \"Indian Antiquary,\"\nand one of the authors of \"Wide-awake Stories,\" from the Punjab and\nKashmir, who kindly directed me to sources whence I have drawn some\ncurious Oriental parallels to European stories of simpletons._\n\n_W.A.C._\n\n\n*.* _While my \"Popular Tales and Fictions\" was passing through the\npress, in 1886, I made reference (in vol. i., p. 65) to the present\nwork, as it was purposed to be published that year, but Mr. Stock has\nhad unavoidably to defer its publication till now._\n\n_W.A.C_.\n\nGLASGOW, _March_, 1888.\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nANCIENT GRECIAN NOODLES                                            1-15\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGOTHAMITE DROLLERIES:\n\nReputed communities of stupids in different countries--The noodles of\nNorfolk: their lord's bond; the dog and the honey; the fool and his sack\nof meal--Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham: Andrew Borde not the author--\nThe two Gothamites at Notts Bridge--The hedging of the cuckoo--How the\nmen of Gotham paid their rents--The twelve fishers and the courtier--The\n_G\u00far\u00fa Paramartan_--The brothers of Bakki--Drowning the eel--The\nGothamite and his cheese--The trivet--The buzzard--The gossips at the\nalehouse--The cheese on the highway--The wasp's nest--Casting sheep's\neyes--The devil in the meadow--The priest of Gotham--The \"boiling\"\nriver--The moon a green cheese--The \"carles of Austwick\"--The Wiltshire\nfarmer and his pigs\n                                                                  16-55\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nGOTHAMITE DROLLERIES (_continued_):\n\nThe men of Schilda: the dark council-house; the mill-stone; the cat--\nSinhalese noodles: the man who observed Buddha's five precepts--The fool\nand the _R\u00e1m\u00e1yana_--The two Arabian noodles--The alewife and her\nhens--\"Sorry he has gone to heaven\"--The man of Hama and the man of\nHums--_Bizarrures_ of the Sieur Gaulard--The rustic and the dog\n                                                                  56-80\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nGOTHAMITE DROLLERIES (_continued_):\n\nThe simpleton and the sharpers--The schoolmaster's lady-love--The judge\nand the thieves--The calf's head--The Kashm\u00edr\u00ed and his store of rice--\nThe Turkish noodle: the kerchief; the caftan; the wolf's tail; the right\nhand and the left; the stolen cheese; the moon in the well--The good\ndreams--Chinese noodles: the lady and her husband; the stolen spade; the\nrelic-hunter--Indian noodles: the fools and the mosquitoes; the fools\nand the palm-trees; the servants and the trunks; taking care of the\ndoor; the fool and the aloes-wood; the fool and the cotton; the cup lost\nin the sea; the fool and the thieves; the simpletons who ate the\nbuffalo; the princess who was made to grow; the washerman's ass\ntransformed; the foolish herdsman--Noodle-stories moralised--The\nbrothers and their heritage--Sowing roasted sesame\n                                                                 81-120\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE SILLY SON:\n\nSimple Simon--The Norse booby--The Russian booby--The Japanese noodle--\nThe Arabian idiot--The English silly son--The Sinhalese noodle with the\nrobbers--The Italian booby--The Arab simpleton and his cow--The Russian\nfool and the birch-tree--The silly wife deceived by her husband--The\nIndian fool on the tree-branch--The Indian monk who believed he was\ndead--The Florentine fool and the young men--The Indian silly son as a\nfisher; as a messenger; killing a mosquito; as a pupil--The best of the\nfamily--The doctor's apprentice\n                                                                121-170\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE FOUR SIMPLE BR\u00c1HMANS:\n\nIntroduction                                                        171\nStory of the first Br\u00e1hman                                          176\nStory of the second Br\u00e1hman                                         178\nStory of the third Br\u00e1hman                                          181\nStory of the fourth Br\u00e1hman                                         185\nConclusion                                                          190\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE THREE GREAT NOODLES                                         191-218\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\nJACK OF DOVER'S QUEST OF THE FOOL OF ALL FOOLS                      219\n\n\n\n\nTHE BOOK OF NOODLES.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nANCIENT GRECIAN NOODLES.\n\n\n\"Old as the days of Hierokles!\" is the exclamation of the \"classical\"\nreader on hearing a well-worn jest; while, on the like occasion, that of\nthe \"general\" reader--a comprehensive term, which, doubtless, signifies\none who knows \"small Latin and less Greek\"--is, that it is \"a Joe\nMiller;\" both implying that the critic is too deeply versed in\n_joke-ology_ to be imposed upon, to have an old jest palmed on him\nas new, or as one made by a living wit. That the so-called jests of\nHierokles are _old_ there can be no doubt whatever; that they were\ncollected by the Alexandrian sage of that name is more than doubtful;\nwhile it is certain that several of them are much older than the time in\nwhich he flourished, namely, the fifth century: it is very possible that\nsome may date even as far back as the days of the ancient Egyptians! It\nis perhaps hardly necessary to say that honest Joseph Miller, the\ncomedian, was not the compiler of the celebrated jest-book with which\nhis name is associated; that it was, in fact, simply a bookseller's\ntrick to entitle a heterogeneous collection of jokes, \"quips, and\ncranks, and quiddities,\" _Joe Millers Jests; or, The Wit's Vade\nMecum_. And when one speaks of a jest as being \"a Joe Miller,\" he\nshould only mean that it is \"familiar as household words,\" not that it\nis of contemptible antiquity, albeit many of the jokes in \"Joe Miller\"\nare, at least, \"as old as Hierokles,\" such, for instance, as that of the\nman who trained his horse to live on a straw _per diem_, when it\nsuddenly died, or that of him who had a house to sell and carried about\na brick as a specimen of it.\n\nThe collection of faceti\u00e6 ascribed to Hierokles, by whomsoever it was\nmade, is composed of very short anecdotes of the sayings and doings of\npedants, who are represented as noodles, or simpletons. In their\nexisting form they may not perhaps be of much earlier date than the\nninth century. They seem to have come into the popular faceti\u00e6 of Europe\nthrough the churchmen of the Middle Ages, and, after having circulated\nlong orally, passed into literature, whence, like other kinds of tales,\nthey once more returned to the people. We find in them the indirect\noriginals of some of the bulls and blunders which have in modern times\nbeen credited to Irishmen and Scotch Highlanders, and the germs also,\nperhaps, of some stories of the Gothamite type: as brave men lived\nbefore Agamemnon, so, too, the race of Gothamites can boast of a very\nancient pedigree! By far the greater number of them, however, seem now\npithless and pointless, whatever they may have been considered in\nancient days, when, perhaps, folk found food for mirth in things which\nutterly fail to tickle our \"sense of humour\" in these double-distilled\ndays. Of the [Greek: Asteia], or faceti\u00e6, of Hierokles, twenty-eight\nonly are appended to his Commentary on Pythagoras and the fragments of\nhis other works edited, with Latin translations, by Needham, and\npublished at Cambridge in 1709. A much larger collection, together with\nother Greek jests--of the people of Abdera, Sidonia, Cum\u00e6, etc.--has\nbeen edited by Eberhard, under the title of _Philogelos Hieraclis el\nPhilagrii Facetia_ which was published at Berlin in 1869.\n\nIn attempting to classify the best of these relics of ancient wit--or\nwitlessness, rather--it is often difficult to decide whether a\nparticular jest is of the Hibernian bull, or blunder, genus or an\nexample of that droll stupidity which is the characteristic of noodles\nor simpletons. In the latter class, however, one need not hesitate to\nplace the story of the men of Cum\u00e6, who were expecting shortly to be\nvisited by a very eminent man, and having but one bath in the town, they\nfilled it afresh, and placed an open grating in the middle, in order\nthat half the water should be kept clean for his sole use.\n\nBut we at once recognise our conventional Irishman in the pedant who, on\ngoing abroad, was asked by a friend to buy him two slave-boys of fifteen\nyears each, and replied, \"If I cannot find such a pair, I will bring you\none of thirty years;\" and in the fellow who was quarrelling with his\nfather, and said to him, \"Don't you know how much injury you have done\nme? Why, had you not been born, I should have inherited my grandfather's\nestate;\" also in the pedant who heard that a raven lived two hundred\nyears, and bought one that he should ascertain the fact for himself.\n\nAmong Grecian Gothamites, again, was the hunter who was constantly\ndisturbed by dreams of a boar pursuing him, and procured dogs to sleep\nwith him. Another, surely, was the man of Cum\u00e6 who wished to sell some\nclothes he had stolen, and smeared them with pitch, so that they should\nnot be recognised by the owner. They were Gothamites, too, those men of\nAbdera who punished a runaway ass for having got into the gymnasium and\nupset the olive oil. Having brought all the asses of the town together,\nas a caution, they flogged the delinquent ass before his fellows.\n\nSome of the jests of Hierokles may be considered either as witticisms or\nwitless sayings of noodles; for example, the story of the man who\nrecovered his health though the doctor had sworn he could not live, and\nafterwards, being asked by his friends why he seemed to avoid the doctor\nwhenever they were both likely to meet, he replied, \"He told me I should\nnot live, and now I am ashamed to be alive;\" or that of the pedant who\nsaid to the doctor, \"Pardon me for not having been sick so long;\" or\nthis, \"I dreamt that I saw and spoke to you last night:\" quoth the\nother, \"By the gods, I was so busy, I did not hear you.\"\n\nBut our friend the Gothamite reappears in the pedant who saw some\nsparrows on a tree, and went quietly under it, stretched out his robe,\nand shook the tree, expecting to catch the sparrows as they fell, like\nripe fruit again, in the pedant who lay down to sleep, and, finding he\nhad no pillow, bade his servant place a jar under his head, after\nstuffing it full of feathers to render it soft; again, in the\ncross-grained fellow who had some honey for sale, and a man coming up to\nhim and inquiring the price, he upset the jar, and then replied, \"You\nmay shed my heart's blood like that before I tell such as you;\" and\nagain, in the man of Abdera who tried to hang himself, when the rope\nbroke, and he hurt his head; but after having the wound dressed by the\ndoctor, he went and accomplished his purpose. And we seem to have a\ntrace of them in the story of the pedant who dreamt that a nail had\npierced his foot, and in the morning he bound it up; when he told a\nfriend of his mishap, he said, \"Why do you sleep barefooted?\"\n\nThe following jest is spread--_mutatis mutandis_--over all Europe:\nA pedant, a bald man, and a barber, making a journey in company, agreed\nto watch in turn during the night. It was the barber's watch first. He\npropped up the sleeping pedant, and shaved his head, and when his time\ncame, awoke him. When the pedant felt his head bare, \"What a fool is\nthis barber,\" he cried, \"for he has roused the bald man instead of me!\"\n\nA variant of this story is related of a raw Highlander, fresh from the\nheather, who put up at an inn in Perth, and shared his bed with a negro.\nSome coffee-room jokers having blackened his face during the night, when\nhe was called, as he had desired, very early next morning, and got up,\nhe saw the reflection of his face in the mirror, and exclaimed in a\nrage, \"Tuts, tuts! The silly body has waukened the wrang man.\"\n\nIn connection with these two stories may be cited the following, from a\nPersian jest-book: A poor wrestler, who had passed all his life in\nforests, resolved to try his fortune in a great city, and as he drew\nnear it he observed with wonder the crowds on the road, and thought, \"I\nshall certainly not be able to know myself among so many people if I\nhave not something about me that the others have not.\" So he tied a\npumpkin to his right leg and, thus decorated, entered the town. A young\nwag, perceiving the simpleton, made friends with him, and induced him to\nspend the night at his house. While he was asleep, the joker removed the\npumpkin from his leg and tied it to his own, and then lay down again. In\nthe morning, when the poor fellow awoke and found the pumpkin on his\ncompanion's leg, he called to him, \"Hey! get up, for I am perplexed in\nmy mind. Who am I, and who are you? If I am myself, why is the pumpkin\non your leg? And if you are yourself, why is the pumpkin not on my leg?\"\n\nModern counterparts of the following jest are not far to seek: Quoth a\nman to a pedant, \"The slave I bought of you has died.\" Rejoined the\nother, \"By the gods, I do assure you that he never once played me such a\ntrick while I had him.\" The old Greek pedant is transformed into an\nIrishman, in our collections of faceti\u00e6, who applied to a farmer for\nwork. \"I'll have nothing to do with you,\" said the farmer, \"for the last\nfive Irishmen I had all died on my hands.\" Quoth Pat, \"Sure, sir, I can\nbring you characters from half a dozen gentlemen I've worked for that I\nnever did such a thing.\" And the jest is thus told in an old translation\nof _Les Contes Facetieux de Sieur Gaulard_: \"Speaking of one of his\nHorses which broake his Neck at the descent of a Rock, he said, Truly it\nwas one of the handsomest and best Curtails in all the Country; he neuer\nshewed me such a trick before in all his life.\"[1]\n\nEqually familiar is the jest of the pedant who was looking out for a\nplace to prepare a tomb for himself, and on a friend indicating what he\nthought to be a suitable spot, \"Very true,\" said the pedant, \"but it is\nunhealthy.\" And we have the prototype of a modern \"Irish\" story in the\nfollowing: A pedant sealed a jar of wine, and his slaves perforated it\nbelow and drew off some of the liquor. He was astonished to find his\nwine disappear while the seal remained intact. A friend, to whom he had\ncommunicated the affair, advised him to look and ascertain if the liquor\nhad not been drawn off from below. \"Why, you fool,\" said he, \"it is not\nthe lower, but the upper, portion that is going off.\"\n\nIt was a Greek pedant who stood before a mirror and shut his eyes that\nhe might know how he looked when asleep--a jest which reappears in\nTaylor's _Wit and Mirth_ in this form: \"A wealthy monsieur in\nFrance (hauing profound reuenues and a shallow braine) was told by his\nman that he did continually gape in his sleepe, at which he was angry\nwith his man, saying he would not belieue it. His man verified it to be\ntrue; his master said that he would neuer belieue any that told him so,\nexcept (quoth hee) I chance to see it with mine owne eyes; and therefore\nI will have a great Looking glasse at my bed's feet for the purpose to\ntry whether thou art a lying knaue or not.\"[2]\n\nNot unlike some of our \"Joe Millers\" is the following: A citizen of\nCum\u00e6, on an ass, passed by an orchard, and seeing a branch of a fig-tree\nloaded with delicious fruit, he laid hold of it, but the ass went on,\nleaving him suspended. Just then the gardener came up, and asked him\nwhat he did there. The man replied, \"I fell off the ass.\"--An analogue\nto this drollery is found in an Indian story-book, entitled _Katha\nManjari_: One day a thief climbed up a cocoa-nut tree in a garden to\nsteal the fruit. The gardener heard the noise, and while he was running\nfrom his house, giving the alarm, the thief hastily descended from the\ntree. \"Why were you up that tree?\" asked the gardener. The thief\nreplied, \"My brother, I went up to gather grass for my calf.\" \"Ha! ha!\nis there grass, then, on a cocoa-nut tree?\" said the gardener. \"No,\"\nquoth the thief; \"but I did not know; therefore I came down again.\"--And\nwe have a variant of this in the Turkish jest of the fellow who went\ninto a garden and pulled up carrots, turnips, and other kinds of\nvegetables, some of which he put into a sack, and some into his bosom.\nThe gardener, coming suddenly on the spot, laid hold of him, and said,\n\"What are you seeking here?\" The simpleton replied, \"For some days past\na great wind has been blowing, and that wind blew me hither.\" \"But who\npulled up these vegetables?\" \"As the wind blew very violently, it cast\nme here and there; and whatever I laid hold of in the hope of saving\nmyself remained in my hands.\" \"Ah,\" said the gardener, \"but who filled\nthis sack with them?\" \"Well, that is the very question I was about to\nask myself when you came up.\"\n\nThe propensity with which Irishmen are credited of making ludicrous\nbulls is said to have its origin, not from any lack of intelligence, but\nrather in the fancy of that lively race, which often does not wait for\nexpression until the ideas have taken proper verbal form. Be this as it\nmay, a considerable portion of the bulls popularly ascribed to Irishmen\nare certainly \"old as the jests of Hierokles,\" and are, moreover,\ncurrent throughout Europe. Thus in Hierokles we read that one of\ntwin-brothers having recently died, a pedant, meeting the survivor,\nasked him whether it was he or his brother who had deceased.--Taylor has\nthis in his _Wit and Mirth_, and he probably heard it from some one\nwho had read the facetious tales of the Sieur Gaulard: \"A nobleman of\nFrance (as he was riding) met with a yeoman of the Country, to whom he\nsaid, My friend, I should know thee. I doe remember I haue often seene\nthee. My good Lord, said the countriman, I am one of your Honers poore\ntenants, and my name is T.J. I remember better now (said my Lord); there\nwere two brothers of you, but one is dead; I pray, which of you doth\nremaine alive?\"--Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, in the notes to his edition of\nTaylor's collection _(Shakespeare Jest Books_, Third Series), cites\na Scotch parallel from _The Laird of Logan_: \"As the Paisley\nsteamer came alongside the quay[3] at the city of the Seestus,[4] a\ndenizen of St. Mirren's hailed one of the passengers: 'Jock! Jock! distu\nhear, man? Is that you or your brother?'\" And to the same point is the\nold nursery rhyme,--\n\n  \"Ho, Master Teague, what is your story?\n  I went to the wood, and killed a tory;[5]\n  I went to the wood, and killed another:\n  Was it the same, or was it his brother?\"[6]\n\nWe meet with a very old acquaintance in the pedant who lost a book and\nsought for it many days in vain, till one day he chanced to be eating\nlettuces, when, turning a corner, he saw it on the ground. Afterwards\nmeeting a friend who was lamenting the loss of his girdle, he said to\nhim, \"Don't grieve; buy some lettuces; eat them at a corner; turn round\nit, go a little way on, and you will find your girdle.\" But is there\nanything like this in \"Joe Miller\"?--Two lazy fellows were sleeping\ntogether, when a thief came, and drawing down the coverlet made off with\nit. One of them was aware of the theft, and said to the other, \"Get up,\nand run after the man that has stolen our coverlet.\" \"You blockhead,\"\nreplied his companion, \"wait till he comes back to steal the bolster,\nand we two will master him.\" And has \"Joe\" got this one?--A pedant's\nlittle boy having died, many friends came to the funeral, on seeing whom\nhe said, \"I am ashamed to bring out so small a boy to so great a crowd.\"\n\nAn epigram in the _Anthologia_ may find a place among noodle\nstories:\n\n  \"A blockhead, bit by fleas, put out the light,\n  And, chuckling, cried, 'Now you can't see to bite!'\"\n\nThis ancient jest has been somewhat improved in later times. Two\nIrishmen in the East Indies, being sorely pestered with mosquitoes, kept\ntheir light burning in hopes of scaring them off, but finding this did\nnot answer, one suggested they should extinguish the light and thus\npuzzle their tormentors to find them, which was done. Presently the\nother, observing the light of a firefly in the room, called to his\nbedfellow, \"Arrah, Mike, sure your plan's no good, for, bedad, here's\none of them looking for us wid a lantern!\"\n\nOur specimens may be now concluded with what is probably the best of the\nold Greek jokes. The father of a man of Cum\u00e6 having died at Alexandria,\nthe son dutifully took the body to the embalmers. When he returned at\nthe appointed time to fetch it away, there happened to be a number of\nbodies in the same place, so he was asked if his father had any\npeculiarity by which his body might be recognised, and the wittol\nreplied, \"He had a cough.\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Etienne Tabourot, the author of this amusing little book,\nwho was born at Dijon in 1549 and died in 1590, is said to have written\nthe tales in ridicule of the inhabitants of Franche Comte, who were then\nthe subjects of Spain, and reputed to be stupid and illiterate. From a\nmanuscript translation, entitled _Bizarrures; or, The Pleasant and\nWitlesse and Simple Speeches of the Lord Gaulard of Burgundy_,\npurporting to be made by \"J.B., of Charterhouse,\" probably about the\nyear 1660, in the possession of Mr. Frederick William Cosens, London,\nfifty copies, edited, with a preface, by \"A.S.\" (Alexander Smith), were\nprinted at Glasgow in 1884. I am indebted to the courtesy of my friend\nMr. F.T. Barrett, Librarian of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, for\ndirecting my attention to this curious work, a copy of which is among\nthe treasures of that already important institution.\n\n[2] \"_Wit and Mirth_. Chargeably collected out of Taverns,\nOrdinaries, Innes, Bowling-greenes and Allyes, Alehouses, Tobacco-shops,\nHighwayes, and Water-passages. Made up and fashioned into Clinches,\nBulls, Quirkes, Yerkes, Quips, and Jerkes. Apothegmatically bundled vp\nand garbled at the request of John Garrett's Ghost.\" (1635)--such is the\nelaborate title of the collection of jests made by John Taylor, the\nWater Poet, which owes very little to preceding English jest-books. The\nabove story had, however, been told previously in the _Bizarrures_\nof the Sieur Gaulard: \"His cousine Dantressesa reproued him one day that\nshe had found him sleeping in an ill posture with his mouth open, to\norder which for the tyme to come he commanded his seruant to hang a\nlooking glasse upon the curtaine at his Bed's feet, that he might\nhenceforth see if he had a good posture in his sleep.\"\n\n[3] Only a Liliputian steamer could go up the \"river\" Cart!\n\n[4] \"Seestu\" is a nickname for Paisley, the good folks of that busy town\nbeing in the habit of frequently interjecting, \"Seestu?\"--_i.e.,_\n\"Seest thou?\"--in their familiar colloquies.\n\n[5] \"Tory\" is said to be the Erse term for a robber.\n\n[6] Halliwell's _Nursery Rhymes of England_, vol. iv. of Percy\nSociety's publications.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGOTHAMITE DROLLERIES, WITH VARIANTS AND ANALOGUES.\n\n\nIt seems to have been common to most countries, from very ancient times,\nfor the inhabitants of a particular district, town, or village to be\npopularly regarded as pre-eminently foolish, arrant noodles or\nsimpletons. The Greeks had their stories of the silly sayings and doings\nof the people of B\u00e6otia, Sidonia, Abdera, etc. Among the Perso-Arabs the\nfolk of Hums (ancient Emessa) are reputed to be exceedingly stupid. The\nKaba\u00efl, or wandering tribes of Northern Africa, consider the Beni Jennad\nas little better than idiots. The Schildburgers are the noodles of\nGerman popular tales. In Switzerland the townsmen of Belmont, near\nLausanne, are typical blockheads. And England has her \"men of Gotham\"--a\nvillage in Nottinghamshire--who are credited with most of the noodle\nstories which have been current among the people for centuries past,\nthough other places share to some extent in their not very enviable\nreputation: in Yorkshire the \"carles\" of Austwick, in Craven; some\nvillages near Marlborough Downs, in Wiltshire; and in the counties of\nSutherland and Ross, the people of Assynt.\n\nBut long before the men of Gotham were held up to ridicule as fools, a\nsimilar class of stories had been told of the men of Norfolk, as we\nlearn from a curious Latin poem, _Descriptio Norfolciensium_,\nwritten, probably, near the end of the twelfth century, by a monk of\nPeterborough, which is printed in Wright's _Early Mysteries and Other\nLatin Poems_. This poem sets out with stating that C\u00e6sar having\ndespatched messengers throughout the provinces to discover which were\nbad and which were good, on their return they reported Norfolk as the\nmost sterile, and the people the vilest and different from all other\npeoples. Among the stories related of the stupidity of the men of\nNorfolk is the following: Being oppressed by their lord, they gave him a\nlarge sum of money on condition that he should relieve them from future\nburdens, and he gave them his bond to that effect, sealed with a seal of\ngreen wax. To celebrate this, they all went to the tavern and got drunk.\nWhen it became dark, they had no candle, and were puzzled how to procure\none, till a clever fellow among the revellers suggested that they should\nuse the wax seal of the bond for a candle--they should still have the\nwords of the bond, which their lord could not repudiate; so they made\nthe wax seal into a candle, and burned it while they continued their\nmerry-making. This exploit coming to the knowledge of their lord, he\nreimposes the old burdens on the rustics, who complain of his injustice,\nat the same time producing the bond. The lord calls a clerk to examine\nthe document, who pronounces it to be null and void in the absence of\nthe lord's seal, and so their oppression continues.\n\nAnother story is of a man of Norfolk who put some honey in a jar, and in\nhis absence his dog came and ate it all up. When he returned home and\nwas told of this, he took the dog and forced him to disgorge the honey,\nput it back into the jar, and took it to market. A customer having\nexamined the honey, declared it to be putrid. \"Well,\" said the\nsimpleton, \"it was in a vessel that was not very clean.\"--Wright has\npointed out that this reappears in an English jest-book of the\nseventeenth century. \"A cleanly woman of Cambridgeshire made a good\nstore of butter, and whilst she went a little way out of the town about\nsome earnest occasions, a neighbour's dog came in in the meantime, and\neat up half the butter. Being come home, her maid told her what the dog\nhad done, and that she had locked him up in the dairy-house. So she took\nthe dog and hang'd him up by the heels till she had squeez'd all the\nbutter out of his throat again, whilst she, pretty, cleanly soul, took\nand put it to the rest of the butter, and made it up for Cambridge\nmarket. But her maid told her she was ashamed to see such a nasty trick\ndone. 'Hold your peace, you fool!' says she; ''tis good enough for\nschollards. Away with it to market!'\"[1]--Perhaps the original form is\nfound in the _Philogelos Hieraclis et Philagrii Faceti\u00e6_, edited by\nEberhard. A citizen of Cum\u00e6 was selling honey. Some one came up and\ntasted it, and said that it was all bad. He replied, \"If a mouse had not\nfallen into it, I would not sell it.\"\n\nThe well-known Gothamite jest of the man who put a sack of meal on his\nown shoulders to save his horse, and then got on the animal's back and\nrode home, had been previously told of a man of Norfolk, thus:\n\n  \"Ad foram ambulant diebus singulis;\n  Saccum de lolio portant in humeris,\n  Jumentis ne noccant: bene fatuis,\n  Ut prolocutiis sum acquantur bestiis.\"\n\nIt reappears in the _Bizarrures_ of the Sieur Gaulard:[2] \"Seeing\none day his mule charged with a verie great Portmantle, [he] said to his\ngroome that was upon the back of the mule, thou lasie fellowe, hast thou\nno pitie upon that poore Beast? Take that portmantle upon thine owne\nshoulders to ease the poore Beast.\" And in our own time it is told of an\nIrish exciseman with a keg of smuggled whisky.\n\nHow such stories came to be transferred to the men of Gotham, it were\nfruitless to inquire.[3] Similar jests have been long current in other\ncountries of Europe and throughout Asia, and accident or malice may have\nfixed the stigma of stupidity on any particular spot. There is probably\nno ground whatever for crediting the tale of the origin of the proverb,\n\"As wise as the men of Gotham,\" although it is reproduced in Thoroton's\n_Nottinghamshire_, i. 42-3:\n\n\"King John, intending to pass through this place, towards Nottingham,\nwas prevented by the inhabitants, they apprehending that the ground over\nwhich a king passed was for ever after to become a public road. The\nKing, incensed at their proceedings, sent from his court soon afterwards\nsome of his servants to inquire of them the reason of their incivility\nand ill-treatment, that he might punish them. The villagers, hearing of\nthe approach of the King's servants, thought of an expedient to turn\naway his Majesty's displeasure from them. When the messengers arrived at\nGotham, they found some of the inhabitants engaged in endeavouring to\ndrown an eel in a pool of water; some were employed in dragging carts\nupon a large barn to shade the wood from the sun; and others were\nengaged in hedging a cuckoo, which had perched itself upon an old bush.\nIn short, they were all employed in some foolish way or other, which\nconvinced the King's servants that it was a village of fools.\"\n\nThe fooleries ascribed to the men of Gotham were probably first\ncollected and printed in the sixteenth century; but that jests of the\n\"fools of Gotham\" were current among the people long before that period\nis evident from a reference to them in the _Widkirk Miracle Plays_,\nthe only existing MS. of which was written about the reign of Henry VI.:\n\n  \"Foles al sam;\n  Sagh I never none so fare\n  Bote the soles of Gotham.\"\n\nThe oldest known copy of the _Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam_\nwas printed in 1630, and is preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford.\nWarton, in his _History of English Poetry_, mentions an edition,\nwhich he says was printed about 1568, by Henry Wikes, but he had never\nseen it. But Mr. Halliwell (now Halliwell-Phillips), in his _Notices\nof Popular English Histories_, cites one still earlier, which he\nthinks was probably printed between 1556 and 1566: \"Merie Tales of the\nMad Men of Gotam, gathered together by A.B., of Phisike Doctour.\n[colophon:] Imprinted at London, in Flet-Stret, beneath the Conduit, at\nthe signe of S. John Evangelist, by Thomas Colwell, n.d. 12\u00b0, black\nletter.\" The book is mentioned in _A Briefe and Necessary\nIntroduction_, etc., by E.D. (8vo, 1572), among a number of other\nfolk-books: \"Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwicke, Arthur of the Round\nTable, Huon of Bourdeaux, Oliver of the Castle, The Four Sonnes of\nAmond, The Witles Devices of Gargantua, Howleglas, Esop, Robyn Hoode,\nAdam Bell, Frier Rushe, The Fooles of Gotham, and a thousand such\nother.\"[4] And Anthony \u00e0 Wood, in his _Athen\u00e6 Oxonienses_ (1691-2),\nsays it was \"printed at London in the time of K. Hen. 8, in whose reign\nand after it was accounted a book full of wit and mirth by scholars and\ngentlemen. Afterwards being often printed, [it] is now sold only on the\nstalls of ballad-singers.\" It is likely that the estimation in which the\nbook was held \"by scholars and gentlemen\" was not a little due to the\nsupposition that \"A.B., of Phisike Doctour,\" by whom the tales were said\nto have been \"gathered together,\" was none other than Andrew Borde, or\nBoorde, a Carthusian friar before the Reformation, one of the physicians\nto Henry VIII., a great traveller, even beyond the bounds of\nChristendom, \"a thousand or two and more myles,\" a man of great\nlearning, withal \"of fame facete.\" For to Borde have the _Merie Tales\nof the Mad Men of Gotham_ been generally ascribed down to our own\ntimes. There is, however, as Dr. F.J. Furnivall justly remarks, \"no good\nexternal evidence that the book was written by Borde, while the internal\nevidence is against his authorship.\"[5] In short, the ascription of its\ncompilation to \"A.B., of Phisike Doctour,\" was clearly a device of the\nprinter to sell the book.[6]\n\nThe _Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham_ continued to be printed as a\nchap-book down to the close of the first quarter of the present century;\nand much harmless mirth they must have caused at cottage firesides in\nremote rural districts occasionally visited by the ubiquitous pedlar, in\nwhose well-filled pack of all kinds of petty merchandise such drolleries\nwere sure to be found. Unlike other old collections of faceti\u00e6, the\nlittle work is remarkably free from objectionable stories; some are\ncertainly not very brilliant, having, indeed, nothing in them\nparticularly \"Gothamite,\" and one or two seem to have been adapted from\nthe Italian novelists. Of the twenty tales comprised in the collection,\nthe first is certainly one of the most humorous:\n\nThere were two men of Gotham, and one of them was going to the market at\nNottingham to buy sheep, and the other was coming from the market, and\nboth met on Nottingham bridge. \"Well met!\" said the one to the other.\n\"Whither are you a-going?\" said he that came from Nottingham. \"Marry,\"\nsaid he that was going thither, \"I am going to the market to buy sheep.\"\n\"Buy sheep!\" said the other. \"And which way will you bring them home?\"\n\"Marry,\" said the other, \"I will bring them over this bridge.\" \"By Robin\nHood,\" said he that came from Nottingham, \"but thou shalt not.\" \"By Maid\nMarian,\" said he that was going thither, \"but I will.\" \"Thou shalt not,\"\nsaid the one. \"I will,\" said the other. Then they beat their staves\nagainst the ground, one against the other, as if there had been a\nhundred sheep betwixt them. \"Hold them there,\" said the one. \"Beware of\nthe leaping over the bridge of my sheep,\" said the other. \"They shall\nall come this way,\" said one. \"But they shall not,\" said the other. And\nas they were in contention, another wise man that belonged to Gotham\ncame from the market, with a sack of meal upon his horse; and seeing and\nhearing his neighbours at strife about sheep, and none betwixt them,\nsaid he, \"Ah, fools, will you never learn wit? Then help me,\" said he\nthat had the meal, \"and lay this sack upon my shoulder.\" They did so,\nand he went to the one side of the bridge and unloosed the mouth of the\nsack, and did shake out all the meal into the river. Then said he, \"How\nmuch meal is there in the sack, neighbours?\" \"Marry,\" answered they,\n\"none.\" \"Now, by my faith,\" answered this wise man, \"even so much wit is\nthere in your two heads to strive for the thing which you have not.\" Now\nwhich was the wisest of these three persons, I leave you to judge.\n\nAllusions to these tales are of frequent occurrence in our literature of\nthe sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Dekker, in his _Gul's Horn\nBook_ (1609), says, \"It is now high time for me to have a blow at thy\nhead, which I will not cut off with sharp documents, but rather set it\non faster, bestowing upon it such excellent serving that if all the wise\nmen of Gotham should lay their heads together, their jobbernowls should\nnot be able to compare with thine;\" and Wither, in his _Abuses_,\nsays,\n\n  \"And he that tryes to doe it might have bin\n  One of the crew that hedged the cuckoo in,\"\n\nalluding to one of the most famous exploits of the wittols:\n\nOn a time the men of Gotham would have pinned in the cuckoo, whereby she\nshould sing all the year, and in the midst of the town they made a hedge\nround in compass, and they had got a cuckoo, and had put her into it,\nand said, \"Sing here all the year, and thou shalt lack neither meat nor\ndrink.\" The cuckoo, as soon as she perceived herself encompassed within\nthe hedge, flew away. \"A vengeance on her!\" said they. \"We made not our\nhedge high enough.\"\n\nThe tales had, however, attained popular favour much earlier. Mr.\nHalliwell-Phillipps has pointed out that in _Philotimus_ (1583) the\nmen of Gotham are remembered as having \"tied their rentes in a purse\nabout an hare's necke, and bade her to carrie it to their landlord,\" an\nexcellent plan, which is thus described:\n\nOn a time the men of Gotham had forgotten to pay their rent to their\nlandlord. The one said to the other, \"To-morrow is our payday, and what\nremedy shall we find to send our money to our lord?\" The one said, \"This\nday I have taken a quick [i.e., live] hare, and she shall carry it, for\nshe is light of foot.\" \"Be it so,\" said all. \"She shall have a letter\nand a purse to put in our money, and we shall direct her the ready way.\"\nAnd when the letters were written, and the money put in a purse, they\ndid tie them about the hare's neck, saying, \"First thou must go to\nLoughborough, and then to Leicester; and at Newark there is our lord,\nand commend us to him, and there is his duty [i.e., due].\" The hare, as\nsoon as she was out of their hands, she did run a clean contrary way.\nSome cried to her, saying, \"Thou must go to Loughborough first.\" Some\nsaid, \"Let the hare alone; she can tell a nearer way than the best of us\nall do: let her go.\" Another said, \"It is a noble hare; let her alone;\nshe will not keep the highway for fear of the dogs.\"\n\nThe well-worn \"Joe Miller\" of the Irishman who tried to count the party\nto which he belonged, and always forgot to count himself, which is also\nknown in Russia and in the West Highlands of Scotland, is simply a\nvariant of this drollery:\n\nOn a certain day there were twelve men of Gotham that went to fish, and\nsome stood on dry land; and in going home one said to the other, \"We\nhave ventured wonderfully in wading: I pray God that none of us come\nhome and be drowned.\" \"Nay, marry,\" said one to the other, \"let us see\nthat; for there did twelve of us come out.\" Then they told (i.e.,\ncounted) themselves, and every one told eleven. Said one to the other,\n\"There is one of us drowned.\" They went back to the brook where they had\nbeen fishing, and sought up and down for him that was wanting, making\ngreat lamentation. A courtier, coming by, asked what it was they sought\nfor, and why they were sorrowful. \"Oh,\" said they, \"this day we went to\nfish in the brook; twelve of us came out together, and one is drowned.\"\nSaid the courtier, \"Tell [count] how many there be of you.\" One of them\nsaid, \"Eleven,\" and he did not tell himself. \"Well,\" said the courtier,\n\"what will you give me, and I will find the twelfth man?\" \"Sir,\" said\nthey, \"all the money we have got.\" \"Give me the money,\" said the\ncourtier, and began with the first, and gave him a stroke over the\nshoulders with his whip, which made him groan, saying, \"Here is one,\"\nand so served them all, and they all groaned at the matter. When he came\nto the last, he paid him well, saying, \"Here is the twelfth man.\" \"God's\nblessing on thy heart,\" said they, \"for thus finding our dear brother!\"\n\nThis droll adventure is also found in the _Gooroo Paramartan_, a\nmost amusing work, written in the Tamil language by Beschi, an Italian\nJesuit, who was missionary in India from 1700 till his death, in 1742.\nThe Gooroo (teacher) and his five disciples, who are, like himself,\nnoodles, come to a river which they have to cross, and which, as the\nGooroo informs them, is a very dangerous stream. To ascertain whether it\nis at present \"asleep,\" one of them dips his lighted cheroot in the\nwater, which, of course, extinguishes it, upon which he returns to the\nGooroo and reports that the river is still in a dangerous mood. So they\nall sit down, and begin to tell stories of the destructive nature of\nthis river. One relates how his grandfather and another man were\njourneying together, driving two asses laden with bags of salt, and\ncoming to this river, they resolved to bathe in it, and the asses,\ntempted by the coolness of the water, at the same time knelt down in it.\nWhen the men found that their salt had disappeared, they congratulated\nthemselves on their wonderful escape from the devouring stream, which\nhad eaten up all their salt without even opening the bags. Another\ndisciple relates a story similar to the so-called \u00c6sopian fable of the\ndog and his shadow, this river being supposed to have devoured a piece\nof meat which the dog had dropped into it. At length the river is found\nto be quiescent, a piece of charred wood having been plunged into it\nwithout producing any effect like that of the former experiment; and\nthey determine to ford it, but with great caution. Arrived on the other\nside, they count their number, like the men of Gotham, and discover that\none is not present. A traveller, coming up, finds the missing man by\nwhacking each of them over the shoulder. The Gooroo, while gratified\nthat the lost one was found, was grumbling at his sore bones--for the\ntraveller had struck pretty hard--when an old woman, on learning of\ntheir adventure, told them that, in her young days, she and her female\ncompanions were once returning home from a grand festival, and adopted\nanother plan for ascertaining if they were all together. Gathering some\nof the cattle-droppings, they kneaded them into a cake, in which they\neach made a mark with the tip of the nose, and then counted the marks--a\nplan which the Gooroo and his disciples should make use of on future\noccasions.\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 Dubois has given a French translation of the Adventures of the\nGooroo Paramartan among the _Contes Divers_ appended to his not\nvery valuable selection of tales and apologues from Tamil, Telegu, and\nCannada versions of the _Panchatantra_ (Five Chapters, not \"Cinq\nRuses,\" as he renders it), a Sanskrit form of the celebrated Fables of\nBidpa\u00ef, or Pilpay. An English rendering of Beschi's work, by Babington,\nforms one of the publications of the Oriental Translation Fund. Dubois\nstates that he found the tales of the Gooroo current in Indian countries\nwhere Beschi's name was unknown, and he had no doubt of their Indian\norigin. However this may be, the work was probably designed, as\nBabington thinks, to satirise the Br\u00e1hmans, as well as to furnish a\npleasing vehicle of instruction to those Jesuits in India whose duties\nrequired a knowledge of the Tamil language.\n\nA story akin to that of the Gothamite fishers, if not, indeed, an older\nform of it, is told in Iceland of the Three Brothers of Bakki, who came\nupon one of the hot springs which abound in that volcanic island, and\ntaking off their boots and stockings, put their feet into the water and\nbegan to bathe them. When they would rise up, they were perplexed to\nknow each his own feet, and so they sat disconsolate, until a wayfarer\nchanced to pass by, to whom they told their case, when he soon relieved\ntheir minds by striking the feet of each, for which important service\nthey gave him many thanks.[7] This story reappears, slightly modified,\nin Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_: A party of\nmasons, engaged in building a dyke, take shelter during a heavy shower,\nand when it has passed, they continue sitting, because their legs had\ngot mixed together, and none knew his own, until they were put right by\na traveller with a big stick. We have here an evident relic of the\nNorsemen's occupation of the Hebrides.\n\nSeveral of the tales of the Gothamites are found almost unaltered in\nGaelic. That of the twelve fishers has been already mentioned, and here\nis the story of the attempt to drown an eel, which Campbell gives in\nsimilar terms in his _Tales of the West Highlands_:\n\nWhen that Good Friday was come, the men of Gotham did cast their heads\ntogether what to do with their white herring, their red herring, their\nsprats, and salt fish. One consulted with the other, and agreed that\nsuch fish should be cast into a pond or pool (the which was in the\nmiddle of the town), that it might increase the next year; and every man\ndid cast them into the pool. The one said, \"I have thus many white\nherrings;\" another said, \"I have thus many sprats;\" another said, \"I\nhave thus many salt fishes; let us all go together into the pool, and we\nshall fare like lords the next Lent.\" At the beginning of next Lent the\nmen did draw the pond, to have their fish, and there was nothing but a\ngreat eel. \"Ah,\" said they all, \"a mischief on this eel, for he hath eat\nup all our fish!\" \"What shall we do with him?\" said the one to the\nother. \"Kill him!\" said one of them. \"Chop him all to pieces!\" said\nanother. \"Nay, not so,\" said the other; \"let us drown him.\" \"Be it so,\"\nsaid all. They went to another pool, and did cast the eel into the\nwater. \"Lie there,\" said they, \"and shift for thyself, for no help thou\nshalt have of us;\" and there they left the eel to be drowned.\n\nCampbell's Gaelic story differs so little from the above that we must\nsuppose it to have been derived directly from the English chap-book.\nOral tradition always produces local variations from a written story, of\nwhich we have an example in a Gaelic version of this choice exploit:\n\nThere was a man of Gotham who went to the market of Nottingham to sell\ncheese; and as he was going down the hill to Nottingham Bridge, one of\nhis cheeses fell out of his wallet and ran down the hill. \"Ah,\" said the\nfellow, \"can you run to the market alone? I will now send one after the\nother;\" then laying down the wallet and taking out the cheeses, he\ntumbled them down the hill one after the other; and some ran into one\nbush, and some into another; so at last he said, \"I do charge you to\nmeet me in the market-place.\" And when the man came into the market to\nmeet the cheeses, he stayed until the market was almost done, then went\nand inquired of his neighbours and other men if they did see his cheeses\ncome to market. \"Why, who should bring them?\" said one of the\nneighbours. \"Marry, themselves,\" said the fellow; \"they knew the way\nwell enough,\" said he: \"a vengeance on them! For I was afraid to see my\ncheeses run so fast, that they would run beyond the market. I am\npersuaded that they are at this time almost as far as York.\" So he\nimmediately takes a horse and rides after them to York; but to this day\nno man has ever heard of the cheeses.\n\nIn one Gaelic variant a woman is going to Inverness with a basket filled\nwith balls of worsted of her own spinning, and going down a hill, one of\nthe balls tumbles out and rolls along briskly, upon which she sends the\nothers after it, holding the ends of each in her hand; and when she\nreaches the town, she finds a \"ravelled hank\" instead of her neat balls\nof worsted. In another version a man goes to market with two bags of\ncheese, and sends them downhill, like the Gothamite. After waiting at\nthe market all day in vain, he returns home, and tells his wife of his\nmisfortune. She goes to the foot of the hill and finds all the cheese.\n\nThe next Gothamite tale also finds its counterpart in the Gaelic\nstories: There was a man of Gotham who bought at Nottingham a trivet, or\nbrandiron, and as he was going home his shoulders grew sore with the\ncarriage thereof, and he set it down; and seeing that it had three feet,\nhe said, \"Ha! hast thou three feet, and I but two? Thou shalt bear me\nhome, if thou wilt,\" and set himself down thereupon, and said to the\ntrivet, \"Bear me as long as I have borne thee; but if thou do not, thou\nshalt stand still for me.\" The man of Gotham did see that his trivet\nwould not go farther. \"Stand still, in the mayor's name,\" said he, \"and\nfollow me if thou wilt. I will tell thee right the way to my home.\" When\nhe did come to his house, his wife said, \"Where is my trivet?\" The man\nsaid, \"He hath three legs, and I have but two; and I did teach him the\nway to my house. Let him come home if he will.\" \"Where left ye the\ntrivet?\" said the woman. \"At Gotham hill,\" said the man. His wife did\nrun and fetch home the trivet her own self, or else she had lost it\nthrough her husband's wit.\n\nIn Campbell's version a man having been sent by his wife with her\nspinning-wheel to get mended, as he was returning home with it the wind\nset the wheel in motion, so he put it down, and bidding it go straight\nto his house, set off himself. When he reached home, he asked his wife\nif the spinning-wheel had arrived yet, and on her replying that it had\nnot, \"I thought as much,\" quoth he, \"for I took the shorter way.\"\n\nA somewhat similar story is found in Rivi\u00e8re's French collection of\ntales of the Kaba\u00efl, Algeria, to this effect: The mother of a youth of\nthe Beni-Jennad clan gave him a hundred reals to buy a mule; so he went\nto market, and on his way met a man carrying a water-melon for sale.\n\"How much for the melon?\" he asks. \"What will you give?\" says the man.\n\"I have only got a hundred reals,\" answered the booby; \"had I more, you\nshould have it.\" \"Well,\" rejoined the man, \"I'll take them.\" Then the\nyouth took the melon and handed over the money. \"But tell me,\" says he,\n\"will its young one be as green as it is?\" \"Doubtless,\" answered the\nman, \"it will be green.\" As the booby was going home, he allowed the\nmelon to roll down a slope before him. It burst on its way, when up\nstarted a frightened hare. \"Go to my house, young one,\" he shouted.\n\"Surely a green animal has come out of it.\" And when he got home, he\ninquired of his mother if the young one had arrived.\n\nIn the _Gooroo Paramartan_ there is a parallel incident to this\nlast. The noodles are desirous of providing their Gooroo with a horse,\nand a man sells them a pumpkin, telling them it is a mare's egg, which\nonly requires to be sat upon for a certain time to produce a fine young\nhorse. The Gooroo himself undertakes to hatch the mare's egg, since his\ndisciples have all other matters to attend to; but as they are carrying\nit through a jungle, it falls down and splits into pieces; just then a\nfrightened hare runs before them; and they inform the Gooroo that, a\nfine young colt came out of the mare's egg, with very long ears, and ran\noff with the speed of the wind. It would have proved a fine horse for\ntheir revered Gooroo, they add; but he consoles himself for the loss by\nreflecting that such an animal would probably have run away with him.\n\nA number of the Gothamite tales in the printed collection are not only\ninferior to those which are preserved orally, but can be considered in\nno sense examples of preeminent folly. Three consist of tricks played by\nwomen upon their husbands, such as are found in the ordinary jest-books\nof the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In one a man, who had taken\na buzzard, invites some friends to dine with him. His wife, with two of\nher gossips, having secretly eaten the buzzard, kills and cooks an old\ngoose, and sets it before him and his guests; the latter call him a\nknave to mock them thus with an old goose, and go off in great anger.\nThe husband, resolved to put himself right with his friends, stuffs the\nbuzzard's feathers into a sack, in order to show them that they were\nmistaken in thinking he had tried to deceive them with an old goose\ninstead of a fine fat buzzard. But before he started on this business,\nhis wife contrived to substitute the goose's feathers, which he\nexhibited to his friends as those of the buzzard, and was soundly\ncudgelled for what they believed to be a second attempt to mock them.--\nTwo other stories seem to be derived from the Italian novelists: of the\nman who intended cutting off his wife's hair[8] and of the man who\ndefied his wife to cuckold him. Two others turn upon wrong responses at\na christening and a marriage, which have certainly nothing Gothamite in\nthem. Another is a dull story of a Scotchman who employed a carver to\nmake him as a sign of his inn a boar's head, the tradesman supposing\nfrom his northern pronunciation that he meant _bare_ head.--In the\nnineteenth tale, a party of gossips are assembled at the alehouse, and\neach relates in what manner she is profitable to her husband: one saves\ncandles by sending all her household to bed in daylight; another, like\nthe old fellow and Tib his wife in _Jolly Good Ale and Old_, eats\nlittle meat, but can swig a gallon or two of ale, and so forth.\n\nWe have, however, our Gothamite once more in the story of him who,\nseeing a fine cheese on the ground as he rode along the highway, tried\nto pick it up with his sword, and finding his sword too short, rode back\nto fetch a longer one for his purpose, but when he returned, he found\nthe cheese was gone. \"A murrain take it!\" quoth he. \"If I had had this\nsword, I had had this cheese myself, and now another hath got it!\" Also\nin the smith who took a red-hot iron bar and thrust it into the thatch\nof his smithy to destroy a colony of wasps, and, of course, burned down\nthe smithy--a story which has done duty in modern days to \"point a\nmoral\" in the form of a teetotal tract, with a drunken smith in place of\nthe honest Gothamite![9]\n\nThe following properly belongs to stories of the \"silly son\" class:\nThere was a young man of Gotham the which should go wooing to a fair\nmaid. His mother did warn him beforehand, saying, \"When thou dost look\nupon her, cast a sheep's-eye, and say, 'How do ye, sweet pigsnie?'\" The\nfellow went to the butcher's and bought seven or eight sheep's eyes; and\nwhen this lusty wooer did sit at dinner, he would cast in her face a\nsheep's eye, saying, \"How dost thou, my pretty pigsnie?\" \"How do I?\"\nsaid the wench. \"Swine's-face, why dost thou cast the sheep's eye upon\nme?\" \"O sweet pigsnie, have at thee another!\" \"I defy thee,\nSwine's-face,\" said the wench. The fellow, being abashed, said, \"What,\nsweet pigsnie! Be content, for if thou do live until the next year, thou\nwilt be a foul sow.\" \"Walk, knave, walk!\" said she; \"for if thou live\ntill the next year, thou wilt be a stark knave, a lubber, and a fool.\"\n\nIt is very evident that the men of Gotham were of \"honest\" Jack\nFalstaff's opinion that the better part of valour is discretion: On a\ntime there was a man of Gotham a-mowing in the meads and found a great\ngrasshopper. He cast down his scythe, and did run home to his\nneighbours, and said that there was a devil in the field that hopped in\nthe grass. Then there was every man ready with clubs and staves, with\nhalberts, and with other weapons, to go and kill the grasshopper. When\nthey did come to the place where the grasshopper should be, said the one\nto the other, \"Let every man cross himself from the devil, or we will\nnot meddle with him.\" And so they returned again, and said, \"We were all\nblessed this day that we went no farther.\" \"Ah, cowards,\" said he that\nhad his scythe in the mead, \"help me to fetch my scythe.\" \"No,\" said\nthey; \"it is good to sleep in a whole skin: better it is to lose thy\nscythe than to mar us all.\"\n\nThere is some spice of humour in the concluding tale of the printed\ncollection, although it has no business there: On Ash Wednesday the\npriest said to the men of Gotham, \"If I should enjoin you to prayer,\nthere is none of you that can say your paternoster; and you be now too\nold to learn. And to enjoin you to fast were foolishness, for you do not\neat a good meal's meat in a year. Wherefore do I enjoin thee to labour\nall the week, that thou mayest fare well to dine on Sunday, and I will\ncome to dinner and see it to be so, and take my dinner.\" Another man he\ndid enjoin to fare well on Monday, and another on Tuesday, and one after\nanother that one or other should fare well once a week, that he might\nhave part of his meat. \"And as for alms,\" said the priest, \"ye be\nbeggars all, except one or two; therefore bestow alms on yourselves.\"\n\nAmong the numerous stories of the Gothamites preserved orally, but not\nfound in the collection of \"A.B., of Phisicke Doctour,\" is the\nfollowing, which seems to be of Indian extraction:\n\nOne day some men of Gotham were walking by the riverside, and came to a\nplace where the contrary currents caused the water to boil as in a\nwhirlpool. \"See how the water boils!\" says one. \"If we had plenty of\noatmeal,\" says another, \"we might make enough porridge to serve all the\nvillage for a month.\" So it was resolved that part of them should go to\nthe village and fetch their oatmeal, which was soon brought and thrown\ninto the river. But there presently arose the question of how they were\nto know when the porridge was ready. This difficulty was overcome by the\noffer of one of the company to jump in, and it was agreed that if he\nfound it ready for use, he should signify the same to his companions.\nThe man jumped in, and found the water deeper than he expected. Thrice\nhe rose to the surface, but said nothing. The others, impatient at his\nremaining so long silent, and seeing him smack his lips, took this for\nan avowal that the porridge was good, and so they all jumped in after\nhim and were drowned.\n\nAnother traditional Gothamite story is related of a villager coming home\nat a late hour and, seeing the reflection of the moon in a horse-pond,\nbelieved it to be a green cheese, and roused all his neighbours to help\nhim to draw it out. They raked and raked away until a passing cloud sank\nthe cheese, when they returned to their homes grievously\ndisappointed.[10]--This is also related of the villagers near the\nMarlborough Downs, in Wiltshire, and the _sobriquet_ of\n\"moon-rakers,\" applied to Wiltshire folk in general, is said to have had\nits origin in the incident; but they assert that it was a keg of\nsmuggled brandy, which had been sunk in a pond, that the villagers were\nattempting to fish up, when the exciseman coming suddenly upon the\nscene, they made him believe they were raking the reflection of the\nmoon, thinking it a green cheese, an explanation which is on a par with\nthe apocryphal tale of the Gothamites and the messengers of King John.\n\nThe absurd notion of the moon being a fine cheese is of very respectable\nantiquity, and occurs in the noodle-stories of many countries. It is\nreferred to by Rabelais, and was doubtless the subject of a popular\nFrench tale in his time. In the twenty-second story of the _Disciplina\nClericalis_ of Peter Alfonsus, a Spanish Jew, who was baptised in\n1106, a fox leaves a wolf in a well, looking after a supposed cheese,\nmade by the image of the moon in the water; and the same fable had been\ntold by the Talmudists in the fifth century.[11] The well-known \"Joe\nMiller\" of the party of Irishmen who endeavoured to reach a \"green\ncheese\" in the river by hanging one by another's legs finds its parallel\nin a Mecklenburg story, in which some men by the same contrivance tried\nto get a stone from the bottom of a well, and the incident is thus\nrelated in the old English jest-book entitled _The Sacke Full of\nNewes_:\n\nThere were three young men going to Lambeth along by the waterside, and\none played with the other, and they cast each other's caps into the\nwater in such sort as they could not get their caps again. But over the\nplace where their caps were did grow a great old tree, the which did\ncover a great deal of the water. One of them said to the rest, \"Sirs, I\nhave found a notable way to come by them. First I will make myself fast\nby the middle with one of your girdles unto the tree, and he that is\nwith you shall hang fast upon my girdle, and he that is last shall take\nhold on him that holds fast on my girdle, and so with one of his hands\nhe may take up all our caps, and cast them on the sand.\" And so they\ndid; but when they thought that they had been most secure and fast, he\nthat was above felt his girdle slack, and said, \"Soft, sirs! My girdle\nslacketh.\" \"Make it fast quickly,\" said they. But as he was untying it\nto make it faster they fell all three into the water, and were well\nwashed for their pains.\n\nClosely allied to these tales is the Russian story of the old man who\nplanted a cabbage-head in the cellar, under the floor of his cottage,\nand, strange to say, it grew right up to the sky. He climbs up the\ncabbage-stalk till he reaches the sky. There he sees a mill, which gives\na turn, and out come a pie and a cake, with a pot of stewed grain on the\ntop. The old man eats his fill and drinks his fill; then he lies down to\nsleep. By-and-bye he awakes, and slides down to earth again.\n\nHe tells his wife of the good things up in the sky, and she induces him\nto take her with him. She slips into a sack, and the old man takes it in\nhis teeth and begins to climb up. The old woman, becoming tired, asked\nhim if it was much farther, and just as he was about to say, \"Not much\nfarther,\" the sack slipped from between his teeth, and the old woman\nfell to the ground and was smashed to pieces.\n\nThere are many variants of this last story (which is found in Mr.\nRalston's most valuable and entertaining collection of Russian\nfolk-tales), but observe the very close resemblance which it bears to\nthe following Indian tale of the fools and the bull of Siva, from the\n_Kath\u00e1 Sarit S\u00e1gara_ (Ocean of the Streams of Story), the grand\ncollection, composed in Sanskrit verse by Somadeva in the eleventh\ncentury, from a similar work entitled _Vrihat Kath\u00e1_ (Great Story),\nwritten in Sanskrit prose by Gunadhya, in the sixth century:[12]\n\nIn a certain convent, which was full of fools, there was a man who was\nthe greatest fool of the lot. He once heard in a treatise on law, which\nwas being read aloud, that a man who has a tank made gains a great\nreward in the next world. Then, as he had a large fortune, he had made a\nlarge tank full of water, at no great distance from his own convent. One\nday this prince of fools went to take a look at that tank of his, and\nperceived that the sand had been scratched up by some creature. The next\nday too he came, and saw that the bank had been torn up in another part\nof the tank, and being quite astonished, he said to himself, \"I will\nwatch here to-morrow the whole day, beginning in the early morning, and\nI will find out what creature it is that does this.\" After he had formed\nthis resolution, he came there early next morning, and watched, until at\nlast he saw a bull descend from heaven and plough up the bank with its\nhorns. He thought, \"This is a heavenly bull, so why should I not go to\nheaven with it?\" And he went up to the bull, and with both his hands\nlaid hold of the tail behind. Then the holy bull lifted up, with the\nutmost force, the foolish man who was clinging to its tail, and carried\nhim in a moment to its home in Kail\u00e1sa.[13] There the foolish man lived\nfor some time in great comfort, feasting on heavenly dainties,\nsweetmeats, and other things which he obtained. And seeing that the bull\nkept going and returning, that king of fools, bewildered by destiny,\nthought, \"I will go down clinging to the tail of the bull and see my\nfriends, and after I have told them this wonderful tale, I will return\nin the same way.\" Having formed this resolution, the fool went and clung\nto the tail of the bull one day when it was setting out, and so returned\nto the surface of the earth. When he entered the convent, the other\nblockheads who were there embraced him, and asked him where he had been,\nand he told them. Then all these foolish men, having heard the tale of\nhis adventures, made this petition to him: \"Be kind, and take us also\nthere; enable us also to feast on sweetmeats.\" He consented, and told\nthem his plan for doing it, and next day led them to the border of the\ntank, and the bull came there. And the principal fool seized the tail of\nthe bull with his two hands, and another took hold of his feet, and a\nthird in turn took hold of his. So, when they had formed a chain by\nhanging on to one another's feet, the bull flew rapidly up into the air.\nAnd while the bull was going along, with all the fools clinging to its\ntail, it happened that one of the fools said to the principal fool,\n\"Tell us now, to satisfy our curiosity, how large were the sweetmeats\nwhich you ate, of which a never-failing supply can be obtained in\nheaven?\" Then the leader had his attention diverted from the business in\nhand, and quickly joined his hands together like the cup of a lotus, and\nexclaimed in answer, \"So big.\" But in so doing he let go the tail of the\nbull, and accordingly he and all those others fell from heaven, and were\nkilled; and the bull returned to Kail\u00e1sa; but the people who saw it were\nmuch amused.[14]\n\n\"Thus,\" remarks the story-teller, \"fools do themselves injury by asking\nquestions and giving answers without reflection\"; he then proceeds to\nrelate a story in illustration of the apothegm that \"association with\nfools brings prosperity to no man\":\n\nA certain fool, while going to another village, forgot the way. And when\nhe asked the way, the people said to him, \"Take the path that goes up by\nthe tree on the bank of the river.\" Then the fool went and got on the\ntrunk of that tree, and said to himself, \"The men told me that my way\nlay up the trunk of this tree.\" And as he went on climbing up it, the\nbough at the end bent with his weight, and it was all he could do to\navoid falling by clinging to it. While he was clinging to it, there came\nthat way an elephant that had been drinking water, with his driver on\nhis back. And the fool called to him, saying, \"Great sir, take me down.\"\nThe elephant-driver laid hold of him by the feet with both his hands, to\ntake him down from the tree. Meanwhile the elephant went on, and the\ndriver found himself clinging to the feet of the fool, who was clinging\nto the end of the tree. Then said the fool to the driver, \"Sing\nsomething, in order that the people may hear, and come at once and take\nus down.\" So the elephant-driver, thus appealed to, began to sing, and\nhe sang so sweetly that the fool was much pleased; and in his desire to\napplaud him, he forgot what he was about, let go his hold of the tree,\nand prepared to clap him with both his hands; and immediately he and the\nelephant-driver fell into the river and were drowned.\n\nThe germ of all stories of this class is perhaps found in the\n_J\u00e1takas_, or Buddhist Birth Stories: A pair of geese resolve to\nmigrate to another country, and agree to carry with them a tortoise,\ntheir intimate friend, taking the ends of a stick between their bills,\nand the tortoise grasping it by the middle with his mouth.  As they are\nflying over B\u00e1n\u00e1res, the people exclaim in wonder to one another at such\na strange sight, and the tortoise, unable to maintain silence, opens his\nmouth to rebuke them, and by so doing falls to the ground, and is dashed\ninto pieces. This fable is also found in Babrius. (115); in the _Kath\u00e1\nSarit S\u00e1gara_; in the several versions of the Fables of Bidpa\u00ef; and\nin the _Avad\u00e1nas_, translated into French from the Chinese by\nStanislas Julien.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nTo return to Gothamite stories. According to one of those which are\ncurrent orally, the men of Gotham had but one knife among them, which\nwas stuck in a tree in the middle of the village for their common use,\nand many amusing incidents, says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, arose out of\ntheir disputes for the use of this knife. The \"carles\" of Austwick, in\nYorkshire, are said also to have had but one knife, or \"whittle,\" which\nwas deposited under a tree, and if it was not found there when wanted,\nthe \"carle\" requiring it called out, \"Whittle to the tree!\" This plan\ndid very well for some years, until it was taken one day by a party of\nlabourers to a neighbouring moor, to be used for cutting their bread and\ncheese. When the day's labour was done, they resolved to leave the knife\nat the place, to save themselves the trouble of carrying it back, as\nthey should want it again next day; so they looked about for some object\nto mark the spot, and stuck it into the ground under a black cloud that\nhappened to be the most remarkable object in sight. But next day, when\nthey returned to the place, the cloud was gone, and the \"whittle\" was\nnever seen again.\n\nWhen an Austwick \"carle\" comes into any of the larger towns of\nYorkshire, it is said he is greeted with the question, \"Who tried to\nlift the bull over the gate?\" in allusion to the following story: An\nAustwick farmer, wishing to get a bull out of a field--how the animal\ngot into it, the story does not inform us--procured the assistance of\nnine of his neighbours to lift the animal over the gate. After trying in\nvain for some hours, they sent one of their number to the village for\nmore help. In going out he opened the gate, and after he had gone away,\nit occurred to one of those who remained that the bull might be allowed\nto go out in the same manner.\n\nAnother Austwick farmer had to take a wheelbarrow to a certain town,\nand, to save a hundred yards by going the ordinary road, he went through\nthe fields, and had to lift the barrow over twenty-two stiles.\n\nIt was a Wiltshire man, however (if all tales be true), who determined\nto cure the filthy habits of his hogs by making them roost upon the\nbranches of a tree, like birds. Night after night the pigs were hoisted\nup to their perch, and every morning one of them was found with its neck\nbroken, until at last there were none left.--And quite as witless,\nsurely, was the device of the men of Belmont, who once desired to move\ntheir church three yards farther westward, so they carefully marked the\nexact distance by leaving their coats on the ground. Then they set to\nwork to push with all their might against the eastern wall. In the\nmeantime a thief had gone round to the west side and stolen their coats.\n\"Diable!\" exclaimed they on finding that their coats were gone, \"we have\npushed too far!\"\n\n[Illustration]\n[Illustration]\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] _Coffee House Jests_. Fifth edition. London. 1688. P. 36.\n\n[2] \"See _ante_, p. 8, note.\" [Transcriber's note: This is Chapter I,\nFootnote 1 in this etext.]\n\n[3] Fuller, while admitting that \"an hundred fopperies are forged and\nfathered on the townsfolk of Gotham,\" maintains that \"Gotham doth breed\nas wise people as any which laugh at their simplicity.\"\n\n[4] Collier's _Bibliographical Account_, etc., vol. i., p. 327.\n\n[5] Forewords to Borde's _Introduction of Knowledge_, etc., edited,\nfor the Early English Text Society, by F.J. Furnivall.\n\n[6] It is equally certain that Borde had no hand either in the _Jests\nof Scogin_ or _The Mylner of Abyngton_, the latter an imitation\nof Chaucer's _Reve's Tale_.\n\n[7] Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_, Second Series.\n\n[8] An imitation of Boccaccio, _Decameron_, Day vii., nov. 8, who\nperhaps borrowed the story from Guerin's _fabliau_ \"De la Dame qui\nfit accroire a son Mari qu'il avait r\u00eave; _alias_, Les Cheveux\nCoup\u00e9s\" (Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, ed. 1781, tome ii., 280).\n\n[9] A slightly different version occurs in the _Tale of Beryn_,\nwhich is found in a unique MS. of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, and\nwhich forms the first part of the old French romance of the _Chevalier\nBerinus_. In the English poem Beryn, lamenting his misfortunes, and\nthat he had disinherited himself, says:\n\n  \"But I fare like the man, that for to swale his vlyes [i.e. flies]\n  He stert in-to the bern, and aftir stre he hies,\n  And goith a-bout with a brennyng wase,\n  Tyll it was atte last that the leam and blase\n  Entryd in-to the chynys, wher the whete was,\n  And kissid so the evese, that brent was al the plase.\"\n\nIt is certain that the author of the French original of the _Tale of\nBeryn_ did not get this story out of our jests of the men of Gotham.\n\n[10] There is an analogous Indian story of a youth who went to a tank to\ndrink, and observing the reflection of a golden-crested bird that was\nsitting on a tree, he thought it was gold in the water, and entered the\ntank to take it up, but he could not lay hold of it as it appeared and\ndisappeared in the water. But as often as he ascended the bank he again\nsaw it in the water, and again he entered the tank to lay hold of it,\nand still he got nothing. At length his father saw and questioned him,\nthen drove away the bird, and explaining the matter to him, took the\nfoolish fellow home.\n\nWe have already seen that the men of Abdera (p. 5) flogged an ass before\nits fellows for upsetting a jar of olive oil, but what is that compared\nwith the story of the ass that drank up the moon? According to Ludovicus\nVives, a learned Spanish writer, certain townspeople imprisoned an ass\nfor drinking up the moon, whose reflection, appearing in the water, was\ncovered with a cloud while the ass was drinking. Next day the poor beast\nwas brought to the bar to be sentenced according to his deserts. After\nthe grave burghers had discussed the affair for some time, one at length\nrose up and declared that it was not fit the town should lose its moon,\nbut rather that the ass should be cut open and the moon he had swallowed\ntaken out of him, which, being cordially approved by the others, was\ndone accordingly.\n\n[11] This is also one of the Fables of Marie de France (thirteenth\ncentury).\n\n[12] A complete translation of the _Kath\u00e1 Sarit S\u00e1gara_, by\nProfessor C.H. Tawney, with notes of variants, which exhibit his wide\nacquaintance with the popular fictions of all lands, has been recently\npublished at Calcutta (London agents, Messrs. Tr\u00fcbner and Co.), a work\nwhich must prove invaluable to every English student of comparative\nfolk-lore.\n\n[13] Siva's paradise, according to Hindu mythology, is on Mount Kail\u00e1sa,\nin the Him\u00e1lyas, north of M\u00e1nasa.\n\n[14] Tawney's translation, which is used throughout this work.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nGOTHAMITE DROLLERIES (_continued_).\n\n\nThe Schildburgers, it has been already remarked, are the Gothamites of\nGermany, and the stories of their stupidity, after being orally current\nfor years among the people, were collected near the close of the\nsixteenth century, the earliest known edition being that of 1597. In a\nmost lively and entertaining article on \"Early German Comic Romances\"\n(_Foreign Quarterly Review_, No. 40, 1837), the late Mr. W.J. Thoms\nhas furnished an account of the exploits of the Schildburgers, from\nwhich the following particulars and tales are extracted: \"There have\nbeen few happier ideas than that of making these simpletons descend from\none of the wise men of Greece, and representing them as originally\ngifted with such extraordinary talents as to be called to the councils\nof all the princes of the earth, to the great detriment of their\ncircumstances and the still greater dissatisfaction of their wives, and\nthen, upon their being summoned home to arrange their disordered\naffairs, determining, in their wisdom, to put on the garb of stupidity,\nand persevering so long and so steadfastly in their assumed character as\nto prove 'plain fools at last.' No way inferior is the end of this\nstrange tale, which assumes even somewhat of serious interest when the\nSchildburgers, after performing every conceivable piece of folly, and\nreceiving the especial privilege of so doing under the seal and\nsignature of the emperor, by the crowning act of their lives turn\nthemselves out of house and home, whereby they are compelled, like the\nJews, to become outcasts and wanderers over the face of the earth, by\nwhich means it has arisen that there is no spot, however remote, on\nwhich some of their descendants, who may be known by their\ncharacteristic stupidity, are not to be found.\"\n\nTheir first piece of folly was to build a council-house without windows.\nWhen they entered it, and, to use the words of the nursery ballad, \"saw\nthey could not see,\" they were greatly puzzled to account for such a\nstate of things; and having in vain gone outside and examined the\nbuilding to find why the inside was dark, they determined to hold a\ncouncil upon the subject on the following day. At the time appointed\nthey assembled, each bringing with him a torch, which, on seating\nhimself, he stuck in his hat. After much discussion, one genius,\nbrighter than the rest, decided that they could not see for want of\ndaylight, and that they ought on the morrow to carry in as much of it as\npossible. Accordingly, the next day, when the sun shone, all the sacks,\nbags, boxes, baskets, tubs, pans, etc. of the village were filled with\nits beams and carefully carried into the council-house and emptied\nthere, but with no good effect. After this they removed the roof, by the\nadvice of a traveller, whom they rewarded amply for the suggestion. This\nplan answered famously during the summer, but when the rains of winter\nfell, and they were forced to replace the roof, they found the house\njust as dark as ever. Again they met, again they stuck their torches in\ntheir hats, but to no purpose, until by chance one of them was quitting\nthe house, and groping his way along the wall, when a ray of light fell\nthrough a crevice and upon his beard, whereupon he suggested, what had\nnever occurred to any of them, that it was possible they might get\ndaylight in by making a window.\n\nAnother tale relates how the boors of Schilda contrived to get their\nmillstone twice down from a high mountain:\n\nThe boors of Schilda had built a mill, and with extraordinary labour\nthey had quarried a millstone for it out of a quarry which lay on the\nsummit of a high mountain; and when the stone was finished, they carried\nit with great labour and pain down the hill. When they had got to the\nbottom, it occurred to one of them that they might have spared\nthemselves the trouble of carrying it down by letting it roll down.\n\"Verily,\" said he, \"we are the stupidest of fools to take these\nextraordinary pains to do that which we might have done with so little\ntrouble. We will carry it up, and then let it roll down the hill by\nitself, as we did before with the tree which we felled for the\ncouncil-house.\"\n\nThis advice pleased them all, and with greater labour they carried the\nstone to the top of the mountain again, and were about to roll it down,\nwhen one of them said, \"But how shall we know where it runs to? Who will\nbe able to tell us aught about it?\" \"Why,\" said the bailiff, who had\nadvised the stone being carried up again, \"this is very easily managed.\nOne of us must stick in the hole [for the millstone, of course, had a\nhole in the middle], and run down with it.\" This was agreed to, and one\nof them, having been chosen for the purpose, thrust his head through the\nhole, and ran down the hill with the millstone. Now at the bottom of the\nmountain was a deep fish-pond, into which the stone rolled, and the\nsimpleton with it, so that the Schildburgers lost both stone and man,\nand not one among them knew what had become of them. And they felt\nsorely angered against their old companion who had run down the hill\nwith the stone, for they considered that he had carried it off for the\npurpose of disposing of it. So they published a notice in all the\nneighbouring boroughs, towns, and villages, calling on them, that \"if\nany one come there with a millstone round his neck, they should treat\nhim as one who had stolen the common goods, and give him to justice.\"\nBut the poor fellow lay in the pond, dead. Had he been able to speak, he\nwould have been willing to tell them not to worry themselves on his\naccount, for he would give them their own again. But his load pressed so\nheavily upon him, and he was so deep in the water, that he, after\ndrinking water enough--more, indeed, than was good for him--died; and he\nis dead at the present day, and dead he will, shall, and must remain!\n\nThe forty-seventh chapter recounts \"How the Schildburgers purchased a\nmouser, and with it their own ruin\":\n\nNow it happened that there were no cats in Schilda, and so many mice\nthat nothing was safe, even in the bread-basket, for whatsoever they put\nthere was sure to be gnawed or eaten; and this grieved them sorely. And\nupon a time there came a traveller into the village, carrying a cat in\nhis arms, and he entered the hostel. The host asked him, \"What sort of a\nbeast is that?\" Said he, \"It is a mouser.\" Now the mice at Schilda were\nso quiet and so tame that they never fled before the people, but ran\nabout all day long, without the slightest fear. So the traveller let the\ncat run, who, in the sight of the host, soon caught numbers of mice. Now\nwhen the people were told this by the host, they asked the man whether\nthe mouser was to be sold, for they would pay him well for it. He said,\n\"It certainly was not to be sold; but seeing that it would be so useful\nto them, he would let them have it if they would pay him what was\nright,\" and he asked a hundred florins for it. The boors were glad to\nfind that he asked so little, and concluded a bargain with him, he\nagreeing to take half the money down, and to come again in six months to\nfetch the rest. As soon as the bargain was struck on both sides, they\ngave the traveller the half of the money, and he carried the mouser into\nthe granary, where they kept their corn, for there were most mice there.\nThe traveller went off with the money at full speed, for he feared\ngreatly lest they should repent them of the bargain, and want their\nmoney back again; and as he went along he kept looking behind him to see\nthat no one was following him. Now the boors had forgotten to ask what\nthe cat was to be fed upon, so they sent one after him in haste to ask\nhim the question. But when he with the gold saw that some one was\nfollowing him, he hastened so much the more, so that the boor could by\nno means overtake him, whereupon he called out to him from afar off,\n\"What does it eat?\" \"What you please! What you please!\" quoth the\ntraveller. But the peasant understood him to say, \"Men and beasts! Men\nand beasts!\" Therefore he returned home in great affliction, and said as\nmuch to his worthy masters.\n\nOn learning this they became greatly alarmed, and said, \"When it has no\nmore mice to eat, it will eat our cattle; and when they are gone, it\nwill eat us! To think that we should lay out our good money in buying\nsuch a thing!\" And they held counsel together and resolved that the cat\nshould be killed. But no one would venture to lay hold of it for that\npurpose, whereupon it was determined to burn the granary, and the cat in\nit, seeing that it was better they should suffer a common loss than all\nlose life and limb. So they set fire to the granary. But when the cat\nsmelt the fire, it sprang out of a window and fled to another house, and\nthe granary was burned to the ground. Never was there sorrow greater\nthan that of the Schildburgers when they found that they could not kill\nthe cat. They counselled with one another, and purchased the house to\nwhich the cat had fled, and burned that also. But the cat sprang out\nupon the roof, and sat there, washing itself and putting its paws behind\nits ears, after the manner of cats; and the Schildburgers understood\nthereby that the cat lifted up its hands and swore an oath that it would\nnot leave their treatment of it unrevenged. Then one of them took a long\npole and struck at the cat, but the cat caught hold of the pole, and\nbegan to clamber down it, whereupon all the people grew greatly alarmed\nand ran away, and left the fire to burn as it might. And because no one\nregarded the fire, nor sought to put it out, the whole village was\nburned to a house, and notwithstanding that, the cat escaped. And the\nSchildburgers fled with their wives and children to a neighbouring\nforest. And at this time was burned their chancery and all the papers\ntherein, which is the reason why their history is not to be found\ndescribed in a more regular manner.\n\nThus ended the career of the Schildburgers as a community, according to\nthe veracious chronicle of their marvellous exploits, the first of\nwhich, their carrying sunshine into the council-house, is a favourite\nincident in the noodle-stories of many countries, and has its parallel\nin the Icelandic story of the Three Brothers of Bakki: They had observed\nthat in winter the weather was colder than in summer, also that the\nlarger the windows of a house were the colder it was. All frost and\nsharp cold, therefore, they thought sprang from the fact that houses had\nwindows in them. So they built themselves a house on a new plan, without\nwindows in it at all. It followed, of course, that there was always\npitch darkness in it. They found that this was rather a fault in the\nhouse, but comforted themselves with the certainty that in winter it\nwould be very warm; and as to light, they thought they could contrive\nsome easy means of getting the house lighted. One fine day in the middle\nof summer, when the sunshine was brightest, they began to carry the\ndarkness out of the house in their caps, and emptied it out when they\ncame into the sunshine, which they then carried into the dark room. Thus\nthey worked hard the whole day, but in the evening, when they had done\nall their best, they were not a little disappointed to find that it was\nas dark as before, so much so that they could not tell one hand from the\nother.[1]\n\nThere is a Kashm\u00edr\u00ed story which bears a slight resemblance to the\nexploit of the Schildburgers with the cat. A poor old woman used to beg\nher food by day and cook it at night. Half of the food she would eat in\nthe morning, and the other half in the evening. After a while a cat got\nto know of this arrangement, and came and ate the meal for her. The old\nwoman was very patient, but at last could no longer endure the cat's\nimpudence, and so she laid hold of it. She argued with herself as to\nwhether she should kill it or not. \"If I slay it,\" she thought, \"it will\nbe a sin; but if I keep it alive, it will be to my heavy loss.\" So she\ndetermined only to punish it. She procured some cotton wool and some\noil, and soaking the one in the other, tied it on to the cat's tail and\nthen set it on fire. Away rushed the cat across the yard, up the side of\nthe window, and on to the roof, where its flaming tail ignited the\nthatch and set the whole house on fire. The flames soon spread to other\nhouses, and the whole village was destroyed.[2]\n\nAn older form of this incident is found in the introduction to a Persian\npoetical version of the Book of Sindib\u00e1d (_Sindib\u00e1d N\u00e1ma_), of\nwhich a unique MS. copy, very finely illuminated, but imperfect, is\npreserved in the Library of the India Office:[3] In a village called\nBuzina-Gird (i.e., Monkey Town) there was a goat that was in the habit\nof butting at a certain old woman whenever she came into the street. One\nday the old woman had been to ask fire from a neighbour, and on her\nreturn the goat struck her so violently with his horns when she was off\nher guard as to draw blood. Enraged at this, she applied the fire which\nshe held to the goat's fleece, which kindled, and the animal ran to the\nstables of the elephant-keeper, and rubbed his sides against the reeds\nand willows. They caught fire, which the wind soon spread, and the heads\nand faces of the warlike elephants were scorched. With the sequel--how\nthe king caused all the monkeys to be slaughtered, as their fat was\nrequired to cure the scorched elephants--we have no concern at\npresent.[4]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn Ceylon whole districts, such as Tumpane, in the central province,\nMorora Korle, in the southern province, and Rayigam Korle, in the\nwestern province, are credited with being the abode of fools. A learned\nwriter on the proverbial sayings of the Sinhalese states that these\noften refer to \"popular stories of stupid people to which foolish\nactions are likened. The stories of the Tumpane villagers who tried to\nunearth and carry off a well because they saw a bees' nest reflected in\nthe water; of the Morora Korle boatmen who mistook a bend in the river\nfor the sea, left their cargo there, and returned home; of the Rayigam\nKorle fools who threw stones at the moon to frighten her off one fine\nmoonlight night when they thought she was coming too near, and that\nthere was danger of her burning their crops, are well known, and it is\ncustomary to ask a man if he was born in one of these places if he has\ndone anything particularly foolish. The story of the double-fool--i.e.,\nof the man who tried to lighten the boat by carrying his pingo load over\nhis shoulders;[5] of the man who stretched out his hands to be warmed by\nthe fire on the other side of the river; of the rustic's wife who had\nher own head shaved, so as not to lose the barber's services for the day\nwhen he came, and her husband was away from home; of the villagers who\ntied up their mortars in the village in the belief that the elephant\ntracks in the rice fields were caused by the mortars wandering about at\nnight; of the man who would not wash his body in order to spite the\nriver; of the people who flogged the elk-skin at home to avenge\nthemselves on the deer that trespassed in the fields at night; and of\nthe man who performed the five precepts--all these are popular stories\nof foolish people which have passed into proverbs.\"[6]\n\nThe last of the stories referred to in the above extract is as follows:\nA woman once rebuked her husband for not performing the five (Buddhist)\nprecepts. \"I don't know what they are,\" he replied. \"Oh, it's very\neasy,\" she said; \"all you have to do is to go to the priest and repeat\nwhat he says after him.\" \"Is that all?\" he answered. \"Then I'll go and\ndo it at once.\" Off he went, and as he neared the temple the priest saw\nhim and called out, \"Who are you?\" to which he replied, \"Who are you?\"\n\"What do you want?\" demands the priest. \"What do you want?\" the\nblockhead answers dutifully. \"Are you mad?\" roared the priest. \"Are you\nmad?\" returned the rustic. \"Here,\" said the priest to his attendants,\n\"take and beat him well;\" and notwithstanding that he carefully repeated\nthe words again, taken and thoroughly well thrashed he was, after which\nhe crawled back to his wife and said, \"What a wonderful woman you are!\nYou manage to repeat the five precepts every day, and are strong and\nhealthy, while I, who have only said them once, am nearly dead with\nfever from the bruises.\"[7]\n\nTo this last may be added a story in the _Kath\u00e1 Manjari_, a\nCanarese collection, of the stupid fellow and the _R\u00e1m\u00e1yana_, one\nof the two great Hind\u00fa epics: One day a man was reading the\n_R\u00e1m\u00e1yana_ in the bazaar, and a woman, thinking her husband might\nbe instructed by hearing it, sent him there. He went, and stood leaning\non his crook--for he was a shepherd--when presently a practical joker,\nseeing his simplicity, jumped upon his shoulders, and he stood with the\nman on his back until the discourse was concluded. When he reached home,\nhis wife asked him how he liked the _R\u00e1m\u00e1yana_. \"Alas!\" said he,\n\"it was not easy; it was a man's load.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe race of Gothamites is indeed found everywhere--in popular tales, if\nnot in actual life; and their sayings and doings are not less diverting\nwhen husband and wife are well mated, as in the following story:\n\nAn Arab observing one morning that his house was ready to tumble about\nhis ears from decay, and being without the means of repairing it, went\nwith a long face to his wife, and informed her of his trouble. She said,\n\"Why, my dear, need you distress yourself about so small a matter? You\nhave a cow worth thirty dirhams; take her to the market and sell her for\nthat sum. I have some thread, which I will dispose of to-day, and I\nwarrant you that between us both we shall manage very well.\" The man at\nonce drove the cow to the market, and gave her over for sale to the\nappraiser of cattle. The salesman showed her to the bystanders, directed\ntheir attention to all her good points, expatiated on all her good\nqualities, and, in short, passed her off as a cow of inestimable value.\nTo all this the simpleton listened with delight and astonishment; he\nheard his cow praised for qualities that no other cow ever possessed,\nand determined in his own mind not to lose so rare a bargain, but\npurchase her himself and balk the chapmen. He therefore called out to\nthe appraiser, and asked him what she was going at. The salesman\nreplied, \"At fifteen dirhams and upwards.\" \"By the head of the Prophet,\"\nexclaimed the wittol, \"had I known that my cow was such a prodigy of\nexcellence, you should not have caught me in the market with her for\nsale.\" Now it happened that he had just fifteen dirhams, and no more,\nand these he thrust upon the broker, exclaiming, \"The cow is mine; I\nhave the best claim to her.\" He then seized the cow and drove her home,\nexulting all the way as if he had found a treasure. On reaching home he\ninquired eagerly for his wife, to inform her of his adventure, but was\ntold she was not returned from market. He waited impatiently for her\nreturn, when he sprang up to meet her, crying, \"Wife, I have done\nsomething to-day that will astonish you. I have performed a marvellous\nexploit!\" \"Patience!\" says his wife. \"Perhaps I have done something\nmyself to match it. But hear my story, and then talk of cleverness, if\nyou please.\" The husband desired her to proceed.\n\n\"When I went to market,\" says she, \"I found a man in want of thread. I\nshowed him mine, which he approved of, and having bargained for it, he\nagreed to pay me according to the weight. I told him it weighed so much,\nwhich he seemed to discredit, and weighed it himself. Observing it to\nfall short of the weight I had mentioned, and fearing I should lose the\nprice I at first expected, I requested him to weigh it over again, and\nmake certain. In the meantime, taking an opportunity unobserved, I\nstripped off my silver bracelets and put them slily into the scale with\nmy thread. The scale, of course, now preponderated, and I received the\nfull price I had demanded.\" Having finished her story, she cried out,\n\"Now, what do you think of your wife?\" \"Amazing! amazing!\" said he.\n\"Your capacity is supernatural. And now, if you please, I will give you\na specimen of mine,\" and he related his adventure at the market. \"O\nhusband,\" she exclaimed when he had told his story, \"had we not\npossessed such consummate wisdom and address, how could we have\ncontrived means to repair our old house? In future vex not yourself\nabout domestic concerns, since by the exercise of our talents we need\nnever want for anything!\"\n\nThe exploits of that precious pair may be compared with the following:\nAn alewife went to the market with a brood of chickens and an old black\nhen. For the hen and one chicken she could not find a purchaser; so,\nbefore leaving the town, she called upon a surgeon, to try to effect a\nsale. He bought the chicken, but declined taking the hen. She then asked\nhim if he would draw a tooth for it. The tooth was drawn, and he\nexpressed his surprise on finding it was perfectly sound. \"Oh,\" said\nshe, \"I knew it was sound; but it was worth while having it drawn for\nthe old hen.\" She then called upon another surgeon, and had a second\ntooth drawn, as sound as the other. \"What's to pay?\" she inquired. \"A\nshilling,\" said the surgeon. \"Very well,\" rejoined the hostess, with a\nchuckle; \"you left a shilling due in my house the other night, and now\nwe are quits.\" \"Certainly we are,\" responded the perplexed tooth-drawer,\nand the delighted old woman returned to her hostelry, to acquaint all\nher gossips of how cleverly she had outwitted the doctors.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nFerrier says, in his _Illustrations of Sterne_, that the facetious\ntales of the Sieur Gaulard laid the foundation of some of the jests in\nour old English collections. A few of them found their way somehow into\nTaylor's _Wit and Mirth_, and this is one: A monsieur chanced to\nmeet a lady of his acquaintance, and asked her how she did and how her\ngood husband fared, at which she wept, saying that her husband was in\nheaven. \"In heaven!\" quoth he. \"It is the first time that I heard of it,\nand I am sorry for it with all my heart.\"\n\nSimilar in its point is a story in _Archie Armstrong's Banquet of\nJests_:[8] Sitting over a cup of ale in a winter night, two widows\nentered into discourse of their dead husbands, and after ripping up\ntheir good and bad qualities, saith one of them to the maid, \"I prithee,\nwench, reach us another light, for my husband (God rest his soul!) above\nall things loved to see good lights about the house. God grant him light\neverlasting!\" \"And I pray you, neighbour,\" said the other, \"let the maid\nlay on some more coals or stir up the fire, for my husband in his\nlifetime ever loved to see a good fire. God grant him fire everlasting!\"\n\nThis seems cousin-german to the Arabian story of two men, one of whom\nhailed from the town of Hama (ancient Hamath), the other from Hums\n(ancient Emessa). Those towns are not far apart, but the people of the\nformer have the reputation of being very clever, while those of the\nlatter are proverbially as stupid. (And for the proper understanding of\nthe jest it should perhaps be explained that the Arabic verb _hama_\nmeans to \"protect\" or \"defend,\" the verb _hamasa_ to \"roast\" or\n\"toast.\") These men had some business of importance with the nearest\nmagistrate, and set out together on their journey. The man of Hums,\nconscious of his own ignorance, begged his companion to speak first in\nthe audience, in order that he might get a hint as to how such a formal\nmatter should be conducted. Accordingly, when they came into the pasha's\npresence, the man of Hama went forward, and the pasha asked him, \"Where\nare you from?\" \"Your servant is from Hama,\" said he. \"May Allah PROTECT\n(_hama_) your excellency!\" The pasha then turned to the other man,\nand asked, \"And where are you from?\" to which he answered, \"Your servant\nis from Hums. May Allah ROAST _(hamasa)_ your excellency!\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nNot a few of the _Bizarrures_ of the Sieur Gaulard are the\nprototypes of bulls and foolish sayings of the typical Irishman, which\ngo their ceaseless round in popular periodicals, and are even\naudaciously reproduced as original in our \"comic\" journals--save the\nmark! To cite some examples:\n\nA friend one day told M. Gaulard that the Dean of Besan\u00e7on was dead.\n\"Believe it not,\" said he; \"for had it been so he would have told me\nhimself, since he writes to me about everything.\"\n\nM. Gaulard asked his secretary one evening what hour it was. \"Sir,\"\nreplied the secretary, \"I cannot tell you by the dial, because the sun\nis set.\" \"Well,\" quoth M. Gaulard, \"and can you not see by the candle?\"\n\nOn another occasion the Sieur called from his bed to a servant desiring\nhim to see if it was daylight yet. \"There is no sign of daylight,\" said\nthe servant. \"I do not wonder,\" rejoined the Sieur, \"that thou canst not\nsee day, great fool as thou art. Take a candle and look with it out at\nthe window, and thou shalt see whether it be day or not.\"\n\nIn a strange house, the Sieur found the walls of his bedchamber full of\ngreat holes. \"This,\" exclaimed he in a rage, \"is the cursedest chamber\nin all the world. One may see day all the night through.\"\n\nTravelling in the country, his man, to gain the fairest way, rode\nthrough a field sowed with pease, upon which M. Gaulard cried to him,\n\"Thou knave, wilt thou burn my horse's feet? Dost thou not know that\nabout six weeks ago I burned my mouth with eating pease, they were so\nhot?\"\n\nA poor man complained to him that he had had a horse stolen from him.\n\"Why did you not mark his visage,\" asked M. Gaulard, \"and the clothes he\nwore?\" \"Sir,\" said the man, \"I was not there when he was stolen.\" Quoth\nthe Sieur, \"You should have left somebody to ask him his name, and in\nwhat place he resided.\"\n\nM. Gaulard felt the sun so hot in the midst of a field at noontide in\nAugust that he asked of those about him, \"What means the sun to be so\nhot? How should it not keep its heat till winter, when it is cold\nweather?\"\n\nA proctor, discoursing with M. Gaulard, told him that a dumb, deaf, or\nblind man could not make a will but with certain additional forms. \"I\npray you,\" said the Sieur, \"give me that in writing, that I may send it\nto a cousin of mine who is lame.\"\n\nOne day a friend visited the Sieur and found him asleep in his chair. \"I\nslept,\" said he, \"only to avoid idleness; for I must always be doing\nsomething.\"\n\nThe Abb\u00e9 of Poupet complained to him that the moles had spoiled a fine\nmeadow, and he could find no remedy for them. \"Why, cousin,\" said M.\nGaulard, \"it is but paving your meadow, and the moles will no more\ntrouble you.\"\n\nM. Gaulard had a lackey belonging to Auvergne, who robbed him of twelve\ncrowns and ran away, at which he was very angry, and said he would have\nnothing that came from that country. So he ordered all that was from\nAuvergne to be cast out of the house, even his mule; and to make the\nanimal more ashamed, he caused his servants to take off its shoes and\nits saddle and bridle.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAlthough Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_ is the most \"original\" of our old\nEnglish jest-books--that is to say, it contains very few stories in\ncommon with preceding collections--yet some of the diverting tales he\nrelates are traceable to very distant sources, more especially the\nfollowing:\n\nA country fellow (that had not walked much in streets that were paved)\ncame to London, where a dog came suddenly out of a house, and furiously\nran at him. The fellow stooped to pick up a stone to cast at the dog,\nand finding them all fast rammed or paved in the ground, quoth he, \"What\na strange country am I in, where the people tie up the stones and let\nthe dogs loose!\"\n\nThree centuries and a half before the Water Poet heard this exquisitely\nhumorous story, the great Persian poet Sa'd\u00ed related it in his\n_Gulist\u00e1n_ (or Rose-garden), which was written A.D. 1278:\n\nA poor poet presented himself before the chief of a gang of robbers, and\nrecited some verses in his praise. The robber-chief, however, instead of\nrewarding him, as he fondly expected, ordered him to be stripped of his\nclothes and expelled from the village. The dogs attacking him in the\nrear, the unlucky bard stooped to pick up a stone to throw at them, and\nfinding the stones frozen in the ground, he exclaimed, \"What a vile set\nof men are these, who set loose the dogs and fasten the stones!\"\n\nNow here we have a very curious instance of the migration of a popular\ntale from Persia--perchance it first set out on its travels from India\n--in the thirteenth century, when grave and reverend seigniors wagged\ntheir beards and shook their portly sides at its recital, to London in\nthe days of the Scottish Solomon (more properly dubbed \"the wisest fool\nin Christendom\"!), when Taylor, the Water Poet, probably heard it told,\nin some river-side tavern, amidst the clinking of beer-cans and the\nfragrant clouds blown from pipes of Trinidado, and \"put it in his book!\"\nHow it came into England it would be interesting to ascertain. It may\nhave been brought to Europe by the Venetian merchants, who traded\nlargely in the Levant and with the Moors in Northern Africa.\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_, Second Series, p.\n626.\n\n[2] _Dictionary of Kashm\u00edr\u00ed Proverbs and Sayings_. Explained and\nillustrated from the rich and interesting folk-lore of the Valley. By\nthe Rev. J. Hinton Knowles. Bombay: 1885.\n\n[3] This work was composed A.H. 776 (A.D. 1374-5), as the anonymous\nauthor takes care to inform us in his opening verses.\n\n[4] A still older form of the story occurs in the _Pancha Tantra_\n(Five Sections), a Sanskrit version of the celebrated Fables of Bidpai,\nin which a gluttonous ram is in the habit of going to the king's kitchen\nand devouring all food within his reach. One of the cooks beat him with\na burning log of wood, and the ram rushed off with his blazing fleece\nand set the horses' stables on fire, and so forth. The story is most\nprobably of Buddhist extraction.\n\n[5]  A Sinhalese variant of the exploit of the man of Norfolk and of the\nman of Gotham with the sack of meal. \"See _ante_, p. 19.\" [Transcriber's\nnote: this approximates to the text reference for Chapter II\nFootnote 1 in this etext.]\n\n[6]  Mr. C.J.R. le Mesurier in _The Orientalist_ (Kandy, Ceylon:\n1884), pp. 233-4.\n\n[7] _The Orientalist_, 1884, p. 234. A much fuller version, with\nsubsequent incidents, is given in the same excellent periodical, pp.\n36-38.\n\n[8] Archie Armstrong was Court jester to James I. of England. It is\nneedless, perhaps, to say that he had no hand in this book of faceti\u00e6,\nwhich is composed for the most part of jests taken out of earlier\ncollections.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nGOTHAMITE DROLLERIES _(continued)._\n\n\nTales of sharpers' tricks upon simpletons do not quite fall within the\nscope of the present series of papers, but there is one, in the\n_Arabian Nights_--not found, however, in our common English version\nof that fascinating story-book--which deserves a place among\nnoodle-stories, since it is so diverting, is not very generally known,\nand is probably the original of the early Italian novel of the _Monk\nTransformed_, which is ascribed to Michele Colombo:\n\nA rustic simpleton was walking homeward dragging his ass after him by\nthe halter, which a brace of sharpers observing, one said to his fellow,\n\"Come with me, and I will take the ass from that man.\" He then quietly\nadvanced to the ass, unloosed it from the halter, and gave the animal to\nhis companion, who went off with it, after which he put the halter over\nhis own head, and allowed the rustic to drag him for some little\ndistance, until he with the ass was fairly out of sight, when he\nsuddenly stopped, and the man having tugged at the halter several times\nwithout effect, looked round, and, amazed to see a human being in place\nof his beast, exclaimed, \"Who art thou?\" The sharper answered, \"I was\nthy ass; but hear my story, for it is wonderful. I had a good and pious\nmother, and one day I came home intoxicated. Grieved to see me in such a\nstate, she gently reproved me, but I, instead of being penetrated with\nremorse, beat her with a stick, whereupon she prayed to Allah, and, in\nanswer to her supplication, lo! I was transformed into an ass. In that\nshape I have continued until this day, when my mother, as it appears,\nhas interceded for my restoration to human form, as before.\" The\nsimpleton, believing every word of this strange story, raised his eyes\nto heaven, saying, \"Of a truth there is no power but from Allah! But,\npray, forgive me for having used thee as I have done.\" The sharper\nreadily granted his forgiveness, and went off to rejoin his companion\nand dispose of the ass; while the simpleton returned home, and showing\nhis wife the bridle, told her of the marvellous transformation which had\noccurred. His wife, in hopes of propitiating Heaven, gave alms and\noffered up many prayers to avert evil from them, on account of their\nhaving used a human being as an ass. At length the simpleton, having\nremained idle at home for some time, went one day to the market to\npurchase another ass, and on entering the place where all the animals\nwere fastened, he saw with astonishment his old ass offered for sale.\nPutting his mouth to its ear, he whispered, \"Woe to thee, unlucky!\nDoubtless thou hast again been intoxicated; but, by Allah, I will never\nbuy thee!\"\n\nAnother noodle-story, of a different class, in the _Arabian\nNights_, may be here cited in full from Sir R.F. Burton's\ntranslation of that delightful work, privately printed for the\nsubscribers, and it will serve, moreover, as a fair specimen of the\nadmirable manner in which that ripe scholar has represented in English\nthe quaint style of his original:\n\n[Quoth one of the learned,] I passed once by a school wherein a\nschoolmaster was teaching children; so I entered, finding him a\ngood-looking man, and a well-dressed, when he rose to me and made me sit\nwith him. Then I examined him in the Koran, and in syntax and prosody,\nand lexicography; and behold, he was perfect in all required of him; and\nI said to him, \"Allah strengthen thy purpose! Thou art indeed versed in\nall that is requisite.\" Thereafter I frequented him a while, discovering\ndaily some new excellence in him, and quoth I to myself, \"This is indeed\na wonder in any dominie; for the wise are agreed upon a lack of wit in\nchildren's teachers.\"[1] Then I separated myself from him, and sought\nhim and visited him only every few days, till coming to see him one day,\nas of wont, I found the school shut, and made inquiry of his neighbours,\nwho replied, \"Some one is dead in his house.\" So I said in my mind, \"It\nbehoveth me to pay him a visit of condolence,\" and going to his house,\nknocked at the door, when a slave-girl came out to me and asked, \"What\ndost thou want?\" and I answered, \"I want thy master.\" She replied, \"He\nis sitting alone mourning;\" and I rejoined, \"Tell him that his friend\nSo-and-so seeketh to console him.\" She went in and told him; and he\nsaid, \"Admit him.\" So she brought me in to him, and I found him seated\nalone, and his head bound with mourning fillets. So I said to him,\n\"Allah requite thee amply! This is a path all must perforce tread, and\nit behoveth thee to take patience,\" adding, \"but who is dead unto thee?\"\nHe answered, \"One who was dearest of the folk to me, and best beloved.\"\n\"Perhaps thy father?\" \"No.\" \"Thy brother?\" \"No.\" \"One of thy kindred?\"\n\"No.\" Then asked I, \"What relation was the dead to thee?\" and he\nanswered, \"My lover.\" Quoth I to myself, \"This is the first proof to\nswear by of his lack of wit.\" So I said to him, \"Assuredly there be\nothers than she, and fairer;\" and he made answer, \"I never saw her that\nI might judge whether or no there be others fairer than she.\" Quoth I to\nmyself, \"This is another proof positive.\" Then I said to him, \"And how\ncouldst thou fall in love with one thou hast never seen?\" He replied,\n\"Know that I was sitting one day at the window, when, lo! there passed\nby a man, singing the following distich:\n\n  \"'Umm Amr', thy boons Allah repay!\n  Give back my heart, be't where it may!'\"\n\nThe schoolmaster continued, \"When I heard the man humming these words as\nhe passed along the street, I said to myself, 'Except this Umm Amru were\nwithout equal in the world, the poets had not celebrated her in ode and\ncanzon.' So I fell in love with her; but two days after, the same man\npassed, singing the following couplet:\n\n  \"'Ass and Umm Amr' went their way,\n  Nor she nor ass returned for aye.'\n\nThereupon I knew that she was dead, and mourned for her. This was three\ndays ago, and I have been mourning ever since.\" So I left him and fared\nforth, having assured myself of the weakness of the gerund-grinder's\nwit[2].\n\nHere, surely, was the very Father of Folly, but what shall we say of\njudges and magistrates being sometimes (represented as) equally witless?\nThus we are told, among the cases decided by a Turkish K\u00e1z\u00ed, that two\nmen came before him one of whom complained that the other had almost bit\nhis ear off. The accused denied this, and declared that the fellow had\nbit his own ear. After pondering the matter for some time, the judge\ntold them to come again two hours later. Then he went into his private\nroom, and attempted to bring his ear and his mouth together; but all he\ndid was to fall backwards and break his head. Wrapping a cloth round his\nhead, he returned to court, and the two men coming in again presently,\nhe thus decided the question: \"No man can bite his own ear, but in\ntrying to do so he may fall down and break his head.\"\n\nA Sinhalese story, which is also well known in various forms in India,\nfurnishes a still more remarkable example of forensic sagacity. It is\nthus related by the able editor of _The Orientalist_, vol. i., p.\n191:\n\nOne night some thieves broke into the house of a rich man, and carried\naway all his valuables. The man complained to the justice of the peace,\nwho had the robbers captured, and when brought before him, inquired of\nthem whether they had anything to say in their defence. \"Sir,\" said\nthey, \"we are not to blame in this matter; the robbery was entirely due\nto the mason who built the house; for the walls were so badly made, and\ngave way so easily, that we were quite unable to resist the temptation\nof breaking in.\" Orders were then given to bring the mason to the\ncourt-house. On his arrival he was informed of the charge brought\nagainst him. \"Ah,\" said he, \"the fault is not mine, but that of the\ncoolie, who made mortar badly.\" When the coolie was brought, he laid the\nblame on the potter, who, he said, had sold him a cracked chattie, in\nwhich he could not carry sufficient water to mix the mortar properly.\nThen the potter was brought before the judge, and he explained that the\nblame should not be laid upon him, but upon a very pretty woman, who, in\na beautiful dress, was passing at the time he was making the chattie,\nand had so riveted his attention, that he forgot all about the work.\nWhen the woman appeared, she protested that the fault was not hers, for\nshe would not have been in that neighbourhood at all had the goldsmith\nsent home her earrings at the proper time; the charge, she argued,\nshould properly be brought against him. The goldsmith was brought, and\nas he was unable to offer any reasonable excuse, he was condemned to be\nhanged. Those in the court, however, begged the judge to spare the\ngoldsmith's life; \"for,\" said they, \"he is very sick and ill-favoured,\nand would not make at all a pretty spectacle.\" \"But,\" said the judge,\n\"somebody must be hanged.\" Then they drew the attention of the court to\nthe fact that there was a fat Moorman in a shop opposite, who was a much\nfitter subject for an execution, and asked that he might be hanged in\nthe goldsmith's stead. The learned judge, considering that this\narrangement would be very satisfactory, gave judgment accordingly.\n\nIf some of the last-cited stories are not precisely Gothamite\ndrolleries, though all are droll enough in their way, there can be no\ndoubt whatever that we have a Sinhalese brother to the men of Gotham in\nthe following: A villager in Ceylon, whose calf had got its head into a\npot and could not get it out again, sent for a friend, celebrated for\nhis wisdom, to release the poor animal. The sagacious friend, taking in\nthe situation at a glance, cut off the calf's head, broke the pot, and\nthen delivered the head to the owner of the calf, saying, \"What will you\ndo when I am dead and gone?\"--And we have another Gothamite in the\nKashm\u00edr\u00ed who bought as much rice as he thought would suffice for a\nyear's food, and finding he had only enough for eleven months, concluded\nit was better to fast the other month right off, which he did\naccordingly; but he died just before the month was completed, leaving\neleven months' rice in his house.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe typical noodle of the Turks, the Khoja Nasru-'d-D\u00edn, is said to have\nbeen a subject of the independent prince of Karaman, at whose capital,\nKonya, he resided, and he is represented as a contemporary of Tim\u00far\n(Tamerlane), in the middle of the fourteenth century. The pleasantries\nwhich are ascribed to him are for the most part common to all countries,\nbut some are probably of genuine Turkish origin. To cite a few\nspecimens: The Khoja's wife said to him one day, \"Make me a present of a\nkerchief of red Yemen silk, to put on my head.\" The Khoja stretched out\nhis arms and said, \"Like that? Is that large enough?\" On her replying in\nthe affirmative he ran off to the bazaar, with his arms still stretched\nout, and meeting a man on the road, he bawled to him, \"Look where you\nare going, O man, or you will cause me to lose my measure!\"\n\nAnother day the Khoja's wife washed his caftan and spread it upon a tree\nin the garden of the house. That night the Khoja goes out, and thinks he\nsees in the moonlight a man motionless upon a tree in the garden. \"Give\nme my bow and arrows,\" said he to his wife, and having received them, he\nshot the caftan, piercing it through and through, and then returned into\nthe house. Next morning, when he discovered that it was his own caftan\nhe had shot at, he exclaimed, \"By Allah, had I happened to be in it, I\nshould have killed myself!\"\n\nThe Ettrick Shepherd's well-known story of the two Highlanders and the\nwild boar has its exact parallel in the Turkish jest-book, as follows:\nOne day the Khoja went with his friend Sheragh Ahmed to the den of a\nwolf, in order to take the cubs. Said the Khoja to Ahmed, \"Do you go in,\nand I will watch without;\" and Ahmed went in, to take the cubs in the\nabsence of the old wolf. But she came back presently, and had got\nhalf-way into her den when the Khoja seized hold of her tail. The wolf\nin her struggles cast up a great dust into the eyes of Ahmed, who called\nout to the Khoja, \"Hallo! what does all this dust mean?\" The Khoja\nreplied, \"If the wolf's tail breaks, you will soon know what the dust\nmeans!\"\n\nSeveral of the jests closely resemble \"Joe Millers\" told of Irishmen,\nsuch as this: It happened one night, after the Khoja and a guest had\nlain down to sleep, that the taper went out. \"O Khoja Effendi,\" said the\nguest, \"the taper is gone out. But there is a taper at your right side.\nPray bring it and let us light it.\" Quoth the Khoja, \"You must surely be\na fool to think that I should know my right hand in the dark.\" And this:\nA thief having stolen a piece of salted cheese from the Khoja, he ran\nimmediately and seated himself on the border of a fountain. Said the\npeople to him, \"O Khoja, what have you come here to look for in such a\nhurry?\" The Khoja replied, \"The thief will certainly come here to drink\nas soon as he has eaten my salted cheese; I always do so myself.\"\n\nAnd here is one of the Gothamite class: One evening the Khoja went to\nthe well to draw water, and seeing the moon reflected in the water, he\nexclaimed, \"The moon has fallen into the well; I must pull it out.\" So\nhe let down the rope and hook, and the hook became fastened to a stone,\nwhereupon he exerted all his strength, and the rope broke, and he fell\nupon his back. Looking into the sky, he saw the moon, and cried out\njoyfully, \"Praise be to Allah! I am sorely bruised, but the moon has got\ninto its place again.\"\n\nThere is a well-worn jest of an Irishman who, being observed by a friend\nto look exceedingly blank and perplexed, was asked what ailed him. He\nreplied that he had had a dream. \"Was it a good or a bad dream?\"\n\"Faith,\" said he, \"it was a little of both; but I'll tell ye. I dreamt\nthat I was with the Pope, who was the finest gentleman in the whole\ndistrict; and after we had conversed a while, his Holiness axed me,\nWould I drink? Thinks I to myself, 'Would a duck swim?' So, seeing the\nwhisky and the lemons and the sugar on the side-board, I said, I didn't\nmind if I took a drop of punch. 'Cold or hot?' says his Holiness. 'Hot,\nyour Holiness,' says I. So on that he steps down to the kitchen for the\nboiling water, but, bedad, before he came back, I woke straight up; and\nnow it's distressing me that I didn't take it cold!\"\n\nWe have somewhat of a parallel to this in a Turkish jest: The Khoja\ndreamt that some one gave him nine pieces of money, but he was not\ncontent, and said, \"Make it ten.\" Then he awoke and found his hands\nempty. Instantly closing his eyes again, and holding out his hand, he\nsaid, \"I repent; give me the nine pieces[3].\"\n\nBut the Chinese relate the very counterpart of our Irishman's story. A\nconfirmed drunkard dreamt that he had been presented with a cup of\nexcellent wine, and set it by the fire to warm[4], that he should better\nenjoy the flavour of it; but just as he was about to drink off the\ndelicious draught he awoke. \"Fool that I am,\" he cried, \"why was I not\ncontent to drink it cold?\"[5]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe Chinese seem to have as keen a sense of humour as any other people.\nThey tell a story, for instance, of a lady who had been recently\nmarried, and on the third day saw her husband returning home, so she\nslipped quietly behind him and gave him a hearty kiss. The husband was\nannoyed, and said she offended all propriety. \"Pardon! pardon!\" said\nshe. \"I did not know it was you.\" Thus the excuse may sometimes be worse\nthan the offence. There is exquisite humour in the following\nnoodle-story: Two brothers were tilling the ground together. The elder,\nhaving prepared dinner, called his brother, who replied in a loud voice,\n\"Wait till I have hidden my spade, and I shall at once be with you.\"\nWhen he joined his elder brother, the latter mildly reproached him,\nsaying, \"When one hides anything, one should keep silence, or at least\nshould not cry aloud about it, for it lays one open to be robbed.\"\nDinner over, the younger went back to the field, and looked for his\nspade, but could not find it; so he ran to his brother and\n_whispered_ mysteriously in his ear, \"My spade is stolen!\"--The\npassion for collecting antique relics is thus ridiculed: A man who was\nfond of old curiosities, though he knew not the true from the false,\nexpended all his wealth in purchasing mere imitations of the\nlightning-stick of Tchew-Koung, a glazed cup of the time of the Emperor\nCheun, and the mat of Confucius; and being reduced to beggary, he\ncarried these spurious relics about with him, and said to the people in\nthe streets, \"Sirs, I pray you, give me some coins struck by Ta\u00ef-Koung.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIndian fiction abounds in stories of simpletons, and probably the oldest\nextant drolleries of the Gothamite type are found in the _J\u00e1takas_,\nor Buddhist Birth-stories. Assuredly they were own brothers to our mad\nmen of Gotham, the Indian villagers who, being pestered by mosquitoes\nwhen at work in the forest, bravely resolved, according to _J\u00e1taka_\n44, to take their bows and arrows and other weapons and make war upon\nthe troublesome insects until they had shot dead or cut in pieces every\none; but in trying to shoot the mosquitoes they only shot, struck, and\ninjured one another. And nothing more foolish is recorded of the\nSchildburgers than Somadeva relates, in his _Kath\u00e1 Sarit S\u00e1gara_,\nof the simpletons who cut down the palm-trees: Being required to furnish\nthe king with a certain quantity of dates, and perceiving that it was\nvery easy to gather the dates of a palm which had fallen down of itself,\nthey set to work and cut down all the date-palms in their village, and\nhaving gathered from them their whole crop of dates, they raised them up\nand planted them again, thinking they would grow.\n\nIn illustration of the apothegm that \"fools who attend only to the words\nof an order, and do not understand the meaning, cause much detriment,\"\nis the story of the servants who kept the rain off the trunks: The camel\nof a merchant gave way under its load on a journey. He said to his\nservants, \"I will go and buy another camel to carry the half of this\ncamel's load. And you must remain here, and take particular care that if\nit clouds over the rain does not wet the leather of these trunks, which\nare full of clothes.\" With these words the merchant left the servants by\nthe side of the camel and went off, and suddenly a cloud came up and\nbegan to discharge rain. Then the fools said, \"Our master told us to\ntake care that the rain did not touch the leather of the trunks;\" and\nafter they had made this sage reflection they dragged the clothes out of\nthe trunks and wrapped them round the leather. The consequence was that\nthe rain spoiled the clothes. Then the merchant returned, and in a rage\nsaid to his servants, \"You rascals! Talk of water! Why, the whole stock\nof clothes is spoiled by the rain!\" And they answered him, \"You told us\nto keep the rain off the leather of the trunks. What fault have we\ncommitted?\" He answered, \"I told you that if the leather got wet the\nclothes would be spoiled. I told you so in order to save the clothes,\nnot the leather.\"\n\nThe story of the servant who looked after the door is a farther\nillustration of the same maxim. A merchant said to his foolish servant,\n\"Take care of the door of my shop; I am going home for a short time.\"\nAfter his master was gone, the fool took the shop-door on his shoulder\nand went off to see an actor perform. As he was returning his master met\nhim, and gave him a scolding, and he answered, \"I have taken care of\nthis door, as you told me.\"\n\nThis jest had found its way into Europe three centuries ago. It is\nrelated of Giufa, the typical Sicilian booby, and probably came to\nEngland from Italy. This is how it is told in the _Sacke Full of\nNewes_, a jest-book originally printed in the sixteenth century: \"In\nthe countrey dwelt a Gentlewoman who had a French man dwelling with her,\nand he did ever use to go to Church with her; and upon a time he and his\nmistresse were going to church, and she bad him pull the doore after him\nand follow her to the church; and so he took the doore betweene his\narmes, and lifted it from the hooks, and followed his mistresse with it.\nBut when she looked behinde her and saw him bring the doore upon his\nback, 'Why, thou foolish knave,' qd she, 'what wilt thou do with the\ndoor?' 'Marry, mistresse,' qd he, 'you bad me pull the doore after me.'\n'Why, fool,' qd she, 'I did command thee that thou shouldest make fast\nthe doore after thee, and not bring it upon thy back after me.' But\nafter this there was much good sport and laughing at his simplicity and\nfoolishnesse therein.\"\n\nIn the capacity of a merchant the simpleton does very wonderful things,\nand plumes himself on his sagacity, as we have already seen in the case\nof the Arab and his cow. And here are a brace of similar stories: A\nfoolish man once went to the island of Kat\u00e1ha to trade, and among his\nwares was a quantity of fragrant aloes-wood. After he had sold his other\ngoods, he could not find any one to take the aloes-wood off his hands,\nfor the people who live there are not acquainted with that article of\ncommerce. Then seeing people buying charcoal from the woodmen, he burnt\nhis stock of aloes-wood and reduced it to charcoal. He sold it for the\nprice which charcoal usually fetched, and returning home, boasted of his\ncleverness, and became the laughing-stock of everybody.--Another\nblockhead went to the market to sell cotton, but no one would buy it\nfrom him, because it was not properly cleaned. In the meanwhile he saw\nin the bazaar a goldsmith selling gold which he had purified by heating\nit, and he saw it taken by a customer. Seeing that, he threw his cotton\ninto the fire in order to purify it, and it was all burned to ashes.\n\n There must be few who have not heard of the Irishman who was hired by a\nYarmouth maltster to help in loading a ship. As the vessel was about to\nsail, the Irishman cried out from the quay, \"Captain, I lost your shovel\noverboard, but I cut a big notch on the rail-fence, round the stern,\njust where it went down, so you will find it when you come back.\"--A\nsimilar story is told of an Indian simpleton. He was sailing in a ship\nwhen he let a silver cup fall from his hand into the water. Having taken\nnotes of the spot by observing the eddies and other signs in the water,\nhe said to himself, \"I will bring it up from the bottom when I return.\"\nAs he was recrossing the sea, he saw the eddies and other signs, and\nthinking he recognised the spot, he plunged into the water again and\nagain, to recover his cup, but he only got well laughed at for his\npains.\n\nWe have an amusing commentary on the maxim that \"distress is sure to\ncome from being in the company of fools\" in the following, from the\nCanarese story-book entitled _Kath\u00e9 Manjari_: A foolish fellow\ntravelled with a shopkeeper. When it became dark, the fool lay down in\nthe road to sleep, but the shopkeeper took shelter in a hollow tree.\nPresently some thieves came along the road, and one struck his feet\nagainst the fool's legs, upon which he exclaimed to his companions,\n\"What is this? Is it a piece of wood?\" The fool was angry, and said, \"Go\naway! go away! Is there a knot, well tied, containing five annas, in the\nloins of a plank in your house?\" The thieves then seized him, and took\naway his annas. As they were moving off, they asked if the money was\ngood or bad, to which the noodle replied, \"Ha! ha! is it of my money you\nspeak in that way, and want to know whether it is good or bad? Look--\nthere is a shopkeeper in that tree,\" pointing with his finger--\"show it\nto him.\" Then the thieves went up to the shopkeeper and robbed him of\ntwo hundred pagodas.\n\nIn our next story, of the villagers who ate the buffalo, is exemplified\nthe fact that \"fools, in the conceit of their folly, while they deny\nwhat need not be denied, reveal what it is their interest to suppress,\nin order to get themselves believed.\" Some villagers took a buffalo\nbelonging to a certain man, and killed it in an enclosure outside the\nvillage, under a banyan tree, and dividing the flesh, ate it up. The\nowner of the buffalo went and complained to the king, and he had the\nvillagers who had eaten the animal brought before him. The proprietor of\nthe buffalo said before the king, in their presence, \"These men took my\nbuffalo under a banyan tree near the tank, and killed and ate it before\nmy eyes,\" whereupon an old fool among the villagers said, \"There is no\ntank or banyan tree in our village. He says what is not true; where did\nwe kill his buffalo or eat it?\" When the man heard this, he replied,\n\"What! are there not a banyan tree and a tank on the east side of the\nvillage? Moreover, you ate my buffalo on the eighth day of the lunar\nmonth.\" The old fool then said, \"There is no east side or eighth day in\nour village.\" On hearing this, the king laughed, and said, to encourage\nthe fool, \"You are a truthful person; you never say anything false; so\ntell me the truth: did you eat that buffalo, or did you not?\" The old\nfool answered, \"I was born three years after my father died, and he\ntaught me skill in speaking. So I never say what is untrue, my king. It\nis true that we ate his buffalo, but all the rest that he alleges is\nfalse.\" When the king heard this, he and his courtiers could not\nrestrain their laughter; but he restored the price of the buffalo to the\nman, and fined the villagers.\n\nBut sometimes even kings have been arrant noodles, and their credulity\nquite as amusing--or amazing--as that of their subjects. Once on a time\nthere was a king who had a handsome daughter, and he summoned his\nphysicians, and said to them, \"Make some preparation of salutary drugs,\nwhich will cause my daughter to grow up quickly, so that she may be\nmarried to a good husband.\" The physicians, wishing to get a living out\nof this royal fool, replied, \"There is a medicine which will do this,\nbut it can only be procured in a distant country; and while we are\nsending for it, we must shut up your daughter in concealment, for this\nis the treatment laid down in such cases.\" The king having consented,\nthey placed his daughter in concealment for several years, pretending\nthat they were engaged in procuring the medicine; and when she was grown\nup, they presented her to the king, saying that she had been made to\ngrow by the preparation; so the king was highly pleased, and gave them\nmuch wealth.\n\nBetween an Indian r\u00e1j\u00e1 and an Indian dhobie, or washerman, there is the\ngreatest possible difference socially, but individually--when both are\nnoodles--there may be sometimes very little to choose; indeed, of the\ntwo, all things considered, the difference, if any, is perhaps in favour\nof the humble cleanser of body-clothes. A favourite story in various\nparts of India, near akin to that last cited, is of a poor washerman and\nhis young ass. This simpleton one day, passing a school kept by a\nmullah, or Muhammedan doctor of laws, heard him scolding his pupils,\nexclaiming that they were still asses, although he had done so much to\nmake them men. The washerman thought that here was a rare chance, for he\nhappened to have the foal of the ass that carried his bundles of\nclothes, which, since he had no child, he should get the learned mullah\nto change into a boy. Thus thinking, he goes next day to the mullah, and\nasks him to admit his foal into his school, in order that it should be\nchanged into the human form and nature. The preceptor, seeing the poor\nfellow's simplicity, answered that the task was very laborious, and he\nmust have a fee of a hundred rup\u00eds. So the washerman went home, and soon\nreturned leading his foal, which, with the money, he handed over to the\nteacher, who told him to come again on such a day and hour, when he\nshould find that the change he desired had been effected. But the\nwasherman was so impatient that he went to the teacher several times\nbefore the day appointed, and was informed that the foal was beginning\nto learn manners, that its ears were already become very much shorter,\nand, in short, that it was making satisfactory progress.\n\nIt happened, when the day came on which he was to receive his young ass\ntransformed into a fine, well-educated boy, the simpleton was kept busy\nwith his customers' clothes, but on the day following he found time to\ngo to the teacher, who told him it was most unfortunate he had not come\nat the appointed hour, since the youth had quitted the school yesterday,\nrefusing to submit any longer to authority; but the teacher had just\nlearned that he had been made k\u00e1z\u00ed (or judge) in Cawnpore. At first the\nwasherman was disposed to be angry, but reflecting that, after all, the\nbusiness was better even than he anticipated, he thanked the preceptor\nfor all his care and trouble, and returned home. Having informed his\nwife of his good luck, they resolved to visit their quondam young foal,\nand get him to make them some allowance out of his now ample means. So,\nshutting up their house, they travelled to Cawnpore, which they reached\nin safety. Being directed to the k\u00e1z\u00ed's court, the washerman, leaving\nhis wife outside, entered, and discovered the k\u00e1z\u00ed seated in great\ndignity, and before him were the pleaders, litigants, and officers of\nthe court. He had brought a bridle in one hand and a wisp of hay in the\nother; but being unable, on account of the crowd, to approach the k\u00e1z\u00ed,\nhe got tired of waiting, so, holding up the bridle and the hay, he cried\nout, \"Khoor! khoor! khoor!\" as he used to do in calling his donkeys,\nthinking this would induce the k\u00e1z\u00ed to come to him. But, instead of\nthis, he was seized by the k\u00e1z\u00ed's order and locked up for creating a\ndisturbance.\n\nWhen the business of the court was over, the k\u00e1z\u00ed, pitying the supposed\nmadman, sent for him to learn the reason of his strange behaviour, and\nin answer to his inquiries the simpleton said, \"You don't seem to know\nme, sir, nor recognise this bridle, which has been in your mouth so\noften. You appear to forget that you are the foal of one of my asses,\nthat I got changed into a man, for the fee of a hundred rupis, by a\nlearned mullah who transforms asses into educated men. You forget what\nyou were, and, I suppose, will be as little submissive to me as you were\nto the mullah when you ran away from him.\" All present were convulsed\nwith laughter: such a \"case\" was never heard of before. But the k\u00e1z\u00ed,\nseeing how the mullah had taken advantage of the poor fellow's\nsimplicity, gave him a present of a hundred rupis, besides sufficient\nfor the expenses of his journey home, and so dismissed him.\n\n A party of rogues once found as great a blockhead in a rich Indian\nherdsman, to whom they said, \"We have asked the daughter of a wealthy\ninhabitant of the town in marriage for you, and her father has promised\nto give her.\" He was much pleased to hear this, and gave them an ample\nreward for their trouble. After a few days they came again and told him\nthat his marriage had taken place. Again he gave them rich presents for\ntheir good news. Some more days having passed, they said to him, \"A son\nhas been born to you,\" at which he was in ecstacies and gave them all\nhis remaining wealth; but the next day, when he began to lament, saying,\n\"I am longing to see my son,\" the people laughed at him on account of\nhis having been cheated by the rogues, as if he had acquired the\nstupidity of cattle from having so much to do with them.\n\nIt is not generally known that the incident which forms the subject of\nthe droll Scotch song \"The Barring of the Door,\" which also occurs in\nthe _Nights_ of Straparola, is of Eastern origin. In an Arabian\ntale, a blockhead, having married his pretty cousin, gave the customary\nfeast to their relations and friends. When the festivities were over, he\nconducted his guests to the door, and from absence of mind neglected to\nshut it before returning to his wife. \"Dear cousin,\" said his wife to\nhim when they were alone, \"go and shut the street door.\" \"It would be\nstrange indeed,\" he replied, \"if I did such a thing. Am I just made a\nbridegroom, clothed in silk, wearing a shawl and a dagger set with\ndiamonds, and am I to go and shut the door? Why, my dear, you are crazy.\nGo and shut it yourself.\" \"Oh, indeed!\" exclaimed the wife. \"Am I,\nyoung, robed in a dress, with lace and precious stones--am I to go and\nshut the street door? No, indeed! It is you who are become crazy, and\nnot I. Come, let us make a bargain,\" she continued; \"and let the first\nwho speaks go and fasten the door.\" \"Agreed,\" said the husband, and\nimmediately he became mute, and the wife too was silent, while they both\nsat down, dressed as they were in their nuptial attire, looking at each\nother and seated on opposite sofas. Thus they remained for two hours.\nSome thieves happened to pass by, and seeing the door open, entered and\nlaid hold of whatever came to their hands. The silent couple heard\nfootsteps in the house, but opened not their mouths. The thieves came\ninto the room and saw them seated motionless and apparently indifferent\nto all that might take place. They continued their pillage, therefore,\ncollecting together everything valuable, and even dragging away the\ncarpets from beneath them; they laid hands on the noodle and his wife,\ntaking from their persons every article of jewellery, while they, in\nfear of losing the wager, said not a word. Having thus cleared the\nhouse, the thieves departed quietly, but the pair continued to sit,\nuttering not a syllable. Towards morning a police officer came past on\nhis tour of inspection, and seeing the door open, walked in. After\nsearching all the rooms and finding no person, he entered their\napartment, and inquired the meaning of what he saw. Neither of them\nwould condescend to reply. The officer became angry, and ordered their\nheads to be cut off. The executioner's sword was about to perform its\noffice, when the wife cried out, \"Sir, he is my husband. Do not kill\nhim!\" \"Oh, oh,\" exclaimed the husband, overjoyed and clapping his hands,\n\"you have lost the wager; go and shut the door.\" He then explained the\nwhole affair to the police officer, who shrugged his shoulders and went\naway.[6]\n\nA party of noodles are substituted for the husband and wife in a Turkish\nversion of the tale, in the _History of the Forty Vazirs. _ Some\nbang-eaters,[7] while out walking, found a sequin. They said, \"Let us go\nto a cook, and buy food and eat.\" So they went and entered a cook's shop\nand said, \"Master, give us a sequin's worth of food.\" The cook prepared\nall kinds of food, and loaded a porter with it; and the bang-eaters took\nhim without the city, where there was a ruined tomb, which they entered\nand sat down in, and the porter deposited the food and went away. The\nbang-eaters began to partake of the food, when suddenly one of them\nsaid, \"The door is open; do one of you shut it, else some other\nbang-eaters will come in and annoy us: even though they be friends, they\nwill do the deeds of foes.\" One of them replied, \"Go thou and shut the\ndoor,\" and they fell a-quarrelling. At length one said, \"Come, let us\nagree that whichever of us speaks or laughs shall rise and fasten the\ndoor.\" They all agreed to this proposal, and left the food and sat quite\nstill. Suddenly a great number of dogs came in; not one of the\nbang-eaters stirred or spoke, for if one spoke he would have to rise and\nshut the door, so they spoke not. The dogs made an end of the food, and\nate it all up. Just then another dog leapt in from without, but no food\nremained. Now one of the bang-eaters had partaken of everything, and\nsome of the food remained about his mouth and on his beard. That newly\ncome dog licked up the particles of food that were on the bang-eater's\nbreast, and while he was licking up those about his mouth, he took his\nlip for a piece of meat and bit it. The bang-eater did not stir, for he\nsaid within himself, \"They will tell me to shut the door.\" But to ease\nhis soul he cried, \"Ough!\" inwardly cursing the dog. When the other\nbang-eaters heard him make that noise, they said, \"Rise, fasten the\ndoor.\" He replied, \"After loss, attention! Now that the food is gone,\nand my lip is wounded, what is the use of shutting that door?\" and\ncrying, \"Woe! alas!\" they each went in a different direction.[8]\n\nA similar story is known in Kashmir: Five friends chanced to meet, and\nall having leisure, they decided to go to the bazaar and purchase a\nsheep's head, and have a great feast in the house of one of the party,\neach of whom subscribed four annas. The head was bought, but while they\nwere returning to the house it was remembered that there was not any\nbutter. On this one of the five proposed that the first of them that\nshould break silence by speaking should go for the butter. Now it was no\nlight matter to have to retrace one's steps back to the butter-shop, as\nthe way was long and the day was very hot. So they all five kept strict\nsilence. Pots were cleaned, the fire was prepared, and the head laid\nthereon. Now and then one would cough, and another would groan, but\nnever a tongue uttered a word, though the fire was fast going out, and\nthe head was getting burnt, owing to there being no fat or butter\nwherewith to grease the pot. Thus matters were when a policeman passed\nby, and, attracted by the smell of cooking, looked in at the window, and\nsaw these five men perfectly silent and sitting around a burnt sheep's\nhead. Not knowing the arrangement, he supposed that these men were\neither mad or were thieves, and so he inquired how they came there, and\nhow they obtained the head. Not a word was uttered in reply. \"Why are\nyou squatting there in that stupid fashion?\" shouted the policeman.\nStill no reply. Then the policeman, full of rage that these wretched men\nshould thus mock at his authority, took them all off straight to the\npolice inspectors office. On arrival the inspector asked them the reason\nof their strange behaviour, but he also got no reply. This rather tried\nthe patience and temper of the man of authority, who was generally\nfeared, and flattered, and bribed. So he ordered one of the five to be\nimmediately flogged. The poor fool bore it bravely, and uttered never a\nsound; but when the blows repeatedly fell on the same wounded parts, he\ncould endure no longer, and cried out, \"Oh! oh! Why do you beat me?\nEnough, enough! Is it not enough that the sheep's head has been\nspoiled?\"\n\nHis four associates now cried out, \"Go to the bazaar and fetch the\nbutter.\"[9]\n\nThere is quite as droll a version current among the people of Ceylon, to\nthe following effect: A gentleman once had in his employment twenty-five\nidiots. In the old times it was customary with Sinhalese high families\nnot to allow their servants to eat from plates, but every day they were\nsupplied with plantain leaves, from which they took their food. After\neating, they were accustomed to shape the leaf into the form of a cup\nand drink out of it. Now in this gentleman's house the duty of providing\nthe leaves devolved upon the twenty-five idiots, who were scarcely fit\nfor any other work. One day, when they had gone into the garden to cut\nthe leaves, they spoke among themselves and said, \"Why should we, every\none of us, trouble ourselves to fetch plantain leaves, when one only\ncould very easily do it? Let us therefore lie down on the ground and\nsleep like dead men, and let him who first utters a sound or opens his\neyes undertake the work.\" It was no sooner said than done. The men lay\nin a heap like so many logs. At breakfast-time that day the hungry\nservants went to the kitchen for their rice, only to be disappointed. No\nleaves were forthcoming on which to distribute the food, and a complaint\nwas made to the master that the twenty-five idiots had not returned to\nthe house since they went out in the morning. Search was at once made,\nand they were found fast asleep in the garden. After vainly endeavouring\nto rouse them, the master concluded that they were dead, and ordered his\nservants to dig a deep hole and bury them. A grave was then dug, and the\nidiots were, one by one, thrown into it, but still there was no noise or\nmotion on their part. At length, when they were all put into the grave,\nand were being covered up, a tool employed by one of the servants hit\nsharply by accident against the leg of one of the idiots, who then\ninvoluntarily moaned. Thereupon all the others exclaimed, \"You were the\nfirst to utter a sound; therefore from henceforth you must take upon\nyourself the duty of providing the plantain leaves.\"[10]\n\nIt has already been remarked that a literary Italian version of the\nSilent Couple is found in the _Nights_ of Straparola, but there are\nother variants orally current among the common people in different parts\nof Italy. This is one from Venice: There were once a husband and a wife.\nThe former said one day to the latter, \"Let us have some fritters.\" She\nreplied, \"What shall we do for a frying-pan?\" \"Go and borrow one from my\ngodmother.\" \"You go and get it; it is only a little way off.\" \"Go\nyourself, and I will take it back when we are done with it.\" So she went\nand borrowed the pan, and when she returned said to her husband, \"Here\nis the pan, but you must carry it back.\" So they cooked the fritters,\nand after they had eaten, the husband said, \"Now let us go to work, both\nof us, and the one who speaks first shall carry back the pan.\" Then she\nbegan to spin, and he to draw his thread--for he was a shoemaker--and\nall the time keeping silence, except that when he drew his thread he\nsaid, \"Leuler\u00f2! leuler\u00f2!\" and she, spinning, answered, \"Picic\u00ec! picic\u00ec!\npicici\u00f2!\" And they said not another word. Now there happened to pass\nthat way a soldier with a horse, and he asked a woman if there was any\nshoemaker in that street. She said there was one near by, and took him\nto the house. The, soldier asked the shoemaker to come and cut his horse\na girth, and he would pay him. The latter made no answer but \"Leuler\u00f2!\nleuler\u00f2!\" and his wife \"Picic\u00ec! picic\u00ec! picici\u00f2!\" Then the soldier said,\n\"Come and cut my horse a girth, or I will cut your head off.\" The\nshoemaker only answered, \"Leuler\u00f2! leuler\u00f2!\" and his wife \"Picic\u00ec!\npicic\u00ec! picici\u00f2!\" Then the soldier began to grow angry, and seized his\nsword, and said to the shoemaker, \"Either come and cut my horse a girth,\nor I will cut your head off.\" But to no purpose. The shoemaker did not\nwish to be the first one to speak, and only replied, \"Leuler\u00f2! leuler\u00f2!\"\nand his wife \"Picic\u00ec! picic\u00ec! picici\u00f2!\" Then the soldier got mad in good\nearnest, seized the shoemaker's head, and was going to cut it off. When\nhis wile saw that, she cried out, \"Ah, don't, for mercy's sake!\" \"Good!\"\nexclaimed her husband, \"good! Now you go and carry the pan back to my\ngodmother, and I will go and cut the horse's girth.\"\n\nIn a Sicilian version the man and wife fry some fish, and then set about\ntheir respective work--shoemaking and spinning--and the one who finishes\nfirst the piece of work begun is to eat the fish. While they are singing\nand whistling at their work, a friend comes along, who knocks at the\ndoor, but receives no answer. Then he enters and speaks to them, but\nstill no reply. Finally, in anger, he sits down at the table, and eats\nup all the fish himself.[11]\n\nThus, it will be observed, the droll incident which forms the subject of\nthe old Scotch song of \"The Barring of the Door\" is of world-wide\ncelebrity.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nGothamite stories appear to have been familiar throughout Europe during\nthe later Middle Ages, if we may judge from a chapter of the _Gesta\nRomanorum_ in which the monkish compiler has curiously \"moralised\"\nthe actions of three noodles:\n\nWe read in the \"Lives of the Fathers\" that an angel showed to a certain\nholy man three men labouring under a triple fatuity. The first made a\nfaggot of wood, and because it was too heavy for him to carry, he added\nto it more wood, hoping by such means to make it light.  The second drew\nwater with great labour from a very deep well with a sieve, which he\nincessantly filled.  The third carried a beam in his chariot, and,\nwishing to enter his house, whereof the gate was so narrow and low that\nit would not admit him, he violently whipped his horse until they both\nfell together into a deep well. Having shown this to the holy man, the\nangel said, \"What think you of these three men?\" \"That they are fools,\"\nanswered he. \"Understand, however,\" returned the angel, \"that they\nrepresent the sinners of this world. The first describes that kind of\nmen who from day to day do add new sins to the old, because they cannot\nbear the weight of those which they already have. The second man\nrepresents those who do good, but do it sinfully, and therefore it is of\nno benefit. And the third person is he who would enter the kingdom of\nheaven with all his world of vanities, but is cast down into hell.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAnd now a few more Indian and other stories of the Gothamite class to\nconclude the present section. In M\u00e1lava there were two Br\u00e1hman brothers,\nand the wealth inherited from their father was left jointly between\nthem. And while they were dividing that wealth they quarrelled about one\nhaving too little and one having too much, and they made a teacher\nlearned in the Vedas arbitrator, and he said to them, \"You must divide\neverything your father left into two halves, so that you may not quarrel\nabout the inequality of the division.\" When the two fools heard this,\nthey divided every single thing into two equal parts--house, beds, in\nfact, all their property, including their cattle. Henry Stephens (Henri\nEstienne), in the Introduction to his Apology for Herodotus,[12] relates\nsome very amusing noodle-stories, such as of him who, burning his shins\nbefore the fire, and not having wit enough to go back from it, sent for\nmasons to remove the chimney; of the fool who ate the doctor's\nprescription, because he was told to \"take it;\" of another wittol who,\nhaving seen one spit upon iron to try whether it was hot, did likewise\nwith his porridge; and, best of all, he tells of a fellow who was hit on\nthe back with a stone as he rode upon his mule, and cursed the animal\nfor kicking him. This last exquisite jest has its analogue in that of\nthe Irishman who was riding on an ass one fine day, when the beast, by\nkicking at the flies that annoyed him, got one of its hind feet\nentangled in the stirrup, whereupon the rider dismounted, saying,\n\"Faith, if you're going to get up, it's time I was getting down.\"\n\nThe poet Ovid alludes to the story of Ino persuading the women of the\ncountry to roast the wheat before it was sown, which may have come to\nIndia through the Greeks, since we are told in the _Kath\u00e1 Sarit\nS\u00e1gara_ of a foolish villager who one day roasted some sesame seeds,\nand finding them nice to eat, he sowed a large quantity of roasted\nseeds, hoping that similar ones would come up. The story also occurs in\nCoelho's _Contes Portuguezes_, and is probably of Buddhistic\norigin. And an analogous story is told of an Irishman who gave his hens\nhot water, in order that they should lay boiled eggs!\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] This notion, that schoolmasters \"lack wit,\" however absurd, seems to\nhave been entertained from ancient times, and to be still prevalent in\nthe East; the so-called jests of Hierokles are all at the expense of\npedants; and the Turkish typical noodle is Khoja _(i.e.,_ Teacher)\nNasru-'d-D\u00edn, some of whose \"witless devices\" shall be cited presently.\n\n[2] _Elf Laylawa Layla_, or, The Book of a Thousand Nights and a\nNight. Translated, with Introduction, Notes on the Manners and Customs\nof Moslem Men, and a Terminal Essay on the History of _The Nights_,\nby R.F. Burton. Vol. v.\n\n[3] The Khoja, however, was not such a fool as we might conclude from\nthe foregoing examples of his sayings and doings; for, being asked one\nday what musical instrument he liked best, he answered, \"I am very fond\nof the music of plates and saucepans.\"\n\n[4] In China wine is almost invariably taken hot, according to Davis, in\nhis work on the Chinese.\n\n[5] This and the following specimens of Chinese stories of simpletons\nare from \"Contes et Bon Mots extraits d'un livre chinois intitule\n_Siao li Siao_, traduit par M. Stanislas Julien,\" (_Journal\nAsiatique_, tom. iv., 1824).\n\n[6] In another Arabian version, the man desires his wife to moisten some\nstale bread she has set before him for supper, and she refuses. After an\naltercation it is agreed that the one who speaks first shall get up and\nmoisten the bread.  A neighbour comes in, and, to his surprise, finds\nthe couple dumb; he kisses the wife, but the man says nothing; he gives\nthe man a blow, but still he says nothing; he has the man taken before\nthe k\u00e1z\u00ed, but even yet he says nothing; the k\u00e1z\u00ed orders him to be\nhanged, and he is led off to execution, when the wife rushes up and\ncries out, \"Oh, save my poor husband!\"  \"You wretch,\" says the man, \"go\nhome and moisten the bread!\"\n\n[7]  Bang is a preparation of hemp and coarse opium.\n\n[8] From Mr. E.J.W. Gibb's translation of the _Forty Vazirs_\n(London: 1886).\n\n[9] Knowles' _Dictionary of Kashm\u00edr\u00ed Proverbs and Sayings_, pp.\n197-8. The article bought by the five men is called a _hir_, which\nMr. Knowles says \"is the head of any animal used for food,\" and a\n_sheep's_ head were surely fitting food for such noodles. Mr.\nKnowles makes it appear that the whole affair of keeping silence was a\nmere jest, but we have before seen that it is decidedly meant for a\nnoodle-story.\n\n[10] _The Orientalist_, 1884, p. 136.\n\n[11] Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 284-5.\n\n[12] A separate work from the _Apologie pour Herodote_ Such was the\nexasperation of the French clerics at the bitter truths set forth in it,\nthat the author had to flee the country. An English translation,\nentitled \"_A World of Wonders;_ or, an introduction to a Treatise\ntovching the Conformitie of Ancient and Modern Wonders; or, a\nPreparative Treatise to the 'Apologie for Herodotus,'\" etc., was\npublished at London in 1607, folio, and at Edinburgh 1608, also folio.\nThe _Apologie pour Herodote_ was printed at the Hague.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nTHE SILLY SON.\n\n\nAmong the favourite jests of all peoples, from Iceland to Japan, from\nIndia to England, are the droll adventures and mishaps of the silly son,\nwho contrives to muddle everything he is set to do. In vain does his\npoor mother try to direct him in \"the way he should go\": she gets him a\nwife, as a last resource; but a fool he is still, and a fool he will\nalways be. His blunders and disasters are chronicled in penny chap-books\nand in nursery rhymes, of infinite variety. Who has not heard how\n\n  Simple Simon went a-fishing\n    For to catch a whale,\n  But all the water he had got\n    Was in his mother's pail?\n\nan adventure which recalls another nursery rhyme regarding Simon's still\nmore celebrated prototypes:\n\n  Three men of Gotham\n  Went to sea in a bowl;\n  If the bowl had been stronger,\n  My tale had been longer.\n\nThen there is the prose history of _Simple Simon's Misfortunes; or,\nhis Wife Marjory's Outrageous Cruelty_, which tells (1) of Simon's\nwedding, and how his wife Marjory scolded him for putting on his\nroast-meat clothes (_i.e.,_ Sunday clothes) the very next morning\nafter he was married; (2) how she dragged him up the chimney in a\nbasket, a-smoke-drying, wherein they used to dry bacon, which made him\nlook like a red herring; (3) how Simon lost a sack of corn as he was\ngoing to the mill to have it ground; (4) how Simon went to market with a\nbasket of eggs, but broke them by the way: also how he was put into the\nstocks; (5) how Simon's wife cudgelled him for not bringing her money\nfor the eggs; (6) how Simon lost his wife's pail and burnt the bottom of\nher kettle; (7) how Simon's wife sent him to buy two pounds of soap, but\ngoing over the bridge, he let his money fall in the river: also how a\nragman ran away with his clothes. No wonder if, after this crowning\nmisfortune, poor Simon \"drank a bottle of sack, to poison himself, as\nbeing weary of his life\"!\n\nAgain, we have _The Unfortunate Son; or, a Kind Wife is worth Gold,\nbeing full of Mirth and Pastime_, which commences thus:\n\n  There was a man but one son had,\n    And he was all his joy;\n  But still his fortune was but bad,\n    Though he was a pretty boy.\n\n  His father sent him forth one day\n    To feed a flock of sheep,\n  And half of them were stole away\n    While he lay down asleep!\n\n  Next day he went with one Tom Goff\n    To reap as he was seen,\n  When he did cut his fingers off,\n    The sickle was so keen!\n\nAnother of the chap-book histories of noodles is that of _Simple John\nand his Twelve Misfortunes_, an imitation of _Simple Simon_; it\nwas still popular amongst the rustics of Scotland fifty years ago.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe adventures of Silly Matt, the Norwegian counterpart of our typical\nEnglish booby, as related in Asbjornson's collection of Norse\nfolk-tales, furnish some curious examples of the transmission of popular\nfictions:\n\nThe mother of Silly Matt tells him one day that he should build a bridge\nacross the river and take toll of every one who wished to go over it; so\nhe sets to work with a will, and when the bridge is finished, stands at\none end--\"at the receipt of custom.\" Three men come up with loads of\nhay, and Matt demands toll of them, so they each give him a wisp of hay.\nNext comes a pedlar, with all sorts of small wares in his pack, and Matt\ngets from him two needles. On his return home his mother asks him what\nhe has got that day. \"Hay and needles,\" says Matt. Well! and what had he\ndone with the hay? \"I put some of it in my mouth,\" quoth he, \"and as it\ntasted like grass, I threw it into the river.\" She says he ought to have\nspread it on the byre-floor. \"Very good,\" replies the dutiful Matt;\n\"I'll remember that next time.\" And what had he done with the needles?\nHe stuck them into the hay. \"Ah,\" says the mother, \"you should rather\nhave stuck them in and out of your cap, and brought them home to me.\"\nWell! well! Matt will not forget to do so next time. The following day a\nman comes to the bridge with a sack of meal and gives Matt a pound of\nit; then comes a smith, who gives him a gimlet: the meal he spread on\nthe byre-floor, and the gimlet he stuck in and out of his cap. His\nmother tells him he should have come home for a bucket to hold the meal,\nand the gimlet he should have put up his sleeve. Very good! Matt will\nnot forget next time. Another day some men come to the bridge with kegs\nof brandy, of which Matt gets a pint, and pours it into his sleeve; next\ncomes a man driving some goats and their young ones, and gives Matt a\nkid, which he treads down into a bucket. His mother says he should have\nled the goat home with a cord round its neck, and put the brandy in a\npail. Next day he gets a pat of butter and drags it home with a string.\nAfter this his mother despairs of his improvement, till it occurs to her\nthat he might not be such a noodle if he had a wife. So she bids him go\nand see whether he cannot find some lass who will take him for a\nhusband. Should he meet any folk on his way, he ought to say to them,\n\"God's peace!\" Matt accordingly sets off in quest of a wife, and meets a\nshe-wolf and her seven cubs. \"God's peace!\" says Matt, and then returns\nhome. When his mother learns of this, she tells him he should have\ncried, \"Huf! huf! you jade wolf!\" Next day he goes off again, and\nmeeting a bridal party, he cries, \"Huf! huf! you jade wolf!\" and goes\nback to his mother and acquaints her of this fresh adventure. \"O you\ngreat silly!\" says she; \"you should have said, 'Ride happily, bride and\nbridegroom!'\" Once more Matt sets out to seek a wife, and seeing on the\nroad a bear taking a ride on a horse, he exclaims joyfully, \"Ride\nhappily, bride and bridegroom!\" and then returns home. His mother, on\nhearing of this new piece of folly, tells him he should have cried, \"To\nthe devil with you!\" Again he sets out, and meeting a funeral\nprocession, he roars, \"To the devil with you!\" His mother says he should\nhave cried, \"May your poor soul have mercy!\" and sends him off for the\nfifth time to look for a lass. On the road he sees some gipsies busy\nskinning a dead dog, upon which he piously exclaims, \"May your poor soul\nhave mercy!\" His mother now goes herself to get him a wife, finds a lass\nthat is willing to marry him, and invites her to dinner. She privately\ntells Matt how he should comport himself in the presence of his\nsweetheart; he should cast an eye at her now and then. Matt understands\nher instruction most literally: stealing into the sheepfold, he plucks\nout the eyes of all the sheep and goats, and puts them in his pocket.\nWhen he is seated beside his sweetheart, he casts a \"sheep's eye\" at\nher, which hits her on the nose.[1]\n\nThis last incident, as we have seen, occurs in the _Tales of the Men\nof Gotham (\"ante_, p. 41\" in original. This section is to be found\nimmediately after the reference to Chapter II, Footnote 9 in this\ne-text), and it is also found in a Venetian story (Bernoni,\n_Fiabe_, No. 11) entitled \"The Fool,\" of which the following is the\nfirst part:\n\nOnce upon a time there was a mother who had a son with little brains.\nOne morning she said, \"We must get up early, for we have to make bread.\"\nSo they both rose early, and began to make bread. The mother made the\nloaves, but took no pains to make them the same size. Her son said to\nher finally, \"How small you have made this loaf, mother.\" \"Oh,\" said\nshe, \"it does not matter whether they are big or little, for the proverb\nsays, 'Large and small, all must go to mass.'\" \"Good! good!\" said her\nson. When the bread was made, instead of taking it to the baker's, the\nson took it to the church, for it was the hour for mass, saying, \"My\nmother said that, 'large and small, all must go to mass.'\" So he threw\nthe loaves down in the middle of the church. Then he went home to his\nmother, and said, \"I have done what you told me to do,\" \"Good! Did you\ntake the bread to the baker's?\" \"O mother, if you had seen how they all\nlooked at me!\" \"You might also have cast an eye on them in return,\" said\nhis mother. \"Wait; wait. I will cast an eye at them too,\" he exclaimed,\nand went to the stable and cut out the eyes of all the animals, and\nputting them in a handkerchief, went to the church, and when any man or\nwoman looked at him, he threw an eye at them.[2]\n\nSilly Matt has a brother in Russia, according to M. Leger's _Contes\nPopulaires Slaves_, published at Paris in 1882: An old man and his\nwife had a son, who was about as great a noodle as could be. One day his\nmother said to him, \"My son, thou shouldst go about among people, to get\nthyself sharpened and rubbed down a little.\" \"Yes, mother,\" says he;\n\"I'm off this moment.\" So he went to the village, and saw two men\nthreshing pease. He ran up to them, and rubbed himself now on one and\nthen on the other. \"No nonsense!\" cried the men. \"Get away.\" But he\ncontinued to rub himself on them, till at last they would stand it no\nlonger, and beat him with their flails so lustily that he could hardly\ncrawl home. \"What art thou crying about, child?\" asked his mother. He\nrelated his misfortune. \"Ah, my child,\" said she, \"how silly thou art!\nThou shouldst have said to them, 'God aid you, good men! Do you wish me\nto help you to thresh?' and then they would have given thee some pease\nfor thy trouble, and we should have had them to cook and eat.\" On\nanother occasion the noodle again went through the village, and met some\npeople carrying a dead man. \"May God aid you, good men!\" he exclaimed.\n\"Do you wish me to help you to thresh?\" But he got himself well thrashed\nonce more for this ill-timed speech. When he reached home, he howled,\n\"They've felled me to the ground, beaten me, and plucked my beard and\nhair!\" and told of his new mishap. \"Ah, noodle!\" said his mother, \"thou\nshouldst have said, 'God give peace to his soul!' Thou shouldst have\ntaken off thy bonnet, wept, and fallen upon thy knees. They would then\nhave given thee meat and drink.\" Again he went to the village, and met a\nmarriage procession. So he took off his bonnet, and cried with all his\nmight, \"God grant peace to his soul!\" and then burst into tears. \"What\nbrute is this?\" said the wedding company. \"We laugh and amuse ourselves,\nand he laments as if he were at a funeral.\" So they leaped out of the\ncarriages, and beat him soundly on the ribs. Home he returned, crying,\n\"They've beaten me, thrashed me, and torn my beard and hair!\" and\nrelated what had happened. \"My son,\" said his mother, \"thou shouldst\nhave leaped and danced with them.\" The next time he went to the village\nhe took his bagpipe under his arm. At the end of the street a cart-shed\nwas on fire. The noodle ran to the spot, and began to play on his\nbagpipe and to dance and caper about, for which he was abused as before.\nGoing back to his mother in tears, he told her how he had fared. \"My\nson,\" said she, \"thou shouldst have carried water and thrown it on the\nfire, like the other folks.\" Three days later, when his ribs were well\nagain, the noodle went through the village once more, and seeing a man\nroasting a little pig, he seized a vessel of water, ran up with it, and\nthrew the water on the fire. This time also he was beaten, and when he\ngot home, and told his mother of his ill-luck, she resolved never again\nto allow him to go abroad; so he remains by the fireside, as great a\nfool as ever.\n\n This species of noodle is also known in Japan. He is the hero of a\nfarce entitled _Hone Kaha_, or Ribs and Skin, which has been done\ninto English by Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, in his _Classical Poetry\nof the Japanese_. The rector of a Buddhist temple tells his curate\nthat he feels he is now getting too old for the duties of his office,\nand means to resign the benefice in his favour. Before retiring to his\nprivate chamber, he desires the curate to let him know if any persons\nvisit the temple, and bids him, should he be in want of information\nregarding any matter, to come to him. A parishioner calls to borrow an\numbrella. The curate lends him a new one, and then goes to the rector\nand informs him of this visitor. \"You have done wrong,\" says the rector.\n\"You ought to have said that you should have been happy to comply with\nsuch a small request, but, unfortunately, the rector was walking out\nwith it the other day, when, at a place where four roads meet, a sudden\ngust of wind blew the skin to one side and the ribs to another; we have\ntied the ribs and skin together in the middle, and hung it from the\nceiling. Something like that,\" adds the rector, \"something with an air\nof truth about it, is what you should have said.\" Next comes another\nparishioner, who wishes to borrow a horse. The curate replies with great\npoliteness, \"The request with which you honour me is a mere trifle, but\nthe rector took it out with him a few days since, and coming to the\njunction of four cross roads, a gust of wind blew the ribs to one side\nand the skin to another, and we have tied them together, and hung them\nfrom the ceiling; so I fear it would not suit your purpose.\" \"It is a\nhorse I want,\" said the man. \"Precisely--a horse: I am aware of it,\"\nquoth the curate, and the man went off, not a little perplexed, after\nwhich the curate reports this new affair to the rector, who says it was\nto an umbrella, not to a horse, that such a story was applicable. Should\nany one come again to borrow a horse, he ought to say, \"I much regret\nthat I cannot comply with your request. The fact is, we lately turned\nhim out to grass, and becoming frolicsome, he dislocated his thigh, and\nis now lying, covered with straw, in a corner of the stable.\" \"Something\nlike that,\" adds the rector, \"something with an air of truth about it,\nis what you should say.\" A third parishioner comes to invite the rector\nand the curate to a feast at his house. \"For myself,\" says the curate,\n\"I promise to come; but I fear it will not be convenient for the rector\nto accompany me.\" \"I presume then,\" says the man, \"that he has some\nparticular business on hand?\" \"No, not any particular business,\" answers\nthe curate; \"but the truth is, we lately turned him out to grass, and\nbecoming frisky, he dislocated his thigh, and now lies in a corner of\nthe stable, covered with straw.\" \"I spoke of the rector,\" says the\nparishioner. \"Yes, of the rector. I quite understand,\" responds the\ncurate, very complaisantly, upon which the man goes away, not knowing\nwhat to make of such a strange account of the rector's condition. This\nlast affair puts the rector into a fury, and he cuffs his intended\nsuccessor, exclaiming, \"When was I ever frisky, I should like to know?\"\n\n As great a jolterhead as any of the foregoing was the hero of a story\nin Cazotte's \"Continuation\" of the _Arabian Nights_, entitled\n\"L'Imb\u00e9cille; ou, L'Histoire de Xailoun,\"[3] This noodle's wife said to\nhim one day, \"Go and buy some pease, and don't forget that it is pease\nyou are to buy; continually repeat 'Pease!' till you reach the\nmarket-place.\" So he went off, with \"Pease! pease!\" always in his mouth.\nHe passed the corner of a street where a merchant who had pearls for\nsale was proclaiming his wares in a loud voice, saying, \"In the name of\nthe Prophet, pearls!\" Xailoun's attention was at once attracted by the\ndisplay of pearls, and at the same time he was occupied in retaining the\nlesson his wife had taught him, and putting his hand in the box of\npearls, he cried out, \"Pease! pease!\" The merchant, supposing Xailoun\nplayed upon him and depreciated his pearls by wishing to make them pass\nfor false ones, struck him a severe blow. \"Why do you strike me?\" said\nXailoun. \"Because you insult me,\" answered the merchant. \"Do you suppose\nI am trying to deceive people?\" \"No,\" said the noodle. \"But what must I\nsay, then?\" \"If you will cry properly, say as I do, 'Pearls, in the name\nof the Prophet!'\" He next passed by the shop of a merchant from whom\nsome pearls had been stolen, and his manner of crying, \"Pearls!\" etc.,\nwhich was not nearly so loud as usual, appeared to the merchant very\nsuspicious. \"The man who has stolen my pearls,\" thought he, \"has\nprobably recognised me, and when he passes my shop lowers his voice in\ncrying the goods.\" Upon this suspicion he ran after Xailoun, and\nstopping him, said, \"Show me your pearls.\" The poor fool was in great\nconfusion, and the merchant thought he had got the thief. The supposed\nseller of pearls was soon surrounded by a great crowd, and the merchant\nat last discovered that he was a perfect simpleton. \"Why,\" said he, \"do\nyou cry that you sell pearls?\" \"What should I say, then?\" asked Xailoun.\n\"It is not true,\" said the merchant, not listening to him.  \"It is not\ntrue,\" exclaimed the noodle. \"Let me repeat, 'It is not true,' that I\nmay not forget it;\" and as he went on he kept crying, \"It is not true.\"\nHis way led him towards a place where a man was proclaiming, \"In the\nname of the Prophet, lentils!\" Xailoun, induced by curiosity, went up to\nthe man, his mouth full of the last words he remembered, and putting his\nhand into the sack, cried, \"It is not true.\" The sturdy villager gave\nhim a blow that caused him to stagger, saying, \"What d'ye mean by giving\nme the lie about my goods, which I both sowed and reaped myself?\" Quoth\nthe noodle, \"I have only tried to say what I ought to say.\" \"Well,\nthen,\" rejoined the dealer, \"you ought to say, as I do, 'Lentils, in the\nname of the Prophet!'\" So our noodle at once took up this new cry, and\nproceeded on his way till he came to the bank of the river, where a\nfisherman had been casting his net for hours, and had frequently changed\nhis place, without getting any fish. Xailoun, who was amused with every\nnew thing he saw, began to follow the fisherman, and, that he should not\nforget his lesson, continued to repeat, \"Lentils, in the name of the\nProphet!\" Suddenly the fisherman made a pretence of spreading his net,\nin order to wring and dry it, and having folded in his hand the rope to\nwhich it was fastened, he took hold of the simpleton and struck him some\nfurious blows with it, saying, \"Vile sorcerer! cease to curse my\nfishing.\" Xailoun struggled, and at length disengaged himself. \"I am no\nsorcerer,\" said he. \"Well, if you are not,\" answered the fisherman, \"why\ndo you cause me bad luck by your words every time I throw my net?\" \"I\ndidn't mean to bring you bad luck,\" said the noodle. \"I only repeat what\nI was told to repeat.\" The fisherman then concluded that some of his\nenemies, who wished to do him an ill turn without exposing themselves,\nhad prevailed upon this poor fellow to come and curse his fishing, so he\nsaid, \"I am sorry, brother, for having beaten you, but you were wrong to\npronounce the words you did, thereby bringing bad luck to me, who never\ndid you any harm.\" Quoth the simpleton, \"I only tried to say the words\nmy wife told me not to forget.\" \"Do you know them?\" \"Yes.\" \"Well, place\nyourself beside me, and each time I cast my net you must say, 'In the\nname of the Prophet, instead of one, seven of the greatest and best!'\"\nBut Xailoun thought what his wife had said was not so long as that.\n\"Oh, yes, it was,\" said the fisherman; \"and take care you don't miss a\nsingle word, and I shall give you some of the fish to take home with\nyou.\" That he might not forget, Xailoun repeated it very loud, but as\n'he was afraid of the cord whenever he saw the fisherman drawing in his\nnet, he ran away as fast as he could, but still repeating, \"In the name\nof the Prophet, instead of one, seven of the greatest and best!\" These\nwords he pronounced in the midst of a crowd of people, through which the\ncorpse of the k\u00e1z\u00ed (magistrate, or judge) was being carried to the\nburying ground, and the mullahs who surrounded the bier, scandalised by\nwhat they thought a horrible imprecation, exclaimed, \"How darest thou,\nwicked wretch, thus blaspheme? Is it not enough that Death has taken one\nof the greatest men of Baghd\u00e1d?\" The poor simpleton was skulking off in\nfear and trembling, when his sleeve was pulled by an aged slave, who\ntold him that he ought to say, \"May Allah preserve his body and save his\nsoul!\" So our noodle went on, repeating this new cry till he came to a\nstreet where a dead ass was being carted away. \"May Allah preserve his\nbody and save his soul!\"' he exclaimed. \"How he blasphemes!\" said the\nfolk, and they set upon him with their fists and sticks, and gave him a\nsound drubbing. At length he got clear of them, and by chance came to\nthe house of his wife's mother, but he only ventured to stand at the\ndoor and peep within. He was recognised, however, and asked what he\nwould have to eat--goat's flesh? rice? _pease?_ Yes, it was pease\nhe wanted, and having got some, he hastened home, and after relating all\nhis mishaps, informed his wife, that her sister was very sick. His wife,\nhaving prepared herself to go to her mother's house, tells the simpleton\nto rock the baby should it awake and cry; feed the hen that was sitting;\nif the ass was thirsty, give her to drink; shut the door, and take care\nnot to go to sleep, lest robbers should come and plunder the house. The\nbaby awakes, and Xailoun rocks it to sleep again; so far, well. The hen\nseems uneasy; he concludes she is troubled with insects, like himself.\nSo he takes up the hen, and thinking the best way to kill the insects\nwas to stick a pin into them, he unluckily kills the hen. This was a\nserious matter, and while he considers what he should do in the\ncircumstances, the ass begins to bray. \"Ah,\" says he, \"I've no time to\nattend to you just now; but when I am on your back, you can carry me to\nthe river.\" Then he opened the door and let out the ass and her colt.\nAfter this he sat down on the eggs, and took the baby in his arms. His\nwife returning, knocks at the door. \"Let me in, you fool,\" she cries. \"I\ncan't, for I am nursing the baby and hatching the eggs.\" At length she\ncontrived to force open the door, and running up to her idiot of a\nhusband, fetched him a blow that caused him to crush all the\nhalf-hatched eggs. Luckily she had met the ass and her foal on the road,\nso the amount of mischief done by her stupid spouse in her absence was\nnot so great, all things considered.[4]\n\nThe misadventures of the Arabian idiot in his expedition to purchase\npease present a close analogy to those of the typical English booby,\nonly the latter end tragically:\n\nA woman sent her son one day to buy a sheep's head and pluck, and, lest\nhe should forget his message, he kept bawling loudly as he went along,\n\"Sheep's head and pluck! sheep's head and pluck!\" In getting over a\nstile he fell and hurt himself, and forgot what he was sent for, so he\nstood a little to consider; and at last he thought he recollected it,\nand began to shout, \"Liver and lights and gall and all!\" which he was\nrepeating when he came up to a man who was very sick. The man, thinking\nthe booby was mocking him, laid hold of him, and after cuffing him, bade\nthe booby cry, \"Pray God, send no more up!\" So he ran along uttering\nthese words till he came to a field where a man was sowing wheat, who,\non hearing what he took for a curse upon his labour, seized and thrashed\nhim, and told him to repeat, \"Pray God, send plenty more!\" So the young\njolterhead at once \"changed his tune,\" and was loudly singing out these\nwords when he met a funeral. The chief mourner punished him for what he\nthought his fiendish wish, and bade him say, \"Pray God, send the soul to\nheaven!\" which he was bawling when he met a he and a she-dog going to be\nhanged. The good people who heard him were greatly shocked at his\nseeming profanity, and striking him, strictly charged him to cry, \"A he\nand a she-dog going to be hanged!\" On he went, accordingly, repeating\nthis new cry, till he met a man and a woman going to be married. When\nthe bridegroom heard what the booby said, he gave him many a good thump,\nand bade him say, \"I wish you much joy!\" This he was crying at the top\nof his voice when he came to a pit into which two labourers had fallen,\nand one of them, enraged at what he thought his mockery of their\nmisfortune, exerted all his strength and scrambled out, then beat the\npoor simpleton, and told him to say, \"The one is out; I wish the other\nwas!\" Glad to be set free, the booby went on shouting these words till\nhe met with a one-eyed man, who, like the others, taking what he was\ncrying for a personal insult, gave him another drubbing, and then bade\nhim cry, \"The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!\" So\nhe adopted this new cry, and continued his adventurous journey till he\ncame to a house, one side of which was on fire. The people, hearing him\nbawling, \"The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!\" at\nonce concluded that he had set the house a-blazing; so they put him in\nprison, and the end was, the judge put on the black cap and condemned\nhim to be hanged![5]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen the noodle is persuaded, as in the following case of a Sinhalese\nwittol, by a gang of thieves to join them in a plundering expedition,\nthey have little reason to be pleased with him, for he does not make a\ngood \"cat's-paw.\" The Sinhalese noodle joined some thieves, took readily\nto their ways, and was always eager to accompany them on their marauding\nexcursions. One night they took him with them, and boring a large hole\nin the wall of a house,[6] they sent him in, telling him to hand out the\nheaviest article he could lay hands upon. He readily went in, and seeing\na large kurakkan-grinder,[7] thought that was the heaviest thing in the\nroom, and attempted to remove it. But it proved too much for him alone,\nso he gently awoke a man who was sleeping in the room, and said to him,\n\"My friend, pray help me to remove this kurakkan-grinder.\" The man\nimmediately guessed that thieves had entered the house, and gave the\nalarm. The thieves, who were waiting outside quite expectant, rushed\naway, and the noodle somehow or other managed to escape with them.\n\nNext night they again took him along with them, and after boring a hole\nin the wall of another house, sent him in with strict injunctions not to\nmake a noise or wake anybody. He crept in noiselessly and entered a\nlarge room, in which was an old woman, fast asleep by the fire, with\nwide-open mouth. An earthen chattie, a wooden spoon, and a small bag of\npease were also placed by the fire. The noodle first proceeded to roast\nsome pease in the chattie. When they were roasted to a nice brownish\ncolour, and emitted a very tempting smell, he thought that the old woman\nmight also enjoy a mouthful. He considered for a while how he might best\noffer some to her. He did not wish to wake her, as he was ordered not to\nwake anybody. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. Why should he not feed\nher? There she was sleeping with her mouth wide open. Surely it would be\nno difficult task to put some pease into her mouth. Taking some of the\nhot, smoking pease into the wooden spoon, he put the contents into her\nmouth. The woman awoke, screaming with all her might. The noise roused\nthe other inmates of the house, who came rushing to the spot to see what\nwas the matter. This time also the noodle managed to escape with the\nthieves; but in a subsequent adventure he, as well as the thieves, came\nto grief.[8]\n\nThe silly son of Italian popular tales is represented as being sent by\nhis mother to sell a piece of linen which she had woven, saying to him,\n\"Now listen attentively to what I say: Walk straight along the road.\nDon't take less than such a price for this linen. Don't have any\ndealings with women who chatter. Whether you sell it to any one you meet\non the way, or carry it into the market, offer it only to some quiet\nsort of body whom you may see standing apart and not gossiping or\nprating, for such as they will persuade you to take some sort of price\nthat won't suit me at all.\" The booby answers, \"Yes, mamma,\" and goes\noff on his errand, keeping straight on, instead of taking the turnings\nleading to villages. It happened, as he went along, that the wife of the\nsyndic of the next town was driving out with her maids, and had got out\nof the carriage, to walk a short distance, as the day was fine. Her maid\ntells her that there goes the simple son of the poor widow by the brook.\n\"What are you going to do, my good lad?\" kindly asks the lady. \"I'm not\ngoing to tell you,\" says the booby, \"because you were chattering.\" \"I\nsee your mother has sent you to sell this linen,\" continues the lady; \"I\nwill buy it of you,\" and she offers to pay twice as much as his mother\nhad said she wanted. \"Can't sell it to you,\" replies he, \"for you were\nchattering,\" and he continues his journey. Farther along he comes to a\nplaster statue by the roadside, so he says to himself, \"Here's one who\nstands apart and doesn't chatter; this is the one to sell the linen to,\"\nthen aloud, \"Will you buy my linen, good friend?\" The statue maintained\nits usual taciturnity, and the booby concluded, as it did not speak, it\nwas all right, so he said, \"The price is so-and-so; have the money ready\nby the time I come back, as I have to go on and buy some yarn for\nmother.\" On he went accordingly, and bought the yarn, and then came back\nto the statue. Some one passing by had in the meantime taken the linen.\nFinding it gone, \"It's all right,\" says he to himself; \"she's taken it,\"\nthen aloud, \"Where's the money I told you to have ready?\" The statue\nremained silent. \"If you don't give me the money, I'll hit you on the\nhead,\" he exclaimed, and raising his stick, he knocked the head off, and\nfound it filled with gold coin. \"That's where you keep your money, is\nit? All right; I can pay myself.\" So saying, he filled his pockets with\nthe coin and went home. When he handed his mother the money, and told\nher of his adventure with the quiet body by the roadside, she was afraid\nlest the neighbours should learn of her windfall if the booby knew its\nvalue, so she said to him, \"You've only brought me a lot of rusty nails;\nbut never mind: you'll know better what to do next time,\" and put the\nmoney in an earthen jar. In her absence, a ragman comes to the house,\nand the booby asks him, \"Will you buy some rusty nails?\" The man desires\nto see them. \"Well,\" quoth he on beholding the treasure, \"they're not\nmuch worth, but I'll give you twelve pauls for the lot,\" and having\nhanded over the sum, went off with his prize. When his mother comes\nhome, the booby tells her what a bargain he had made for the rusty\nnails. \"Nails!\" she echoes, in consternation. \"Why, you foolish thing,\nthey were gold coins!\" \"Can't help that now, mamma,\" he answers\nphilosophically; \"you told me they were old rusty nails.\" By another\nlucky adventure, however, the booby is enabled to make up his mother's\nloss, finding a treasure which a party of robbers had left behind them\nat the foot of a tree.\n\nThe incident of a simpleton selling something to an inanimate object and\ndiscovering a hidden treasure occurs, in different forms, in the\nfolk-tales of Asiatic as well as European countries. In a manuscript\ntext of the _Arabian Nights_, brought from Constantinople by\nWortley Montague, and now preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, a\nmore elaborate version of the Italian booby's adventure with the statue\nis found, in the \"Story of the Bang-eater and his Wife:\"\n\nIn former times there lived not far from Baghdad a half-witted fellow,\nwho was much addicted to the use of bang. Being reduced to poverty, he\nwas obliged to sell his cow, which he took to the market one day, but\nthe animal being in such a poor condition, no one would buy it, and\nafter waiting till he was weary he returned homeward. On the way he\nstopped to repose himself under a tree, and tied the cow to one of the\nbranches, while he ate some bread, and drank an infusion of his bang,\nwhich he always carried with him. In a short time it began to operate,\nso as to bereave him of the little sense he had, and his head was filled\nwith ridiculous reveries. While he was musing, a bird beginning to\nchatter from her nest in the tree, he fancied it was a human voice, and\nthat some woman had offered to purchase his cow, upon which he said,\n\"Reverend mother of Solomon,[9] dost thou wish to buy my cow?\" The bird\nagain chattered. \"Well,\" replied he, \"what wilt thou give? I will sell\nher a bargain.\" The bird repeated her noise. \"Never mind,\" said the\nfool, \"for though thou hast forgotten to bring thy purse, yet, as I\ndaresay thou art an honest woman, and hast bidden me ten dinars, I will\ntrust thee with the cow, and call on Friday for the money.\" The bird\nrenewed her chattering; so, leaving the cow tied to a branch of the\ntree, he returned home, exulting in the good bargain he had made for the\nanimal. When he entered the house, his wife inquired what he had got for\nthe cow, and he replied that he had sold her to an honest woman, who had\npromised to pay him ten pieces of gold next Friday. The wife was\ncontented; and when Friday arrived, her noodle of a husband having, as\nusual, taken a dose of bang, repaired to the tree, and hearing the bird\nchattering as before, said, \"Well, good mother, hast thou brought the\ngold?\" The bird croaked. The blockhead, supposing the imaginary woman\nrefused to pay him, became angry, and threw up a stone, which\nfrightening the bird, it flew from its nest in the tree and alighted on\na heap of ruins at some little distance. He now concluded that the woman\nhad desired him to take his money from the heap, into which he\naccordingly dug, and found a copper vessel full of coin. This discovery\nconvinced him he was right, and being withal an honest fellow, he only\ntook ten pieces; then replacing the soil, \"May Allah requite thee for\nthy punctuality, good mother!\" he exclaimed, and returned to his wife,\nto whom he gave the money, informing her at the same time of the great\ntreasure his friend the imaginary old woman possessed, and where it was\nconcealed.\n\nThe wife waited till night, when she brought away the pot of gold, which\nher foolish husband observing, he said, \"It is dishonest to rob one who\nhas paid us so punctually; and if thou dost not return it to its place,\nI will inform the wal\u00ed\" (governor of the city). She laughed at his\nsimplicity, but fearing that he would execute his threat, she planned a\nstratagem to render it of no avail. Going to market, she purchased some\nmeat and fish ready cooked, which she brought privately home, and\nconcealed in the house. At night, while her husband was sleeping off the\neffects of his favourite narcotic, she strewed the provisions she had\nbrought outside the door, and then awakening him, cried out, \"Dear\nhusband, a most wonderful thing has occurred: there has been a violent\nstorm while you slept, and, strange to tell, it has rained pieces of\nbroiled meat and fish, which now lie at the door!\" The blockhead got up,\nand seeing the food, was persuaded of the truth of his wife's story. The\nflesh and fish were gathered up, and he partook with much glee of the\nmiraculous treat, but still said he would tell the wal\u00ed of her having\nstolen the treasure of the honest old woman.\n\nIn the morning he actually repaired to the wal\u00ed, and informed him that\nhis wife had stolen a pot of gold, which she had still in her\npossession. Upon this the wal\u00ed had the woman apprehended. She denied the\naccusation, and was then threatened with death. \"My lord,\" said she,\n\"the power is in your hands; but I am an injured woman, as you will find\nby questioning my husband, who is deranged in his intellect. Ask him\nwhen I committed the theft.\" The wal\u00ed did so, and the simpleton\nanswered, \"It was the evening of that night when it rained broiled fish\nand ready-cooked flesh.\" On hearing this, \"Wretch!\" exclaimed the wal\u00ed\nin a fury, \"dost thou dare to utter falsehoods before me? Who ever saw\nit rain anything but water?\" \"As I hope for life,\" replied the fool, \"I\nspeak the truth; for my wife and myself ate of the fish and flesh which\nfell from the clouds.\" The woman, being appealed to, denied the\nassertion of her husband. The wal\u00ed, now convinced that the man was\ncrazy, released the woman, and sent her husband to the madhouse, where\nhe remained for some days, till his wife, pitying his condition,\ncontrived to get him set at liberty. She visited her husband, and\ncounselled him, should any one ask him if he had seen it rain fish and\nflesh, to answer, \"No; who ever saw it rain anything but water?\" Then\nshe informed the keeper that he was come to his senses, and suggested he\nshould question him; and on the poor fellow answering properly he was\nreleased.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIn a Russian variant, an old man had three sons, one of whom was a\nnoodle. When the old man died, his property was shared between the\nbrothers, but all that the simpleton received was one ox, which he took\nto the market to sell. On his way he chanced to pass an old birch-tree,\nwhich creaked and groaned in the wind. He thinks the tree is offering to\nbuy his ox, and so he says, \"Well, you shall have it for twenty\nroubles.\" But the tree only creaked and creaked, and he fancied it was\nasking the ox on credit. \"Very good,\" says he. \"You'll pay me tomorrow?\nI'll wait till then.\" So he ties the ox to the tree and goes home. His\nbrothers question him about his ox, and he tells them he has sold it for\ntwenty roubles and is to get the money to-morrow, at which they laugh;\nhe is, they think; a greater fool than ever. Next morning he went to the\nbirch-tree, and found the ox was gone, for, in truth, the wolves had\neaten it. He demanded his money, but the tree only creaked and groaned,\nas usual. \"You'll pay me to-morrow?\" he exclaimed. \"That's what you said\nyesterday. I'll have no more of your promises.\" So saying, he struck the\nold birch-tree with his hatchet and sent the chips flying about. Now the\ntree was hollow, and it soon split asunder from his blows; and in the\nhollow trunk he found a pot full of gold, which some robbers had hidden\nthere. Taking some of the gold, he returns home, and shows it to his\nbrothers, who ask him how he got so much money. \"A neighbour,\" he\nreplies, \"gave it to me for my ox. But this is nothing like the whole of\nit. Come along, brothers, and let us get the rest.\" They go, and fetch\nthe rest of the treasure, and on their way home they meet a diachok (one\nof the inferior members of the Russian clerical body, though not one of\nthe clergy), who asks them what they are carrying. \"Mushrooms,\" say the\ntwo clever brothers; but the noodle cries, \"That's not true; we're\ncarrying money: here, look at it.\" The diachok, with an exclamation,\nflung himself upon the gold and began stuffing it into his pockets. At\nthis the noodle grew angry, dealt him a blow with his hatchet, and\nkilled him on the spot. The brothers dragged the body to an empty\ncellar, and flung it in. Later in the evening the eldest said to the\nother, \"This business is sure to turn out badly. When they look for the\ndiachok, Simpleton will be sure to tell them all about it. So we had\nbetter hide the body in some other place, and kill a goat and bury it in\nthe cellar.\" This they did accordingly. And after several days had\npassed the people asked the noodle if he had seen the diachok. \"Yes,\" he\nanswered. \"I killed him some time ago with my hatchet, and my brothers\ncarried him to the cellar.\" They seize upon him and compel him to go\ndown into the cellar and bring out the body. He gets hold of the goat's\nhead, and asks, \"Was your diachok dark-haired?\" \"He was.\" \"Had he a\nbeard?\" \"Yes.\" \"And horns?\" \"What horns are you talking of?\" \"Well, see\nfor yourselves,\" said he, tossing up the head to them. They saw it was a\ngoat's head, and went away home.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe reader cannot fail to remark the close resemblance there is between\nthe first parts of the Arabian and Russian stories; and the second parts\nof both reappear in many tales of the Silly Son. The goat's carcase\nsubstituted for the dead man occurs, for instance, in the Norse story of\nSilly Matt; in the Sicilian story of Giufa; in M. Rivi\u00e8re's _Contes\nPopulaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura_; and \"Foolish Sach\u00fali,\" in\nMiss Stokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_. The incident of the pretended\nshower of broiled fish and flesh is found in Campbell's _Tales of the\nWest Highlands_ (porridge and pancakes); in Rivi\u00e8re's Tales of the\nKaba\u00efl (fritters); \"Foolish Sach\u00fali\" (sweetmeats); Giuf\u00e0, the Sicilian\nBooby (figs and raisins); and in M. Leger's _Contes Populaires\nSlaves_, where, curiously enough, the trick is played by a husband\nupon his wife. It is perhaps worth while reproducing the Russian story\nfrom Leger, in a somewhat abridged form, as follows:\n\nIn tilling the ground a labourer found a treasure, and carrying it home,\nsaid to his wife, \"See! Heaven has sent us a fortune. But where can we\nconceal it?\" She suggested he should bury it under the floor, which he\ndid accordingly. Soon after this the wife went out to fetch water, and\nthe labourer reflected that his wife was a dreadful gossip, and by\nto-morrow night all the village would know their secret.  So he removed\nthe treasure from its hiding-place and buried it in his barn, beneath a\nheap of corn. When the wife came back from the well, he said to her\nquite gravely, \"To-morrow we shall go to the forest to seek fish; they\nsay there's plenty there at present.\" \"What! fish in the forest?\" she\nexclaimed. \"Of course,\" he rejoined; \"and you'll see them there.\" Very\nearly next morning he got up, and took some fish, which he had concealed\nin a basket. He went to the grocer's and bought a quantity of sweet\ncakes. He also caught a hare and killed it. The fish and cakes he\ndisposed of in different parts of the wood, and the hare he hooked on a\nfishing-line, and then threw it in the river. After breakfast he took\nhis wife with him into the wood, which they had scarcely entered when\nshe found a pike, then a perch, and then a roach, on the ground. With\nmany exclamations of surprise, she gathered up the fish and put them in\nher basket. Presently they came to a pear-tree, from the branches of\nwhich hung sweet cakes. \"See!\" she cried. \"Cakes on a pear-tree!\" \"Quite\nnatural,\" replied he; \"it has rained cakes, and some have remained on\nthis tree; travellers have picked up the rest.\" Continuing their way to\nthe village, they passed near a stream. \"Wait a little,\" said the\nhusband; \"I set my line early this morning, and I'll look if anything is\ncaught on it.\" He then pulled in the line, and behold, there was a hare\nhooked on to it! \"How extraordinary!\" cries the good wife--\"a hare in\nthe water!\" \"Why,\" says he, \"don't you know there are hares in the water\nas well as rats?\" \"No, indeed, I knew it not.\" They now returned home,\nand the wife set about preparing all the nice eatables for supper. In a\nday or two the labourer found from the talk of his acquaintances that\nhis finding the treasure was no secret in the village, and in less than\na week he was summoned to the castle. \"Is it true,\" said the lord, \"that\nyou have found a treasure?\" \"It is not true,\" was his reply. \"But your\nwife has told me all.\" \"My wife does not know what she says--she is mad,\nmy lord.\" Hereupon the woman cries, \"It is the truth, my lord; he has\nfound a treasure and buried it beneath the floor of our cottage.\"\n\"When?\" \"On the eve before the day we went into the forest to look for\nfish.\" \"What do you say?\" \"Yes; it was on the day that it rained cakes;\nwe gathered a basketful of them, and coming home, my husband fished a\nfine hare out of the river.\" My lord declared the woman to be an idiot;\nnevertheless he caused his servants to search under the labourer's\ncottage floor, but nothing was found there, and so the shrewd fellow\nsecured his treasure.\n\nThe silly son figures frequently in Indian story-books; sometimes a\nnumber of fools' exploits are strung together and ascribed to one\nindividual, as in the tale of \"Foolish Sach\u00fali;\" but generally they are\ntold as separate stories. The following adventure of Sach\u00fali is also\nfound, in varied form, in Beschi's _Gooroo Paramartan_: One day\nSach\u00fali climbed up a tree, and sat on a long branch, and began cutting\noff the branch between the tree and himself. A man passing by called to\nhim, saying, \"What are you doing up there? You will be killed if you cut\nthat branch off.\" \"What do you say?\" asked the booby, coming down. \"When\nshall I die?\" \"How can I tell?\" said the man. \"Let me go.\" \"I will not\nlet you go until you tell me when I shall die.\" At last the man, in\norder to get rid of him, said, \"When you find a scarlet thread on your\njacket, then you will die.\" After this Sach\u00fali went to the\n_bazaar_, and sat down by some tailors, and in throwing away\nshreds, a scarlet thread fell on his clothes. \"Now I shall die!\"\nexclaimed the fool. \"How do you know that?\" the tailors inquired, when\nhe told them what the man had said about a scarlet thread, at which they\nall laughed. Nevertheless, Sach\u00fali went and dug a grave in the jungle\nand lay down in it.\n\nPresently a sepoy comes along, bearing a pot of _ghi_, or clarified\nbutter, which he engages Sach\u00fali to carry for him, and the noodle, of\ncourse, lets it fall in the midst of his calculations of the uses to\nwhich he should put the money he is promised by the sepoy.\n\nThe incident of a blockhead cutting off the branch on which he is seated\nseems to be almost universal. It occurs in the jests of the typical\nTurkish noodle, the Khoja Nasr-ed-D\u00edn, and there exist German, Saxon,\nand Lithuanian variants of the same story. It is also known in Ceylon,\nand the following is a version from a Hind\u00fa work entitled _Bharataka\nDw\u00e1trinsati_, Thirty-two Tales of Mendicant Monks:\n\nIn El\u00e1kapura there lived several mendicant monks. One of them, named\nDandaka, once went, in the rainy season, into a wood in order to procure\na post for his hut. There he saw on a tree a fine branch bent down, and\nhe climbed the tree, sat on the branch, and began to cut it. Then there\ncame that way some travellers, who, seeing what he was doing, said, \"O\nmonk, greatest of all idiots, you should not cut a branch on which you\nyourself are sitting, for if you do so, when the branch breaks you will\nfall down and die.\" After saying this the travellers went their way. The\nmonk, however, paid no attention to their speech, but continued to cut\nthe branch, remaining in the same posture, until at length the branch\nbroke, and he tumbled down. He then thought within himself, \"Those\ntravellers are indeed wise and truthful, for everything has happened\njust as they predicted; consequently I must be dead.\" So he remained on\nthe ground as if dead; he did not speak, nor did he stand up, nor did he\neven breathe. People who came there from the neighbourhood raised him\nup, but he did not stand; they endeavoured to make him speak, but could\nnot succeed. They then sent word to the other monks, saying, \"Your\nassociate Dandaka fell down from a tree and died.\" Then came the monks\nin large numbers, and when they saw that he was \"dead,\" they lifted him\nup in order to carry him to the place of cremation. Now when they had\ngone a short distance they came upon a spot where the road divided\nitself before them. Then said some, \"We must go to the left,\" but others\nsaid, \"It is to the right that we must go.\" Thus a dispute arose among\nthem, and they were unable to come to any conclusion. The \"dead\" monk,\nwho was borne on a bier, said, \"Friends, quarrel not among yourselves;\nwhen I was alive, I always went by the left road.\" Then said some, \"He\nalways spoke the truth; all that he ever said was nothing but the simple\nfact. Let us therefore take the left road.\" This was agreed upon, and as\nthey were about to proceed towards the left some people who happened to\nbe present said, \"O ye monks, ye are the greatest of all blockheads that\nye should proceed to burn this man while he is yet alive.\" They\nanswered, \"Nay, but he is dead.\" Then the bystanders said, \"He cannot be\ndead, seeing that he yet speaks.\" They then set down the bier on the\nground, and Dandaka persistently declared that he was actually dead, and\nrelated to them with the most solemn protestations the prediction of the\ntravellers, and how it was fulfilled. Hereupon the other monks remained\nquite bewildered, unable to arrive at any decision as to whether Dandaka\nwas dead or alive, until at length, after a great deal of trouble, the\nbystanders succeeded in convincing them that the man was not dead and in\ninducing them to return to their dwelling. Dandaka also now stood up and\nwent his way, after having been heartily laughed at by the people.[11]\n\nA diverting story in the _Faceti\u00e6_ of Poggius, entitled \"Mortuus\nLoqueus,\" from which it was reproduced in the Italian novels of Grazzini\nand in our old collection _Tales and Quicke Answeres_, has a near\naffinity with jests of this class, and also with the wide cycle of\nstories in which a number of rogues combine to cheat a simpleton out of\nhis property. In the early English jest-book,[12] it is, in effect, as\nfollows:\n\nThere once dwelt in Florence a noodle called Nigniaca, upon whom a party\nof young men resolved to play a practical joke. Having arranged their\nplans, one of them met him early one morning, and asked him if he was\nnot ill. \"No,\" says the wittol. \"I am well enough.\" \"By my faith,\" quoth\nthe joker, \"but you have a pale, sickly colour,\" and went his way.\nPresently a second of the complotters came up to him, and asked him if\nhe was not suffering from an ague, for he certainly looked very ill. The\npoor fellow now began to think that he was really sick, and was\nconvinced of this when a third man in passing told him that he should be\nin his bed--he had evidently not an hour to live. Hearing this, Nigniaca\nstood stock-still, saying to himself, \"Verily, I have some sharp ague,\"\nwhen a fourth man came and bade him go home at once, for he was a dying\nman. So the simpleton begged this fourth man to help him home, which he\ndid very willingly, and after laying him in his bed, the other jokers\ncame to see him, and one of them, pretending to be a physician, felt his\npulse and declared the patient would die within an hour.[13] Then,\nstanding all about his bed, they said to each other, \"Now he is sinking\nfast; his speech and sight have failed him; he will soon give up the\nghost. Let us therefore close his eyes, cross his hands on his breast,\nand carry him forth to be buried.\" The simpleton lay as still as though\nhe was really dead, so they laid him on a bier and carried him through\nthe city. A great crowd soon gathered, when it was known that they were\ncarrying the corpse of Nigniaca to his grave. And among the crowd was a\ntaverner's boy, who cried out, \"What a rascal and thief is dead! By the\nmass, he should have been hanged long ago.\" When the wittol heard\nhimself thus vilified, he lifted up his head and exclaimed, \"I wish, you\nscoundrel, I were alive now, as I am dead, and I would prove thee a\nfalse liar to thy face;\" upon which the jokers burst into laughter, set\ndown the \"body\" and ran away--leaving Nigniaca to explain the whole\naffair to the marvelling multitude.[14]\n\nWe read of another silly son, in the _Kath\u00e1 Manjari_, whose father\nsaid to him one day, \"My boy, you are now grown big, yet you don't seem\nto have much sense. You must, however, do something for your living. Go,\ntherefore, to the tank, and catch fish and bring them home.\" The lad\naccordingly went to the tank, and having caused all the water--which was\nrequired for the irrigation of his father's fields--to run to waste, he\npicked up from the mud all the fishes he could find, and took them to\nhis father, not a little proud of his exploit.--In the _Kath\u00e1 Sarit\nS\u00e1gara_ it is related that a Br\u00e1hman told his foolish son one evening\nthat he must send him to the village early on the morrow, and thither\nthe lad went, without asking what he was to do. Returning home at night\nvery tired, he said to his father, \"I have been to the village.\" \"Yes,\"\nsaid the Br\u00e1hman, \"you went thither without an object, and have done no\ngood by it.\"--And in the Buddhist _J\u00e1takas_ we find what is\nprobably the original of a world-wide story: A man was chopping a felled\ntree, when a mosquito settled on his bald head and stung him severely.\nCalling to his son, who was sitting near him, he said, \"My boy, there is\na mosquito stinging my head, like the thrust of a spear--drive it off.\"\n\"Wait a bit, father,\" said the boy, \"and I will kill him with one blow.\"\nThen he took up an axe and stood behind his father's back; and thinking\nto kill the mosquito with the axe, he only killed his father.\n\nAmong numerous variants is the story of the Sicilian booby, Giuf\u00e0, who\nwas annoyed by the flies, and complained of them to the judge, who told\nhim that he was at liberty to kill a fly wherever he saw it: just then a\nfly happened to alight on the judge's nose, which Giuf\u00e0 observing, he\nimmediately aimed at it so furious a blow with his fist, that he smashed\nhis worship's nose!\n\nThe hopelessness of attempting to impart instruction to the silly son is\nfarther illustrated by the story in a Sinhalese collection: A g\u00far\u00fa was\nengaged in teaching one of his disciples, but whilst he was teaching the\nyouth was watching the movements of a rat which was entering its hole.\nAs soon as the g\u00far\u00fa had finished his teaching, he said, \"Well, my son,\nhas all entered in?\" to which the youth replied, \"Yes, all has entered\nin except the tail.\" And from the same work is the following choice\nexample of \"a happy family\": A priest went one day to the house of one\nof his followers, and amongst other things he said, \"Tell me now, which\nof your four children is the best-behaved?\" The father replied, \"Look,\nsir, at that boy who has climbed to the top of that thatched building,\nand is waving aloft a firebrand. Among them all, he is the divinely\nexcellent one.\" Whereupon the priest placed his finger on his nose, drew\na deep, deep sigh, and said, \"Is it indeed so? What, then, must the\nother three be?\"\n\nThe Turkish romance of the Forty Vaz\u00edrs--the plan of which is similar to\nthat of the Book of Sindib\u00e1d and its derivatives--furnishes us with two\nstories of the same class, one of which is as follows, according to my\nfriend Mr. Gibb's complete translation (the first that has been made in\nEnglish), recently published:[15]\n\nThey have told that in bygone times there was a king, and he had a\nskilful minstrel. One day a certain person gave to the latter a little\nboy, that he might teach him the science of music. The boy abode a long\ntime by him, and though the master instructed him, he succeeded not in\nlearning, and the master could make nothing of him. He arranged a scale,\nand said, \"Whatsoever thou sayest to me, say in this scale.\" So\nwhatsoever the boy said he used to say in that scale. Now one day a\nspark of fire fell on the master's turban. The boy saw it and chanted,\n\"O master, I see something; shall I say it or no?\" and he went over the\nwhole scale. Then the master chanted, \"O boy, what dost thou see?\nSpeak!\" and he too went over all that the boy had gone over. Then the\nturn came to the boy, and he chanted, \"O master, a spark has fallen on\nthy turban, and it is burning.\" The master straightway tore off his\nturban and cast it on the ground, and saw that it was burning. He blew\nout the fire on this side and on that, and took it in his hand, and said\nto the boy, \"What time for chanting is this? Everything is good in its\nown place,\" and he admonished him.[16]\n\nThe other story tells how a king had a stupid son, and placed him in\ncharge of a cunning master, learned in the sciences, who declared it\nwould be easy for him to teach the boy discretion, and, before\ndismissing him, the king gave the sage many rich gifts. After the boy\nhas been long under the tuition of his learned master, the latter,\nconceiving him to be well versed in all the sciences, takes him to the\nking, his father, who says to him, \"O my son, were I to hold a certain\nthing hidden in my hand, couldst thou tell me what it is?\" \"Yes,\"\nanswers the youth. Upon this the king secretly slips the ring off his\nfinger, and hides it in his hand, and then asks the boy, \"What have I in\nmy hand?\" Quoth the clever youth, \"O father, it first came from the\nhills.\" (The king thinks to himself, \"He knows that mines are in the\nhills.\") \"And it is a round thing,\" continues he--\"it must be a\nmillstone.\" \"Blockhead!\" exclaims the irate king, \"could a millstone be\nhidden in a man's hand?\" Then addressing the learned man, \"Take him\naway,\" he says, \"and _teach_ him.\"\n\nLastly, we have a somewhat different specimen of the silly son in the\ndoctor's apprentice, whose attempt to imitate his master was so\nludicrously unsuccessful. He used to accompany his master on his visits\nto patients, and one day the doctor said to a sick man, to whom he had\nbeen called, \"I know what is the matter with you, and it is useless to\ndeny it;--you have been eating beans.\" On their way home, the\napprentice, admiring his master's sagacity, begged to be informed how he\nknew that the patient had been eating beans. \"Boy,\" said the doctor,\nloftily, \"I drew an inference.\" \"An inference!\" echoed this youth of\ninquiring mind; \"and what is an inference?\" Quoth the doctor, \"Listen:\nwhen we came to the door, I observed the shells of beans lying about,\nand I drew the inference that the family had had beans for dinner.\"\nAnother day it chanced that the doctor did not take his apprentice with\nhim when he went his rounds, and in his absence a message came for him\nto visit a person who had been taken suddenly ill. \"Here,\" thought the\napprentice, \"is a chance for my putting master's last lesson into\npractice;\" so off he went to the sick man, and assuming as \"knowing\" an\nair as he could, he felt his pulse, and then said to him severely,\n\"Don't deny it; I see by your pulse that you have been eating a horse. I\nshall send you some medicine.\" When the doctor returned home he inquired\nof his hopeful pupil, whether any person had called for him, upon which\nthe wittol proudly told him of his own exploit. \"Eaten a horse!\"\nexclaimed the man of physic. \"In the name of all that's wonderful, what\ninduced you to say such a thing?\" Quoth the youth, simpering, \"Why, sir,\nI did as you did the other day, when we visited the old farmer--I drew\nan inference.\" \"You drew an inference, did you? And how did you draw the\ninference that the man had eaten a horse?\" \"Why, very readily, sir; for\nas I entered the house I saw a saddle hanging on the wall.\"[17]\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Abridged from the story of \"Silly Matt\" in Sir George W. Dasent's\n_Tales from the Fjeld_.\n\n[2] Professor Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, p. 302. This actual\nthrowing of eyes occurs in the folk-tales of Europe generally.\n\n[3] In _Le Cabinet des F\u00e9es, 1788_ (tome xxxviii., p. 337 ff.).--\nThere can be no such name as Xailoun in Arabic; that of the noodle's\nwife, Oitba, may be intended for \"Utba.\" Cazotte has so Frenchified the\nnames of the characters in his tales as to render their identification\nwith the Arabic originals (where he had any such) often impossible.\nAlthough this story is not found in any known Arabian text of the\n_Book of the Thousand and One Nights_, yet the incidents for the\nmost part occur in several Eastern story-books.\n\n [4] On a similar occasion Giuf\u00e0, the Sicilian brother to the Arabian\nfool, did somewhat more mischief. Once his mother went to church and\ntold him to make some porridge for his baby-sister. Giuf\u00e0 made a great\npot of porridge and fed the baby with it, and burned her mouth so that\nshe died. Another time his mother on leaving home told him to feed the\nhen that was sitting and put her back in the nest, so that the eggs\nshould not get cold. Giuf\u00e0 stuffed the hen with food so that he killed\nher, and then sat on the eggs himself until his mother returned.--See\nCrane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 296-7.\n\n[5] Abridged and modified from a version in the _Folk-Lore Record_,\nvol. iii., pp. 153-5.\n\n[6] The usual mode by which in the East thieves break into houses, which\nare for the most part constructed of clay. See Job xxiv. 16.\n\n[7] Kurakkan is a species of grain.\n\n[8] _The Orientalist_, June, 1884, pp. 137-8.\n\n[9] Ummu Sulayman. In Arabia the mother is generally addressed in this\nway as a mark of respect for having borne children, and the eldest gives\nthe title. Our bang-eater supposed he was addressing an old woman who\nhad (or might have had) a son named Solomon.\n\n[10] See Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales._ [Transcriber's note:\nFootnote reference missing from original, p. 153]\n\n[11] From a paper on \"Comparative Folk-lore,\" by W. Goonetilleke, in\n_The Orientalist_, i., p. 122.\n\n[12] _Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant\nto be Readde._ Imprinted at London by H. Wykes, 1567.\n\n[13] Thus, too, Scogin and his \"chamber-fellow\" successively declared to\na rustic that the sheep he was driving were pigs. In Fortini's novels,\nin like manner, a simpleton is persuaded that the kid he offered for\nsale was a capon; and in the Spanish _El Conde Lucanor_, and the\nGerman _Tyl Eulenspiegel_, a countryman is cheated out of a piece\nof cloth. The original form of the incident is found in the\n_Hitopadesa_, where three sharpers persuade a Br\u00e1hman that the goat\nhe is carrying for a sacrifice is a dog. This story of the Florentine\nnoodle--or rather Poggio's version--may have been suggested by a tale in\nthe _Gesta Romanorum_, in which the emperor's physician is made to\nbelieve that he had leprosy. See my _Popular Tales and Fictions_,\nwhere these and similar stories are compared in a paper entitled \"The\nSharpers and the Simpleton.\"\n\n[14] In Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_ (Second Series,\np. 627), a woman makes her husband believe that he is dressed in fine\nclothes when he is naked; another persuades her husband that he is dead,\nand as he is being carried to the burying-ground, he perceives the naked\nman, who asserts that he is dressed, upon which he exclaims, \"How I\nshould laugh if I were not dead!\" And in a _fabliau_ by Jean de\nBoves, \"Le Villain de Bailleul; _ali\u00e0s_, Le Femme qui fit croire \u00e0\nson Mari qu'il \u00e9tait mort,\" the husband exclaims, \"Rascal of a priest,\nyou may well thank Heaven that I am dead, else I would belabour you\nsoundly with my stick.\"--See M. Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, ed. 1781,\ntome v., pp. 192, 193.\n\n[5] _History of the Forty Viziers; or, The Forty Morns and Forty\nEves._ Translated from the Turkish, by E.J.W. Gibb, M.R.A.S. London:\nG. Redway, 1886.\n\n[16] A variant of this is found in John Bromyard's _Summa\nPr\u00e6dicantium_, A 26, 34, as follows:\n\nQuidam sedebat juxta igneum, cujus vestem ignis intrabat. Dixit socius\nsuus, \"Vis audire rumores?\" \"Ita,\" inquit, \"bonos et non alios.\" Cui\nalius, \"Nescio nisi malos.\" \"Ergo,\" inquit, \"nolo audire.\" Et quum bis\naut ter ei hoc diceret, semper idem respondit. In fine, quum sentiret\nvestem combustam, iratus ait socio, \"Quare non dixisti mihi?\" \"Quia\n(inquit) dixista quod noluisti audire rumores nisi placentes et illi non\nerant tales.\"\n\n[17] Under the title of \"The Phisitian that bare his Paciente in honde\nthat he had eaten an Asse\" this jest occurs in _Merry Tales and Quicke\nAnsweres_, and Professor Crane gives a Sicilian version in his\n_Italian Popular Tales_.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE FOUR SIMPLE BR\u00c1HMANS.\n\n\n[As a sort of supplement to the sayings and doings of the silly son, the\nfollowing highly diverting Indian tale is here inserted, from the Abb\u00e9\nDubois' French rendering of the Tamil original, appended, with others,\nto his selections from the _Panchatantra_. The story is known in\nthe north as well as in the south of India: in the Panj\u00e1bi version there\nare, however, but three noodle-heroes. It will be seen that the third\nBr\u00e1hman's tale is another of the numerous silent couple class, and it\nmay possibly be the original form.]\n\n\n_Introduction._\n\nIn a certain district, proclamation had been made of a Samaradanam being\nabout to be held.[1] Four Br\u00e1hmans, from different villages, going\nthither, fell in upon the road, and, finding that they were all upon the\nsame errand, they agreed to proceed in company.  A soldier, happening to\nmeet them, saluted them in the usual way, by touching hands and\npronouncing the words always applied on such occasions to Br\u00e1hmans,\n\"_Dandamarya_!\" or \"Health to my lord!\" The four travellers made\nthe customary return, \"_Asirvadam!_\" and going on, they came to a\nwell, where they quenched their thirst and reposed themselves in the\nshade of some trees. Sitting there, and finding no better subject of\nconversation, one of them asked the others, whether they did not remark\nhow particularly the soldier had distinguished him by his polite\nsalutation. \"You!\" said another; \"it was not you that he saluted, but\nme.\" \"You are both mistaken,\" says a third; \"for you may remember that\nwhen the soldier said, '_Dandamarya!_' he cast his eyes upon me.\"\n\"Not at all,\" replied the fourth; \"it was I only he saluted; otherwise,\nshould I have answered him as I did, by saying, '_Asirvadam_'?\"\n\nEach maintained his argument obstinately; and as none of them would\nyield, the dispute had nearly come to blows, when the least stupid of\nthe four, seeing what was likely to happen, put an end to the brawl by\nthe following advice: \"How foolish it is in us,\" said he, \"thus to put\nourselves in a passion! After we have said all the ill of one another\nthat we can invent--nay, after going stoutly to fisticuffs, like Sudra\nrabble, should we be at all nearer to the decision of our difference?\nThe fittest person to determine the controversy, I think, would be the\nman who occasioned it. The soldier, who chose to salute one of us,\ncannot yet be far off: let us therefore run after him as quickly as we\ncan, and we shall soon know for which of us he intended his salutation.\"\n\nThis advice appeared wise to them all, and was immediately adopted. The\nwhole of them set off in pursuit of the soldier, and at last overtook\nhim, after running a league, and all out of breath. As soon as they came\nin sight of him, they cried out to him to stop; and before they had well\napproached him, they had put him in full possession of the nature of\ntheir dispute, and prayed him to terminate it, by saying to which of\nthem he had directed his salutation. The soldier instantly perceiving\nthe character of the people he had to do with, and being willing to\namuse himself a little at their expense, coolly replied, that he\nintended his salutation for the greatest fool of all four, and then,\nturning on his heel, he continued his journey.\n\nThe Br\u00e1hmans, confounded at this answer, turned back in silence. But all\nof them had deeply at heart the distinction of the salutation of the\nsoldier, and the dispute was gradually renewed. Even the awkward\ndecision of the warrior could not prevent each of them from arrogating\nto himself the pre-eminence of being noticed by him, to the exclusion of\nthe others. The contention, therefore, now became, which of the four was\nthe stupidest; and strange to say, it grew as warm as ever, and must\nhave come to blows, had not the person who gave the former advice, to\nfollow the soldier, interposed again with his wisdom, and spoken as\nfollows: \"I think myself the greatest fool of us all. Each of you thinks\nthe same thing of himself. And after a fight, shall we be a bit nearer\nthe decision of the question? Let us, therefore, have a little patience.\nWe are within a short distance of Dharmapuri, where there is a choultry,\nat which all little causes are tried by the heads of the village; and\nlet ours be judged among the rest.\"\n\nThe others agreed in the soundness of this advice; and having arrived at\nthe village, they eagerly entered the choultry, to have their business\nsettled by the arbitrator. They could not have come at a better season.\nThe chiefs of the district, Br\u00e1hmans and others, had already met in the\nchoultry; and no other cause being brought forward, they proceeded\nimmediately to that of the four Br\u00e1hmans, who advanced into the middle\nof the court, and stated that a sharp contest having arisen among them,\nthey were come to have it decided with fairness and impartiality. The\ncourt desired them to proceed and explain the ground of their\ncontroversy. Upon this, one of them stood forward and related to the\nassembly all that had happened, from their meeting with the soldier to\nthe present state of the quarrel, which rested on the superior degree of\nstupidity of one of their number. The detail created a general shout of\nlaughter. The president, who was of a gay disposition, was delighted\nbeyond measure to have fallen in with so diverting an incident. But he\nput on a grave face, and laid it down, as the peculiarity of the cause,\nthat it could not be determined on the testimony of witnesses, and that,\nin fact, there was no other way of satisfying the minds of the judges\nthan by each, in his turn, relating some particular occurrence of his\nlife, on which he could best establish his claim to superior folly. He\nclearly showed that there could be no other means of determining to\nwhich of them the salutation of the soldier could with justice be\nawarded. The Br\u00e1hmans assented, and upon a sign being made to one of\nthem to begin, and the rest to keep silence, the first thus spoke:\n\n_Story of the First Br\u00e1hman_.\n\nI am poorly provided with clothing, as you see; and it is not to-day\nonly that I have been covered with rags. A rich and very charitable\nBr\u00e1hman merchant once made a present of two pieces of cloth to attire\nme--the finest that had ever been seen in our village. I showed them to\nthe other Br\u00e1hmans of the village, who all congratulated me on so\nfortunate an acquisition. They told me it must be the fruit of some good\ndeeds that I had done in a preceding generation. Before I should put\nthem on, I washed them, according to the custom, in order to purify them\nfrom the soil of the weaver's touch, and hung them up to dry, with the\nends fastened to two branches of a tree. A dog, then happening to come\nthat way, ran under them, and I could not discover whether he was high\nenough to touch the clothes or not. I asked my children, who were\npresent, but they said they were not quite certain. How, then, was I to\ndiscover the fact? I put myself upon all-fours, so as to be of the\nheight of the dog, and in that posture I crawled under the clothing.\n\"Did I touch it?\" said I to the children, who were observing me. They\nanswered, \"No,\" and I was filled with joy at the news. But after\nreflecting a while, I recollected that the dog had a turned-up tail, and\nthat by elevating it above the rest of his body, it might well have\nreached my cloth. To ascertain that, I fixed a leaf in my loin-cloth,\nturning upwards, and then, creeping again on all-fours, I passed a\nsecond time under the clothing. The children immediately cried out that\nthe point of the leaf on my back had touched the cloth. This proved to\nme that the point of the dog's tail must have done so too, and that my\ngarments were therefore polluted. In my rage I pulled down the beautiful\nraiment, and tore it in a thousand pieces, loading with curses both the\ndog and his master.\n\nWhen this foolish act was known, I became the laughing-stock of all the\nworld, and I was universally treated as a madman. \"Even if the dog had\ntouched the cloth,\" said they, \"and so brought defilement upon it, might\nnot you have washed it a second time, and so have removed the stain? Or\nmight you not have given it to some poor Sudra, rather than tear it in\npieces? After such egregious folly, who will give you clothes another\ntime?\" This was all true; for ever since, when I have begged clothing of\nany one, the constant answer has been, that, no doubt, I wanted a piece\nof cloth to pull to pieces.\n\nHe was going on, when a bystander interrupted him by remarking that he\nseemed to understand going on all-fours. \"Exceedingly well,\" said he,\n\"as you shall see;\" and off he shuffled, in that posture, amidst the\nunbounded laughter of the spectators. \"Enough! enough!\" said the\npresident. \"What we have both heard and seen goes a great way in his\nfavour. But let us now hear what the next has to say for himself in\nproof of his stupidity.\" The second accordingly began by expressing his\nconfidence that if what they had just heard appeared to them to be\ndeserving of the salutation of the soldier, what he had to say would\nchange their opinion.\n\n _Story of the Second Br\u00e1hman_.\n\nHaving got my hair and beard shaven one day, in order to appear decent\nat a public festival of the Br\u00e1hmans, which had been proclaimed\nthroughout the district, I desired my wife to give the barber a penny\nfor his trouble. She heedlessly gave him a couple. I asked him to give\nme one of them back, but he refused. Upon that we quarrelled, and began\nto abuse each other; but the barber at length pacified me, by offering,\nin consideration of the double fee, to shave my wife also. I thought\nthis a fair way of settling the difference between us. But my wife,\nhearing the proposal, and seeing the barber in earnest, tried to make\nher escape by flight. I took hold of her, and forced her to sit down,\nwhile he shaved her poll in the same manner as they serve widows.[2]\nDuring the operation she cried out bitterly; but I was inexorable,\nthinking it less hard that my wife should be close-shaven than that my\npenny should be given away for nothing. When the barber had finished, I\nlet her go, and she retired immediately to a place of concealment,\npouring down curses on me and the barber. He took his departure, and\nmeeting my mother in his way, told her what he had done, which made her\nhasten to the house, to inquire into the outrage; and when she saw that\nit was all true she also loaded me with incivilities.\n\nThe barber published everywhere what had happened at our house; and the\nvillain added to the story that I had caught her with another man, which\nwas the cause of my having her shaved; and people were no doubt\nexpecting, according to our custom in such a case, to see her mounted on\nan ass, with her face turned towards the tail. They came running to my\ndwelling from all quarters, and actually brought an ass to make the\nusual exhibition in the streets. The report soon reached my\nfather-in-law, who lived at a distance of ten or twelve leagues, and\nhe, with his wife, came also to inquire into the affair. Seeing their\npoor daughter in that degraded state, and being apprised of the only\nreason, they reproached me most bitterly; which I patiently endured,\nbeing conscious that I was in the wrong. They persisted, however, in\ntaking her with them, and keeping her carefully concealed from every eye\nfor four whole years; when at length they restored her to me.\n\nThis little accident made me lose the Samaradanam, for which I had been\npreparing by a fast of three days; and it was a great mortification to\nme to be excluded from it, as I understood it was a most splendid\nentertainment. Another Samaradanam was announced to be held ten days\nafterwards, at which I expected to make up for my loss. But I was\nreceived with the hisses of six hundred Br\u00e1hmans, who seized my person,\nand insisted on my giving up the accomplice of my wife, that he might be\nprosecuted and punished, according to the severe rules of the caste.\n\nI solemnly attested her innocence, and told the real cause of the\nshaving of her hair; when a universal burst of surprise took place,\nevery one exclaiming, how monstrous it was that a married woman should\nbe so degraded, without having committed the crime of infidelity.\n\"Either this man,\" said they, \"must be a liar, or he is the greatest\nfool on the face of the earth!\" Such, I daresay, gentlemen, you will\nthink me, and I am sure you will consider my folly [looking with great\ndisdain on the first speaker] as being far superior to that of the\nrender of body-clothing.\n\nThe court agreed that the speaker had put in a very strong case; but\njustice required that the other two should also be heard. The third\nclaimant was indeed burning with impatience for his turn, and as soon as\nhe had permission, he thus spoke:\n\n _Story of the Third Brahman_.\n\nMy name was originally Anantya; now all the world call me Betel Anantya,\nand I will tell you how this nickname arose. My wife, having been long\ndetained at her father's house, on account of her youth, had cohabited\nwith me but about a month when, going to bed one evening, I happened to\nsay (carelessly, I believe), that all women were babblers. She retorted,\nthat she knew men who were not less babblers than women. I perceived at\nonce that she alluded to myself; and being somewhat piqued at the\nsharpness of her retort, I said, \"Now let us see which of us shall speak\nfirst.\" \"Agreed,\" quoth she; \"but what shall be the forfeit?\" \"A leaf of\nbetel,\" said I. Our wager being thus made, we both addressed ourselves\nto sleep, without speaking another word.\n\nNext morning, as we did not appear at our usual hour, after some\ninterval, they called us, but got no answer. They again called, and then\nroared stoutly at the door, but with no success. The alarm began to\nspread in the house. They began to fear that we had died suddenly. The\ncarpenter was called with his tools. The door of our room was forced\nopen, and when they got in they were not a little surprised to find both\nof us wide awake, in good health, and at our ease, though without the\nfaculty of speech. My mother was greatly alarmed, and gave loud vent to\nher grief. All the Br\u00e1hmans in the village, of both sexes, assembled, to\nthe number of one hundred; and after close examination, every one drew\nhis own conclusion on the accident which was supposed to have befallen\nus. The greater number were of opinion that it could have arisen only\nfrom the malevolence of some enemy who had availed himself of magical\nincantations to injure us. For this reason, a famous magician was\ncalled, to counteract the effects of the witchcraft, and to remove it.\nAs soon as he came, after steadfastly contemplating us for some time, he\nbegan to try our pulses, by putting his finger on our wrists, on our\ntemples, on the heart, and on various other parts of the body; and after\na great variety of grimaces, the remembrance of which excites my\nlaughter, as often as I think of him, he decided that our malady arose\nwholly from the effect of malevolence. He even gave the name of the\nparticular devil that possessed my wife and me and rendered us dumb. He\nadded that the devil was very stubborn and difficult to allay, and that\nit would cost three or four pagodas for the offerings necessary for\ncompelling him to fly.\n\nMy relations, who were not very opulent, were astonished at the grievous\nimposition which the magician had laid on them. Yet, rather than we\nshould continue dumb, they consented to give him whatsoever should be\nnecessary for the expense of his sacrifice; and they farther promised\nthat they would reward him for his trouble as soon as the demon by whom\nwe were possessed should be expelled. He was on the point of commencing\nhis magical operations, when a Br\u00e1hman, one of our friends, who was\npresent, maintained, in opposition to the opinion of the magician and\nhis assistants, that our malady was not at all the effect of witchcraft,\nbut arose from some simple and ordinary cause, of which he had seen\nseveral instances, and he undertook to cure us without any expense.\n\nHe took a chafing-dish filled with burning charcoal, and heated a small\nbar of gold very hot. This he took up with pincers, and applied to the\nsoles of my feet, then to my elbows, and the crown of my head. I endured\nthese cruel operations without showing the least symptom of pain, or\nmaking any complaint; being determined to bear anything, and to die, if\nnecessary, rather than lose the wager I had laid.\n\n\"Let us try the effect on the woman,\" said the doctor, astonished at my\nresolution and apparent insensibility. And immediately taking the bit of\ngold, well heated, he applied it to the sole of her foot. She was not\nable to endure the pain for a moment, but instantly screamed out,\n\"Enough!\" and turning to me, \"I have lost my wager,\" she said; \"there is\nyour leaf of betel.\"  \"Did I not tell you,\" said I, taking the leaf,\n\"that you would be the first to speak out, and that you would prove by\nyour own conduct that I was right in saying yesterday, when we went to\nbed, that women are babblers?\"\n\nEvery one was surprised at the proceeding; nor could any of them\ncomprehend the meaning of what was passing between my wife and me; until\nI explained the kind of wager we had made overnight, before going to\nsleep. \"What!\" they exclaimed, \"was it for a leaf of betel that you have\nspread this alarm through your own house and the whole village?--for a\nleaf of betel that you showed such constancy, and suffered burning from\nthe feet to the head upwards? Never in the world was there seen such\nfolly!\" And so, from that time, I have been constantly known by the name\nof Betel Anantya.\n\nThe narrative being finished, the court were of opinion that so\ntranscendent a piece of folly gave him high pretensions in the depending\nsuit; but it was necessary also to hear the fourth and last of the\nsuitors, who thus addressed them:\n\n _Story of the Fourth Br\u00e1hman_.\n\nThe maiden to whom I was betrothed, having remained six or seven years\nat her father's house, on account of her youth, we were at last apprised\nthat she was become marriageable; and her parents informed mine that she\nwas in a situation to fulfil all the duties of a wife, and might\ntherefore join her husband. My mother being at that time sick, and the\nhouse of my father-in-law being at the distance of five or six leagues\nfrom ours, she was not able to undertake the journey. She therefore\ncommitted to myself the duty of bringing home my wife, and counselled me\nso to conduct myself, in words and actions, that they might not see that\nI was only a brute. \"Knowing thee as I do,\" said my mother, as I took\nleave of her, \"I am very distrustful of thee.\" But I promised to be on\nmy good behaviour; and so I departed.\n\nI was well received by my father-in-law, who gave a great feast to all\nthe Br\u00e1hmans of the village on the occasion. He made me stay three days,\nduring which there was nothing but festivity. At length the time of our\ndeparture having arrived, he suffered my wife and myself to leave him,\nafter pouring out blessings on us both, and wishing us a long and happy\nlife, enriched with a numerous progeny. When we took leave of him, he\nshed abundance of tears, as if he had foreseen the misery that awaited\nus.\n\nIt was then the summer solstice, and the day was exceedingly hot. We had\nto cross a sandy plain of more than two leagues; and the sand, being\nheated by the burning sun, scorched the feet of my young wife, who,\nbeing brought up too tenderly in her father's house, was not accustomed\nto such severe trials. She began to cry, and being unable to go on, she\nlay down on the ground, saying she wished to die there. I was in\ndreadful trouble, and knew not what step to take; when a merchant came\nup, travelling the contrary way. He had a train of fifty bullocks,\nloaded with various kinds of merchandise. I ran to meet him, and told\nhim the cause of my anxiety with tears in my eyes; and entreated him to\naid me with his good advice in the distressing circumstances in which I\nwas placed. He immediately answered, that a young and delicate woman,\nsuch as my wife was, could neither remain where she lay nor proceed on\nher journey, under a hot sun, without being exposed to certain death.\nRather than that I should see her perish, and run the hazard of being\nsuspected of having killed her myself, and being guilty of one of the\nfive crimes which the Br\u00e1hmans consider as the most heinous, he advised\nme to give her to him, and then he would mount her on one of his cattle\nand take her along with him.  That I should be a loser, he admitted;\nbut, all things considered, it was better to lose her, with the merit of\nhaving saved her life, than equally to lose her, under the suspicion of\nbeing her murderer. \"Her trinkets,\" he said, \"may be worth fifteen\npagodas; take these twenty and give me your wife.\"\n\nThe merchant's arguments appeared unanswerable; so I yielded to them,\nand delivered to him my wife, whom he placed on one of his best oxen,\nand continued his journey without delay. I continued mine also, and got\nhome in the evening, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, and with my feet\nalmost roasted with the burning sand, over which I had walked the\ngreater part of the day. Frightened to see me alone, \"Where is your\nwife?\" cried my mother. I gave her a full account of everything that had\nhappened from the time I left her. I spoke of the agreeable and\ncourteous manner in which my father-in-law had received me, and how, by\nsome delay, we had been overtaken by the scorching heat of the sun at\nnoon, so that my wife must have perished and myself suspected of having\ncaused her death, had we proceeded; and that I had preferred to sell her\nto a merchant who met us for twenty pagodas. And I showed my mother the\nmoney.\n\nWhen I had done, my mother fell into an ecstasy of fury. She lifted up\nher voice against me with cries of rage, and overwhelmed me with\nimprecations and awful curses. Having given way to these first emotions\nof despair, she sank into a more moderate tone: \"What hast thou done!\nSold thy wife, hast thou! Delivered her to another man! A Br\u00e1hmanari is\nbecome the concubine of a vile merchant! Ah, what will her kindred and\nours say when they hear the tale of this brutish stupidity--of folly so\nunexampled and degrading?\"\n\nThe relations of my wife were soon informed of the sad adventure that\nhad befallen their unhappy girl. They came over to attack me, and would\ncertainly have murdered me and my innocent mother, if we had not both\nmade a sudden escape. Having no direct object to wreak their vengeance\nupon, they brought the matter before the chiefs of the caste, who\nunanimously fined me in two hundred pagodas, as a reparation to my\nfather-in-law, and issued a proclamation against so great a fool being\never allowed to take another wife; denouncing the penalty of expulsion\nfrom the caste against any one who should assist me in such an attempt.\nI was therefore condemned to remain a widower all my life, and to pay\ndear for my folly. Indeed, I should have been excluded for ever from my\ncaste, but for the high consideration in which the memory of my late\nfather is still held, he having lived respected by all the world.\n\nNow that you have heard one specimen of the many follies of my life, I\nhope you will not consider me as beneath those who have spoken before\nme, nor my pretensions altogether undeserving of the salutation of the\nsoldier.\n\n _Conclusion_.\n\nThe heads of the assembly, several of whom were convulsed with laughter\nwhile the Br\u00e1hmans were telling their stories, decided, after hearing\nthem all, that each had given such absolute proofs of folly as to be\nentitled, in justice, to a superiority in his own way: that each of\nthem, therefore, should be at liberty to call himself the greatest fool\nof all, and to attribute to himself the salutation of the soldier. Each\nof them having thus gained his suit, it was recommended to them all to\ncontinue their journey, if it were possible, in amity. The delighted\nBrahmans then rushed out of court, each exclaiming that he had gained\nhis cause.\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] A Samaradanam is one of the public festivals given by pious people,\nand sometimes by those in power, to the Br\u00e1hmans, who on such occasions\nassemble in great numbers from all quarters.\n\n[2] In a Sinhalese story, referred to on [\"p. 68\" in original. This\napproximates to the reference to Chapter III, Footnote 5 in this\ne-text], it is, curiously enough, the woman herself \"who has her head\nshaved, so as not to lose the services of the barber for the day when he\ncame, and her husband was away from home.\" The story probably was\nintroduced into Ceylon by the Tamils; both versions are equally good as\nnoodle-stories.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE THREE GREAT NOODLES.\n\n\nFew folk-tales are more widely diffused than that of the man who set out\nin quest of as great noodles as those of his own household. The details\nmay be varied more or less, but the fundamental outline is identical,\nwherever the story is found; and, whether it be an instance of the\ntransmission of popular tales from one country to another, or one of\nthose \"primitive fictions\" which are said to be the common heritage of\nthe Aryans, its independent development by different nations and in\ndifferent ages cannot be reasonably maintained.\n\nThus, in one Gaelic version of this diverting story--in which our old\nfriends the Gothamites reappear on the scene to enact their unconscious\ndrolleries--a lad marries a farmer's daughter, and one day while they\nare all busily engaged in peat-cutting, she is sent to the house to\nfetch the dinner. On entering the house, she perceives the speckled\npony's packsaddle hanging from the roof, and says to herself, \"Oh, if\nthat packsaddle were to fall and kill me, what should I do?\" and here\nshe began to cry, until her mother, wondering what could be detaining\nher, comes, when she tells the old woman the cause of her grief,\nwhereupon the mother, in her turn, begins to cry, and when the old man\nnext comes to see what is the matter with his wife and daughter, and is\ninformed about the speckled pony's packsaddle, he, too, \"mingles his\ntears\" with theirs. At last the young husband arrives, and finding the\ntrio of noodles thus grieving at an imaginary misfortune, he there and\nthen leaves them, declaring his purpose not to return until he has found\nthree as great fools as themselves. In the course of his travels he\nmeets with some strange folks: men whose wives make them believe\nwhatever they please--one, that he is dead; another, that he is clothed,\nwhen he is stark naked; a third, that he is not himself. He meets with\nthe twelve fishers who always miscounted their number; the noodles who\nwent to drown an eel in the sea; and a man trying to get his cow on the\nroof of his house, in order that she might eat the grass growing there.\nBut the most wonderful incident was a man coming with a cow in a cart:\nand the people had found out that the man had stolen the cow, and that a\ncourt should be held upon him, and so they did; and the justice they did\nwas to put the horse to death for carrying the cow.[1]\n\nIn another Gaelic version a young husband had provided his house with a\ncradle, in natural anticipation that such an interesting piece of\nfurniture would be required in due time. In this he was disappointed,\nbut the cradle stood in the kitchen all the same. One day he chanced to\nthrow something into the empty cradle, upon which his wife, his mother,\nand his wife's mother set up loud lamentations, exclaiming, \"Oh, if\n_he_ had been there, he had been killed!\" alluding to a potential\nson. The man was so much shocked at such an exhibition of folly that he\nleft the country in search of three greater noodles. Among other\nadventures, he goes into a house and plays tricks on some people there,\ntelling them his name is \"_Saw ye ever my like_?\" When the old man\nof the house comes home he finds his people tied upon tables, and asks,\n\"What's the reason of this?\" \"Saw ye ever my like?\" says the first. Then\ngoing to a second man, he asks, \"What's the reason of this?\" \"Saw ye\never my like?\" says the second. \"I saw thy like in the kitchen,\" replies\nthe old man, and then he goes to the third: \"What's the reason of this?\"\n\"Saw ye ever my like?\" says the third. \"I have seen plenty of thy like,\"\nquoth the old man; \"but never before this day,\" and then he understood\nthat some one had been playing tricks on his people.[2]\n\nIn Russian variants the old parents of a youth named Lutonya weep over\nthe supposititious death of a potential grandchild, thinking how sad it\nwould have been if a log which the old woman had dropped had killed that\nhypothetical infant. The parents' grief appears to Lutonya so uncalled\nfor that he leaves the house, declaring he will not return until he has\nmet with people more foolish than they. He travels long and far, and\nsees several foolish doings. In one place a horse is being inserted into\nits collar by sheer force; in another, a woman is fetching milk from the\ncellar a spoonful at a time; and in a third place some carpenters are\nattempting to stretch a beam which is not long enough, and Lutonya earns\ntheir gratitude by showing them how to join a piece to it.[3]\n\nA well-known English version is to this effect: There was a young man\nwho courted a farmer's daughter, and one evening when he came to the\nhouse she was sent to the cellar for beer. Seeing an axe stuck in a beam\nabove her head, she thought to herself, \"Suppose I were married and had\na son, and he were to grow up, and be sent to this cellar for beer, and\nthis axe were to fall and kill him--oh dear! oh dear!\" and there she sat\ncrying and crying, while the beer flowed all over the cellar-floor,\nuntil her old father and mother come in succession and blubber along\nwith her about the hypothetical death of her imaginary grown-up son. The\nyoung man goes off in quest of three bigger fools, and sees a woman\nhoisting a cow on to the roof of her cottage to eat the grass that grew\namong the thatch, and to keep the animal from falling off, she ties a\nrope round its neck, then goes into the kitchen, secures at her waist\nthe rope, which she had dropped down the chimney, and presently the cow\nstumbles over the roof, and the woman is pulled up the flue till she\nsticks half-way. In an inn he sees a man attempting to jump into his\ntrousers--a favourite incident in this class of stories; and farther\nalong he meets with a party raking the moon out of a pond.\n\nAnother English variant relates that a young girl having been left alone\nin the house, her mother finds her in tears when she comes home, and\nasks the cause of her distress. \"Oh,\" says the girl, \"while you were\naway, a brick fell down the chimney, and I thought, if it had fallen on\nme I might have been killed!\" The only novel adventure which the girl's\nbetrothed meets with, in his quest of three bigger fools, is an old\nwoman trying to drag an oven with a rope to the table where the dough\nlay.\n\nSeveral versions are current in Italy and Sicily, which present a close\nanalogy to those of other European countries. The following is a\ntranslation of one in Bernoni's Venetian collection:\n\nOnce upon a time there were a husband and a wife who had a son. This son\ngrew up, and said one day to his mother, \"Do you know, mother, I would\nlike to marry?\" \"Very well, marry! Whom do you want to take?\" He\nanswered, \"I want the gardener's daughter.\" \"She is a good girl--take\nher; I am willing.\" So he went, and asked for the girl, and her parents\ngave her to him. They were married, and when they were in the midst of\ntheir dinner, the wine gave out. The husband said, \"There is no more\nwine!\" The bride, to show that she was a good housekeeper, said, \"I will\ngo and get some.\" She took the bottles and went to the cellar, turned\nthe cock, and began to think, \"Suppose I should have a son, and we\nshould call him Bastianelo, and he should die! Oh, how grieved I should\nbe! oh, how grieved I should be!\" And thereupon she began to weep and\nweep; and meanwhile the wine was running all over the cellar.\n\nWhen they saw that the bride did not return, the mother said, \"I will go\nand see what the matter is.\" So she went into the cellar, and saw the\nbride, with the bottle in her hand, and weeping. \"What is the matter\nwith you that you are weeping?\" \"Ah, my mother, I was thinking that if I\nhad a son, and should name him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I\nshould grieve! oh, how I should grieve!\" The mother, too, began to weep,\nand weep, and weep; and meanwhile the wine was running over the cellar.\n\nWhen the people at the table saw that no one brought the wine, the\ngroom's father said, \"I will go and see what is the matter. Certainly\nsomething wrong has happened to the bride.\" He went and saw the whole\ncellar full of wine, and the mother and bride weeping. \"What is the\nmatter?\" he said; \"has anything wrong happened to you?\"\n\n\"No,\" said the bride; \"but I was thinking that if I had a son, and\nshould call him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve!\noh, how I should grieve!\" Then he, too, began to weep, and all three\nwept; and meanwhile the wine was running over the cellar.\n\nWhen the groom saw that neither the bride, nor the mother, nor the\nfather came back, he said, \"Now I will go and see what the matter is\nthat no one returns.\" He went into the cellar and saw all the wine\nrunning over the cellar. He hastened and stopped the cask, and then\nasked, \"What is the matter that you are all weeping, and have let the\nwine run all over the cellar?\" Then the bride said, \"I was thinking that\nif I had a son and called him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I\nshould grieve! oh, how I should grieve!\" Then the groom said, \"You\nstupid fools! Are you weeping at this and letting all the wine run into\nthe cellar? Have you nothing else to think of? It shall never be said\nthat I remained with you. I will roam about the world, and until I find\nthree fools greater than you, I will not return home.\"\n\nHe had a bread-cake made, took a bottle of wine, a sausage, and some\nlinen, and made a bundle, which he put on a stick and carried over his\nshoulder. He journeyed and journeyed, but found no fool. At last he\nsaid, worn out, \"I must turn back, for I see I cannot find a greater\nfool than my wife.\" He did not know what to do, whether to go on or turn\nback. \"Oh,\" said he, \"it is better to try and go a little farther.\" So\nhe went on, and shortly saw a man in his shirt-sleeves at a well, all\nwet with perspiration, and water. \"What are you doing, sir, that you are\nso covered with water and in such a sweat?\" \"Oh, let me alone,\" the man\nanswered; \"for I have been here a long time drawing water to fill this\npail, and I cannot fill it.\" \"What are you drawing the water in?\" he\nasked him. \"In this sieve,\" he said. \"What are you thinking about, to\ndraw water in that sieve? Just wait!\" He went to a house near by and\nborrowed a bucket, with which he returned to the well and filled the\npail. \"Thank you, good man. God knows how long I should have had to\nremain here!\"--\"Here,\" thought he, \"is one who is a greater fool than my\nwife.\"\n\nHe continued his journey, and after a time he saw at a distance a man in\nhis shirt, who was jumping down from a tree. He drew near, and saw a\nwoman under the same tree, holding a pair of breeches. He asked them\nwhat they were doing, and they said that they had been there a long\ntime, and that the man was trying on those breeches and did not know how\nto get into them. \"I have jumped and jumped,\" said the man, \"until I am\ntired out, and I cannot imagine how to get into those breeches.\" \"Oh,\"\nsaid the traveller, \"you might stay here as long as you wished, for you\nwould never get into them this way. Come down and lean against the\ntree.\" Then he took his legs and put them in the breeches, and after he\nhad put them on, he said, \"Is that right?\" \"Very good; bless you; for if\nit had not been for you, God knows how long I should have had to jump.\"\nThen the traveller said to himself, \"I have seen two greater fools than\nmy wife.\"\n\nThen he went his way, and as he approached a city, he heard a great\nnoise. When he drew near he asked what it was, and was told it was a\nmarriage, and that it was the custom in that city for the brides to\nenter the city gate on horseback, and that there was a great discussion\non this occasion between the groom and the owner of the horse, for the\nbride was tall and the horse high, and they could not get through the\ngate; so that they must either cut off the bride's head or the horse's\nlegs. The groom did not wish his bride's head cut off, and the owner of\nthe horse did not wish his horse's legs cut off, and hence this\ndisturbance. Then the traveller said, \"Just wait,\" and came up to the\nbride and gave her a slap that made her lower her head, and then he gave\nthe horse a kick, and so they passed through the gate and entered the\ncity. The groom and the owner of the horse asked the traveller what he\nwanted, for he had saved the groom his bride and the owner of the horse\nhis horse. He answered that he did not wish anything, and said to\nhimself, \"Two and one make three! that is enough. Now I will go home.\"\nHe did so, and said to his wife, \"Here I am, my wife; I have seen three\ngreater fools than you;--now let us remain in peace, and think of\nnothing else.\" They renewed the wedding, and always remained in peace.\nAfter a time the wife had a son, whom they named Bastianelo, and\nBastianelo did not die, but still lives with his father and mother.[4]\n\nThere is (Professor Crane remarks) a Sicilian version in Pitr\u00e9's\ncollection, called \"The Peasant of Larc\u00e0ra,\" in which the bride's mother\nimagines that her daughter has a son who falls into the cistern. The\ngroom--they are not yet married--is disgusted, and sets out on his\ntravels with no fixed purpose of returning if he finds some fools\ngreater than his mother-in-law, as in the Venetian tale. The first fool\nhe meets is a mother, whose child, in playing the game called\n_nocciole_.[5] tries to get his hand out of the hole whilst his\nfist is full of stones. He cannot, of course, and the mother thinks they\nwill have to cut off his hand. The traveller tells the child to drop the\nstones, and then he draws out his hand easily enough. Next he finds a\nbride who cannot enter the church because she is very tall and wears a\nhigh comb. The difficulty is settled as in the former story. After a\nwhile he comes to a woman who is spinning and drops her spindle. She\ncalls out to the pig, whose name is Tony, to pick it up for her. The pig\ndoes nothing but grunt, and the woman in anger cries, \"Well, you won't\npick it up? May your mother die!\" The traveller, who had overheard all\nthis, takes a piece of paper, which he folds up like a letter, and then\nknocks at the door. \"Who is there?\" \"Open the door, for I have a letter\nfor you from Tony's mother, who is ill and wishes to see her son before\nshe dies.\" The woman wonders that her imprecation has taken effect so\nsoon, and readily consents to Tony's visit. Not only this, but she loads\na mule with everything necessary for the comfort of the body and soul of\nthe dying pig. The traveller leads away the mule with Tony, and returns\nhome so pleased with having found that the outside world contains so\nmany fools that he marries as he had first intended.[6]\n\nIn other Italian versions, a man is trying to jump into his stockings;\nanother endeavours to put walnuts into a sack with a fork; and a woman\ndips a knotted rope into a deep well, and then having drawn it up,\nsqueezes the water out of the knots into a pail. The final adventure of\nthe traveller in quest of the greatest noodles is thus related in Miss\nBusk's _Folk-lore of Rome_:\n\nTowards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage, where he knocked, and\nasked for a night's lodging. \"I can't give you that,\" said a voice from\nthe inside; \"for I am a lone widow. I can't take a man in to sleep\nhere.\" \"But I am a pilgrim,\" replied he; \"let me in at least to cook a\nbit of supper.\"\n\n\"That I don't mind doing,\" said the good wife, and she opened the door.\n\"Thanks, good friend,\" said the pilgrim, as he sat down by the stove.\n\"Now add to your charity a couple of eggs in a pan.\" So she gave him a\npan and two eggs, and a bit of butter to cook them in; but he took the\nsix eggs out of his staff and broke them into the pan too. Presently,\nwhen the good wife turned her head his way again, and saw eight eggs\nswimming in the pan instead of two, she said, \"Lack-a-day! you must\nsurely be some strange being from the other world. Do you know\nSo-and-so?\" naming her husband. \"Oh yes,\" said he, enjoying the joke; \"I\nknow him very well: he lives just next to me.\" \"Only to think of that!\"\nreplied the poor woman. \"And, do tell me, how do you get on in the other\nworld? What sort of a life is it?\" \"Oh, not so very bad; it depends what\nsort of a place you get. The part where we are is pretty good, except\nthat we get very little to eat. Your husband, for instance, is nearly\nstarved.\" \"No, really?\" cried the good wife, clasping her hands. \"Only\nfancy, my good husband starving out there, so fond as he was of a good\ndinner, too!\" Then she added, coaxingly, \"As you know him so well,\nperhaps you wouldn't mind doing him the charity of taking him a little\nsomewhat, to give him a treat. There are such lots of things I could\neasily send him.\" \"Oh dear, no, not at all. I'll do so with pleasure,\"\nanswered he. \"But I'm not going back till to-morrow, and if I don't\nsleep here I must go on farther, and then I shan't come by this way.\"\n\"That's true,\" replied the widow. \"Ah, well, I mustn't mind what the\nfolks say; for such an opportunity as this may never occur again. You\nmust sleep in my bed, and I must sleep on the hearth; and in the morning\nI'll load a donkey with provisions for my poor husband.\" \"Oh, no,\"\nreplied the pilgrim, \"you shan't be disturbed in your bed. Only let me\nsleep on the hearth--that will do for me; and as I am an early riser, I\ncan be gone before any one's astir, so folks won't have anything to\nsay.\"\n\nSo it was done, and an hour before sunrise the woman was up, loading the\ndonkey with the best of her stores--ham, macaroni, flour, cheese, and\nwine. All this she committed to the pilgrim, saying, \"You'll send the\ndonkey back, won't you?\" \"Of course I would send him back,\" he replied;\n\"he'd be of no use to me out there. But I shan't get out again myself\nfor another hundred years or so, and I fear he won't find his way back\nalone, for it's no easy way to find.\" \"To be sure not; I ought to have\nthought of that,\" replied the widow. \"Ah, well, so as my poor husband\ngets a good meal, never mind the donkey.\" So the pretended pilgrim from\nthe other world went his way. He hadn't gone a hundred yards before the\nwidow called him back. \"Ah, she's beginning to think better of it,\" said\nhe to himself, and he continued his way, pretending not to hear. \"Good\npilgrim,\" shouted the widow, \"I forgot one thing: would money be of any\nuse to my poor husband?\" \"Oh dear, yes,\" said he, \"all the use in the\nworld. You can always get anything for money anywhere.\" \"Oh, do come\nback, then, and I'll trouble you with a hundred scudi for him.\" He went\nback, willingly, for the hundred scudi, which the widow counted out to\nhim. \"There's no help for it,\" said he to himself as he went his way: \"I\nmust go back to those at home.\"\n\nFrom sunny Italy to bleak Norway is certainly a \"far cry,\" yet the\nadventure of the \"Pilgrim from Paradise\" is also known to the Norse\npeasants, in connection with the quest of the greatest noodles: A goody\ngoes to market, with a cow and a hen for sale. She wants five shillings\nfor the cow and ten pounds for the hen. A butcher buys the cow, but\ndoesn't want the hen. As she cannot find a buyer for the hen, she goes\nback to the butcher, who treats her to so much brandy that she gets\ndead-drunk, and in this condition the butcher tars and feathers her.\nWhen she awakes, she fancies that she must be some strange bird, and\ncries out, \"Is this me, or is it not me? I'll go home, and if our dog\nbarks, then it is not me.\" Thus far we have a variant of our favourite\nnursery rhyme:\n\n  There was an old woman, as I've heard tell,\n  She went to market her eggs for to sell;\n  She went to market, all on a market-day,\n  And she fell asleep on the king's highway.\n\n  There came a pedlar, whose name was Stout,\n  He cut her petticoats all round about;\n  He cut her petticoats up to the knees,\n  Which made the old woman to shiver and freeze.\n\n  When the little woman first did wake,\n  She began to shiver and she began to shake;\n  She began to wonder, and she began to cry,\n  \"Lauk-a-mercy on me, this is none of I!\"\n\n  \"But if this be I, as I do hope it be,\n  I've a little dog at home, and he'll know me;\n  If it be I, he'll wag his little tail,\n  And if it be not I, he loudly bark and wail.\"\n\n  Home went the little woman all in the dark,\n  Up got the little dog, and began to bark;\n  He began to bark, and she began to cry,\n  \"Lauk-a-mercy on me, this can't be I!\"\n\nTo return to the Norse tale. As in our nursery rhyme, when the goody\nreaches home, the dog barks at her; then she goes to the calves' house,\nbut the calves, having sniffed the tar with which she was smeared, turn\naway from her in disgust. She is now fully convinced that she has been\ntransformed into some outlandish bird, so she climbs on to the roof of a\nshed, and begins to flap her arms as if she were about to fly, when out\ncomes her goodman, and seeing a suspicious-looking creature on the roof\nof the shed, he fetches his gun and is going to shoot at his goody, when\nhe recognises her voice. Amazed at such a piece of folly, he resolves to\nleave her and not come back till he has found three goodies as silly. He\nmeets with a female descendant of the Schildburgers, evidently, carrying\ninto her cottage sunshine in a sieve, there being no window in the\nhouse: he cuts out a window for her and is well paid for his trouble. He\nnext comes to a house where an old woman is thumping her goodman on the\nhead with a beetle, in order to force over him a shirt without a slit\nfor the neck, which she had drawn over his head: he cuts a slit in the\nshirt with a pair of scissors, and is amply rewarded for his ingenuity.\nHis third adventure is similar to that of the \"pilgrim\" in the Italian\nversion:\n\nAt another house he informs the goody that he came from Paradise Place--\nwhich was the name of his own farm--and she asks him if he knew her\nsecond husband in paradise. (She had been married twice before she took\nher present husband, who was an old curmudgeon, and she liked her second\nhusband best--she was sure he had gone to heaven.) He replies that he\nknew him very intimately, but, poor man, he was far from well off,\nhaving to go about begging from house to house. The goody gives him a\ncart-load of clothes and a box of shining dollars, for her dear second\nhusband; for why should he go about begging in paradise when there was\nso much of everything in their house? So the stranger, jumps into the\ncart and drives off, as fast as possible. But Peter, the goody's third\nhusband, sees him on the road, and recognising his own horse and cart,\nhastens home to his wife, and asks why a stranger has gone off with his\nproperty. She explains the whole affair, upon which he mounts a horse\nand gallops away after the rogue who had thus taken advantage of his\nwife's simplicity. The stranger, perceiving him approach, hides the\nhorse and cart behind a high hedge, takes part of the horse's tail and\nhangs it on the branches of a birch-tree, and then lays himself down on\nhis back and gazes up into the sky. When Peter comes up to him, he\nexclaims, still looking at the sky, \"What a wonder! there is a man going\nstraight to heaven on a black horse!\" Peter can see no such thing. \"Can\nyou not?\" says the stranger. \"See, there is his tail, still on the\nbirch-tree. You must lie down in this very spot, and look straight up,\nand don't for a moment take your eyes off the sky, and then you'll see--\nwhat you'll see.\" So Peter lies down and gazes up at the sky very\nintently, looking for the man going straight to heaven on a black horse.\nMeanwhile the traveller escapes, with the cart-load of clothes and the\nbox of shining dollars, and the second horse besides. Peter, when he\nreaches home, tells his wife that he had given the man from paradise the\nother horse for her second husband to ride about on, for he was ashamed\nto confess that he had been cheated as well as herself.[7] As to our\ntraveller, having found three goodies as great fools as his own, he\nreturned home, and saw that all his fields had been ploughed and sown;\nso he asked his wife where she had got the seed from. \"Oh,\" says she, \"I\nhave always heard that what a man sows he shall also reap, so I sowed\nthe salt that our friends the north-countrymen laid up with us, and if\nwe only have rain, I fancy it will come up nicely.\"[8] \"Silly you are,\"\nsaid her husband, \"and silly you will be as long as you live. But that\nis all one now, for the rest are not a bit wiser than you;--_there is\nnot a pin to choose between you_!\"[9]\n\nNow, if it be \"a far cry\" from Italy to Norway, it is still farther from\nNorway to India; and yet it is in the southern provinces of our great\nAsiatic empire that a story is current among the people, which, strange\nas it may seem, is almost the exact counterpart of the Norse version of\nthe pretended pilgrim from paradise, of which the above is an abstract.\nIt is found in Pandit S.M. Nat\u00e9sa S\u00e1str\u00ed's _Folk-lore in Southern\nIndia_, now in course of publication at Bombay; a work which, when\ncompleted, will be of very great value, to students of comparative\nfolk-tales, as well as prove an entertaining story-book for general\nreaders. After condensation in some parts, this story--which the Pandit\nentitles \"The Good Wife and the Bad Husband\"--runs thus:\n\nIn a secluded village there lived a rich man, who was very miserly, and\nhis wife, who was very kind-hearted and charitable, but a stupid little\nwoman that believed everything she heard. And there lived in the same\nvillage a clever rogue, who had for some time watched for an opportunity\nfor getting something from this simple woman during her husband's\nabsence. So one day, when he had seen the old miser ride out to inspect\nhis lands, this rogue of the first water came to the house, and fell\ndown at the threshold as if overcome by fatigue. The woman ran up to him\nat once and inquired whence he came. \"I am come from Kail\u00e1sa,\"[10] said\nhe; \"having been sent down by an old couple living there, for news of\ntheir son and his wife.\" \"Who are those fortunate dwellers in Siva's\nmountain?\" she asked. And the rogue gave the names of her husband's\ndeceased parents, which he had taken good care, of course, to learn from\nthe neighbours. \"Do you really come from them?\" said the simple woman.\n\"Are they doing well there? Dear old people! How glad my husband would\nbe to see you, were he here! Sit down, please, and rest until he\nreturns. How do they live there? Have they enough to eat and dress\nthemselves withal?\" These and a hundred other questions she put to the\nrogue, who, for his part, wished to get away as soon as possible,\nknowing full well how he would be treated if the miser should return\nwhile he was there. So he replied, \"Mother, language has no words to\ndescribe the miseries they are undergoing in the other world. They have\nnot a rag of clothing, and for the last six days they have eaten\nnothing, and have lived on water only. It would break your heart to see\nthem.\" The rogue's pathetic words deceived the good woman, who firmly\nbelieved that he had come down from Kail\u00e1sa, a messenger from the old\ncouple to herself. \"Why should they so suffer,\" said she, \"when their\nson has plenty to eat and clothe himself withal, and when their\ndaughter-in-law wears all sorts of costly garments?\" So saying, she went\ninto the house, and soon came out again with two boxes containing all\nher own and her husband's clothes, which she handed to the rogue,\ndesiring him to deliver them to the poor old couple in Kail\u00e1sa. She also\ngave him her jewel-box, to be presented to her mother-in-law. \"But dress\nand jewels will not fill their hungry stomachs,\" said the rogue. \"Very\ntrue; I had forgot: wait a moment,\" said the simple woman, going into\nthe house once more. Presently returning with her husband's cash chest,\nshe emptied its glittering contents into the rogue's skirt, who now took\nhis leave in haste, promising to give everything to the good old couple\nin Kail\u00e1sa; and having secured all the booty in his upper garment, he\nmade off at the top of his speed as soon as the silly woman had gone\nindoors.\n\nShortly after this the husband returned home, and his wife's pleasure at\nwhat she had done was so great that she ran to meet him at the door, and\ntold him all about the arrival of the messenger from Kail\u00e1sa, how his\nparents were without clothes and food, and how she had sent them clothes\nand jewels and store of money. On hearing this, the anger of the husband\nwas great; but he checked himself, and inquired which road the messenger\nfrom Kail\u00e1sa had taken, saying that he wished to follow him with a\nfurther message for his parents. So she very readily pointed out the\ndirection in which the rogue had gone. With rage in his heart at the\ntrick played upon his stupid wife, he rode off in hot haste, and after\nhaving proceeded a considerable distance, he caught sight of the flying\nrogue, who, finding escape hopeless, climbed up into a _pipal_\ntree.\n\nThe husband soon reached the foot of the tree, when he shouted to the\nrogue to come down. \"No, I cannot,\" said he; \"this is the way to\nKail\u00e1sa,\" and then climbed to the very top of the tree. Seeing there was\nno chance of the rogue coming down, and there being no one near to whom\nhe could call for help, the old miser tied his horse to a neighbouring\ntree, and began to climb up the _p\u00edpal_ himself. When the rogue\nobserved this, he thanked all his gods most fervently, and having waited\nuntil his enemy had climbed nearly up to him, he threw down his bundle\nof booty, and then leapt nimbly from branch to branch till he reached\nthe ground in safety, when he mounted the miser's horse and with his\nbundle rode into a thick forest, where he was not likely to be\ndiscovered. Being thus balked the miser came down the _p\u00edpal_ tree\nslowly cursing his own stupidity in having risked his horse to recover\nthe things which his wife had given the rogue, and returned home at\nleisure. His wife, who was waiting his return, welcomed him with a\njoyous countenance, and cried, \"I thought as much: you have sent away\nyour horse to Kail\u00e1sa, to be used by your old father.\" Vexed at his\nwife's words, as he was, he replied in the affirmative, to conceal his\nown folly.\n\nThrough the Tamils it is probable this story reached Ceylon, where it\nexists in a slightly different form: A young girl, named Kaluh\u00e1mi, had\nlately died, when a beggar came to the parents' house, and on being\nasked by the mother where he had come from, he said that he had just\ncome from the other world to this world, meaning that he had only just\nrecovered from severe illness. \"Then,\" said the woman, \"since you have\ncome from the other world, you must have seen my daughter Kaluh\u00e1mi\nthere, who died but a few days ago. Pray tell me how she is.\" The\nbeggar, seeing how simple she was, replied, \"She is my wife, and lives\nwith me at present, and she has sent me to you for her dowry.\" The woman\nat once gave him all the money and jewels that were in the house, and\nsent him away delighted with his unexpected good luck. Soon after, the\nwoman's husband returned, and learning how silly she had been, mounted\nhis horse and rode after the beggar. The rest of the story corresponds\nto the Tamil version, as above, with the exception that when the husband\nsaw the beggar slide down the tree, get on his horse, and ride off, he\ncried out to him, \"Hey, son-in-law, you may tell Kaluh\u00e1mi that the money\nand jewels are from her mother, and that the horse is from me;\" which is\naltogether inconsistent, since he is represented as the reverse of a\nsimpleton in pursuing the beggar, on hearing what his wife had done. It\nis curious, also, to observe that in the Tamil version the man goes to\nthe house with the deliberate purpose of deceiving the simple woman,\nwhile in the Sinhalese the beggar is evidently tempted by her mistaking\nthe meaning of his words. But both present very close points of\nresemblance to the Norwegian story of the pretended pilgrim from\nparadise. There are indeed few instances of a story having travelled so\nfar and lost so little of its original details, allowing for the\ninevitable local colouring.\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, vol. ii., pp.\n373-381. In a note to these adventures Campbell gives a story of some\nwomen who, as judges, doomed a horse to be hanged: the thief who stole\nthe horse got off, because it was his first offence; the horse went back\nto the house of the thief, because he was the better master, and was\ncondemned for stealing himself!\n\n[2]: Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, vol. ii.,\npp. 385--387.\n\nIn a Northumberland popular tale a child in bed sees a little fairy come\ndown the chimney, and the child tells the creature that his name is\nMy-ainsel. They play together, and the little fairy is burnt with a\ncinder, and on its mother appearing when it cries, and asking it who had\nhurt it, the imp answers, \"It was My-ainsel.\"--There is a somewhat\nsimilar story current in Finland: A man is moulding lead buttons, when\nthe Devil appears, and asks him what he is doing. \"Making eyes.\" \"Could\nyou make me new ones?\" \"Yes.\" So he ties the Devil to a bench, and, in\nreply to the fiend, tells him that his name is Myself _(Issi)_, and\nthen pours lead into his eyes. The Devil starts up with the bench on his\nback, and runs off howling. Some people working in a field ask him who\ndid it. Quoth the fiend, \"Myself did it\" (_Issi teggi_).\n\nCf. the _Odyssey_, Book ix., where Ulysses informs the Cyclops that\nhis name is No-man, and when the monster, after having had his eye put\nout in his sleep, awakes in agony, he roars to his comrades for help:\n\n  \"Friends, No-man kills me, No-man, in the hour\n  Of sleep, oppresses me with fraudful power!\"\n  \"If no man hurt thee, but the hand divine\n  Inflict disease, it fits thee to resign;--\n  To Jove, or to thy father, Neptune, pray,\"\n  The brethren cried, and instant strode away.\n\n[3] Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales_.\n\n[4] Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 279--282.\n\n[5] A game played with peach-pits, which are thrown into holes made in\nthe ground, and to which certain numbers are attached.\n\n[6] Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 282-3.\n\n[7] The same story is told in Brittany, with no important variations.\n\n[8] Quite as literally did the rustic understand the priest's assurance,\nthat whatsoever one gave in charity, for the love of God, should be\nrepaid him twofold: next day he takes his cow to the priest, who accepts\nit as sent by Heaven--and the poor man did _not_ get two cows in\nreturn. The story is known in various forms all over Europe; it was a\nspecial favourite in medi\u00e6val times. See Le Grand's _Fabliaux_,\ntome iii., 376: \"La Vache du Cur\u00e9,\" by the trouv\u00e8re Jean de Boves;\nWright's _Latin Stories; Icelandic Legends_, etc.\n\n[9] Dasent's _Popular Tales from the Norse_.\n\n[10] \"See note, p. 49\" in original. This is Chapter II, Footnote 13 in\nthis e-text.\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX.\n\n\nThe idea of the old English jest-book, _Jacke of Dover His Quest of\nInquirie, or His Privy Search for the Veriest Foole in England_\n(London: 1604), may perhaps have been suggested by such popular tales as\nthose of the man going about in quest of three greater fools than his\nwife, father-in-law, and mother-in-law. It is, however, simply a\ncollection of humorous anecdotes, not specially examples of folly or\nstupidity, most of which are found in earlier jest-books. The\nintroduction is rather curious:\n\n\"When merry Jacke of Dover had made his privy search for the Foole of\nall Fooles, and making his inquirie in most of the principal places in\nEngland, at his return home he was adjudged to be the fool himself; but\nnow wearied with the motley coxcombe, he hath undertaken in some place\nor other to find a verier foole than himself. But first of all, coming\nto London, he went into Paul's Church, where walking very melancholy in\nthe middle aisle with Captain Thingut and his fellowes, he was invited\nto dine at Duke Humphry's ordinary,[1] where, amongst other good\nstomachs that repaired to his bountiful feast, there came a whole jury\nof penniless poets, who being fellows of a merry disposition (but as\nnecessary in a commonwealth as a candle in a straw bed), he accepted of\ntheir company, and as from poets cometh all kind of folly, so he hoped\nby their good directions to find out his Foole of Fooles, so long looked\nfor. So, thinking to pass away the dinner-hour with some pleasant chat\n(lest, being overcloyed with too many dishes, they should surfeit), he\ndiscovered to them his merry meaning, who, being glad of so good an\noccasion of mirth, instead of a cup of sack and sugar for digestion,\nthese men of little wit began to make inquiry and to search for the\naforesaid fool, thinking it a deed of charity to ease him of so great a\nburden as his motley coxcomb was, and because such weak brains as are\nnow resident almost in every place, might take benefit hereat. In this\nmanner began the inquiry:\n\n_The Foole of Hereford._\n\n\"'Upon a time (quoth one of the jury) it was my chance to be in the city\nof Hereford, when, lodging at an inn, I was told of a certain\nsilly-witted gentleman there dwelling, that would assuredly believe all\nthings that he heard for a truth; to whose house I went upon a\nsleeveless errand, and finding occasion to be acquainted with him, I was\nwell entertained, and for three days' space had my bed and board in his\nhouse; where, amongst many other fooleries, I, being a traveller, made\nhim believe that the steeple of Brentwood, in Essex, sailed in one night\nas far as Calais, in France, and afterwards returned again to its proper\nplace. Another time I made him believe that in the forest of Sherwood,\nin Nottinghamshire, were seen five hundred of the King of Spain's\ngalleys, which went to besiege Robin Hood's Well, and that forty\nthousand scholars with elder squirts performed such a piece of service\nas they were all in a manner taken and overthrown in the forest. Another\ntime I made him believe that Westminster Hall, for suspicion of treason,\nwas banished for ten years into Staffordshire. And last of all, I made\nhim believe that a tinker should be baited to death at Canterbury for\ngetting two and twenty children in a year; whereupon, to prove me a\nliar, he took his horse and rode thither, and I, to verify him a fool,\ntook my horse and rode hither.'\n\n\"'Well,' quoth Jacke of Dover, 'this in my mind was pretty foolery, but\nyet the Foole of all Fooles is not here found that I looked for.'\n\n_The Fool of Huntington._\n\n\"'And it was my chance (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at\nHuntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who\nhaving two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the\nbetter to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a\nyear or two at school, he examined them saying, \"My good boy,\" quoth he\nto one of them, \"what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?\" \"O\nfather,\" said the boy, \"I am past grace.\" \"And where art thou?\" quoth he\nto the other boy, who likewise answered that he was at the devil and all\nhis works. \"Now Lord bless us,\" quoth the shoemaker, \"whither are my\nchildren learning? The one is already past grace and the other at the\ndevil and all his works!\" Whereupon he took them both from school and\nset them to his own occupation.[2]'\"\n\nA number of others of the jury of penniless poets having related their\nstories, at last it is agreed that if the Foole of all Fooles cannot be\nfound among those before named, one of themselves must be the fool, for\nthere cannot be a verier fool than a poet, \"for poets have good wits,\nbut cannot use them, great store of money, but cannot keep it,\" etc.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nIt is doubtful what the name \"Jack of Dover\" imports, as that of the\nimaginary inquirer after fools. The author of the Cook's Tale of\nGamelyn--which is generally considered as a spurious \"Canterbury\" tale--\nrepresents, in the prologue, mine host of the Tabard as saying to Roger\nthe Cook:\n\n  \"Full many a pastie hast thou lettin blode;\n  And many a jack of Dovyr hast thou sold,\n  That hath ben twic\u00e8 hot and twic\u00e8 cold.\"\n\nDr. Brewer says--apparently on the strength of these lines--that a \"Jack\nof Dover\" is a fish that has been cooked a second time. But it may have\nbeen a name of a particular kind of fish caught in the waters off Dover.\nIf, however, a \"Jack of Dover\" is a twice-cooked fish, the title of the\njest-book is not inappropriate, since all the stories it comprises are\nat least \"twice-told.\"\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] To \"dine with Duke Humphry\" meant not to dine at all. See Brewer's\n_Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ for the origin of the expression.\n\n[2] The jest is thus told in some parts of Scotland: An old gentleman,\nwalking in the country, met three small boys on their way home from\nschool, and asked them how they progressed in their learning. The\nyoungest--referring, of course, to the _Shorter Catechism_--replied\nthat he was \"in a state of sin and misery;\" the second, that he was past\n\"redemption;\" and the eldest, that he was \"in the pains of hell for\never.\"\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nAbdera, Man of, 6.\n\nAlewife and her Hens, 73.\n\nAlfonsus, Peter, 45.\n\nArab and his Cow, 70.\n\nArab Schoolmaster, 83.\n\nArabian Idiot, 133.\n\n_Arabian Nights_, 81, 83, 133, 146.\n\nArabian Noodles, 70,75,107, 147.\n\nArmstrong's, Archie, _Banquet of Jests_, 74.\n\nAshton, John, xiv.\n\nAss and the Two Sharpers, 81.\n\nAustwick, Carles of, 17,53,54.\n\n_Avad\u00e1nas_, 53.\n\n\nBabrius, 53.\n\nBakki, Brothers of, 32, 64.\n\nBang-eater and his Wife, 147.\n\nBang-eaters and the Dogs, 109.\n\nBarrett, F.T., 9.\n\n_Barrin' o' the Door_, 107.\n\nBelmont, Fools of, 55.\n\n_Beryn, Tale of_, 40.\n\nBeschi, Father, 29.\n\n_Bharataka Dwatrinsati_, 158.\n\n_Bizarrures of the Sieur Gaulard_, 8, 12, 20, 76.\n\nBidpa\u00ef's Fables, 53.\n\nBirth-Stories--_see_ J\u00e1takas.\n\nBoccaccio's _Decameron_, 39.\n\n\"Boiling\" River, 30, 43.\n\nBond, The Lord's, 17.\n\nBorde, Andrew, 23.\n\nBr\u00e1hmans, Four Simple, 171.\n\nBromyard, John, 167.\n\nBuddha's Five Precepts, 69.\n\nBull and the Gate, 54.\n\nBull of Siva, 48.\n\nBurton's _Arabian Nights_, 83.\n\nBusk's _Folk-Lore of Rome_, 204.\n\nButter eaten by a Dog, 18.\n\nBuzzard, The Gothamite's, 38.\n\n\nCabbage-Tree, 47.\n\nCaftan on Tree, 90.\n\nCalf's Head in a Pot, 89.\n\nCampbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, 32, 33, 34, 35,\n36, 154, 193.\n\nCat and old Woman, 65.\n\nCat, Men of Schilda's, 61.\n\nCazotte's _New Arabian Nights_, 133.\n\nCeylon--_see_ Sinhalese Noodles.\n\nChamberlain, B.H., 130.\n\nCheese, The Gothamite's, 34.\n\nCheese on the Highway, 40.\n\nCheese, The Stolen, 91.\n\nChinese Noodles, 93, 94.\n\nCoelho's _Contes Portuguezes_, 120.\n\nColombo, Michele, 81.\n\nCountryman and Dog, 79.\n\nCozens, F.W., 9.\n\nCouncil-House, Dark, 57.\n\nCrane's _Italian Popular Tales_, 117, 128, 139, 202, 204.\n\nCuckoo, Hedging in the, 26.\n\nCumeans and the bath, 4;\n  and the father's corpse,15;\n  and the fig-tree, 10;\n  and the pot of honey, 19;\n  and the stolen clothes, 4.\n\nDark Council-House, 57.\n\nDasent's _Norse Tales_, 126, 212.\n\nDekker's _Gul's Horn Book_, 26.\n\nDevil in the Meadow, 42.\n\n_Disciplina Clericalis_, 45.\n\nDoctor and Patients, 5.\n\nDoctor's Apprentice, 168.\n\nDog that ate Honey, 18.\n\nDoor, Taking Care of the, 97, 98.\n\nDreams, The Good, 92, 93.\n\nDubois, Abb\u00e9, 171.\n\n\nEar, Biting one's own, 86.\n\nEberhard's _Hieraclis_, 3.\n\nEel, Drowning the, 33.\n\n_El Conde Lucanor_, 162.\n\nEnglish typical booby, 139.\n\n\n_Fabliaux_, Le Grand's, 39,163.\n\nFamily, Best of the, 165.\n\nFarmer and his Pigs, 54.\n\nFisher, Indian Silly Son as, 163.\n\nFishers, Gothamite, 28.\n\nFleas, Bit by, 14.\n\n_Folk-Lore in Southern India_, 212.\n\nFool and the aloes-wood, 98;\n  and the birch-tree, 151;\n  and the cotton, 99;\n  and the cup lost in the sea, 99;\n  and the elephant-driver, 51;\n  and his porridge, 119;\n  and the _Ramayana_, 70;\n  and the sack of meal, 19, 25, 68;\n  and the shopkeeper, 100;\n  at his fireside, 119;\n  kicked by his mule, 119;\n  of Hereford, 221;\n  of Huntingdon, 222.\n\nFools and the buffalo, 101;\n  and the Bull of Siva, 48;\n  and their inheritance, 118;\n  and the mosquitoes, 95;\n  and the palm-trees, 96;\n  and the trunks, 96.\n\nFortini's Italian Novels, 162.\n\nFuller, Thomas, on the Gothamites, 20.\n\nFumivall, F.J., 23.\n\n\nGaulard, The Sieur, 8, 12, 20, 76.\n\nGeese and Tortoise, 52.\n\n_Gesta Romanorum_, 117,163.\n\nGibb's _Forty. Vaz\u00edrs_, 109, 166, 167.\n\nGiuf\u00e0, the Sicilian Booby, 97, 130, 165.\n\nGoat and Old Woman, 66.\n\n_Gooroo Paramartan_, 29, 37, 157.\n\nGossips and their late Husbands, 74.\n\nGossips at the Alehouse, 43.\n\n_Gotham, Tales of the Mad Men of_, xiii., 20, 24-44.\n\nGrazzini's Florentine Fool, 161.\n\nGrecian Noodles, 1-15.\n\n\nHalliwell-Phillipps, J.O., xiii., 13, 22, 27, 53.\n\nHama and Hums, Men of, 75.\n\nHazlitt, W.C., xiii., 12.\n\nHeaven, Sorry he has gone to, 74.\n\nHerdsman, The Foolish, 106.\n\nHerodotus, Stephens' _Apology_ for, 119.\n\nHierokles, Jests of, 2.\n\n_Hitopadesa_, 162.\n\nHoney, Pot of, 6, 18.\n\nHunter's Dream of a Boar, 4.\n\n\nIcelandic Noodles, 32, 64, 163.\n\nIndian Noodles, 29, 37, 44, 48, 51, 70, 96, 97-106, 111,\n1l8, 158, l6l, 163, 170, 212.\n\nItalian Noodles, 115, 127, 143, 160, 197, 202, 204.\n\nIrish Labourer and Farmer, 8.\n\nIrishman and his ass, 119.\n\nIrishman and his hens, 120.\n\nIrishman and lost shovel, 99.\n\nIrishmen and mosquitoes, 14.\n\nIrishman's Dream, 92.\n\n\nJack of Dover's Quest, 219.\n\nJapanese Noodle, 130.\n\nJatakas (Buddhist Birth-Stories), 52, 65, 95, 164.\n\n_Jests of Scogin_, 162.\n\nJoe Miller's Jest-Book, 1, 2.\n\nJudge and Thieves, 87.\n\n\nKaba\u00efl Tales, 37, 154.\n\nKashm\u00edr\u00ed Tales, 65, 89, 111.\n\n_Katha Manjari_, 11, 70, 100, 163.\n\n_Katha Sarit Sagara_, 48, 53, 120, 164.\n\nKerchief, The, 90.\n\nKhoja Nasr-ed-Din, 89.\n\nKing's Stupid Son, The, 167.\n\nKnite, 'The Gothamites', 53.\n\nKnowles, J.H., 66, 113.\n\n\n_Laird of Logan_, 13.\n\nLeger's _Contes Populaires Slaves_, 128, 154.\n\n\nMarie de France, 46.\n\n_Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres_, 161.\n\nMiller's Jest-Book, 1, 2.\n\nMillstone of the Schildburgers, 59.\n\nMinstrel and Pupil, 166.\n\nMonk Transformed, 81.\n\nMoon a green cheese, 44.\n\nMoon in the well, 92.\n\nMoon swallowed by an ass, 46.\n\n\"Mortuus Loquens,\" 160.\n\nMummy, The, 15.\n\n\nNasr-ed-Din Khoja, 89.\n\nNatesa Sastri Pandit, 212.\n\nNeedham's _Hieroclis_, 3.\n\nNoodles, The Three Great, 191.\n\nNorfolk Noodles, 17.\n\nNorse Noodles, 123, 207.\n\nNotts Bridge, 24.\n\n\n_Orientalist, The_, 69, 87, 114, 143, 160.\n\n\n_Pancha Tantra_, 67, 171.\n\nParadise, Man who came from, 204, 210, 212, 217.\n\nPedant, bald man, and barber, 6;\n  and the lost book, 13;\n  and his dream, 5,6;\n  and the jar of feathers, 5;\n  and his jar of wine, 9;\n  and the mirror, 9;\n  and the two slave-boys, 4;\n  and his slave who died, 8;\n  and the sparrows, 5;\n  and the twin-brothers, 12;\n  and his tomb, 8.\n\nPersian Noodle, 7.\n\nPersian Tales, 7, 66, 79.\n\n_Philotimus_, 27.\n\nPoet and the Dogs, 79.\n\nPoggius' _Faceti\u00e6_ 160, 162.\n\nPriest of Gotham, 42.\n\nPrincess caused to grow, 102.\n\nPupil, The Attentive, 165.\n\n\nRalston's _Russian Folk-Tales,_ 48, 153.\n\nRelic-hunter, 95.\n\nRents of Gothamites, 27.\n\nRight Hand or Left, 91.\n\nRiver, \"Boiling,\" 30, 43.\n\nRiviere's _Contes Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura_,\n37, 154.\n\nRussian Noodles, 47, 128, 151, 154, 195\n\nRustic and the Dog, 79.\n\n\n_Sacke Full of Newes_, 46, 97.\n\nSa'd\u00ed's _Gulist\u00e1n_, xi, 79.\n\nSchilda, The Men of, 56.\n\nSchoolmaster's Lady-love, 83.\n\nSesame, Roasted, 120.\n\nSheep's Eyes, Casting, 41, 126, 127.\n\nSicilian Boobies, 97, 116, 139, 165.\n\nSilent Noodles, 107-117.\n\nSilly Matt, 123.\n\nSilly Son, The, 121.\n\nSimple Simon, 121, 122.\n\nSimpleton and Sharpers, 81.\n\n_Sindib\u00e1d N\u00e1ma_, 66.\n\nSinhalese Noodles, 67-69, 87, 89, 113, 141, 165, 179, 217.\n\nSmith, Alexander, 9.\n\nSpade, The Stolen, 94.\n\nSpinning-Wheel, The, 36.\n\nStephens, Henry, Tales by, 119.\n\nStokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_, 154.\n\n_Summa Pra\u00e6dicantium_, The, 167.\n\n\nTabourot, Etienne, 8.\n\n_Tales and Quicke Answeres_, 161.\n\nTawney, C.H., 48.\n\nTaylor's _Wit and Mirth_, 9, 10, 74, 78.\n\nThief on a Tree, 11.\n\nThoms, W.J., xii., 56.\n\nThoroton's _History of Nottinghamshire_, 21.\n\nThree Greatest Noodles, 191.\n\nTreasure Trove, 144, 151, 154.\n\nTrivet, The Gothamite's, 36.\n\nTurkish Noodles, 11, 86, 90, 93, 109, 166, 167.\n\nTwelve Fishers, The, 28.\n\nTwin Brothers, 12.\n\n\nVives, Ludovicus, 46.\n\n\nWarton's _History of English Poetry_, 22.\n\nWasherman and his young Ass, 103.\n\nWasp's Nest, 40.\n\n\"Whittle to the Tree,\" 53.\n\nWidows, The Two, 74.\n\nWiltshire Noodles, 17, 54.\n\nWither's _Abuses Whipt and Stript_, 26.\n\nWolf's Tail, The, 91.\n\nWood, Anthony, on the Gotham Tales, 23.\n\nWorsted Balls, The, 35.\n\nWrestler and the Wag, 7.\n\nWrong Man wakened, 6, 7.","title":"The Book of Noodles: Stories of Simpletons; or, Fools and Their Follies","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":54531}