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diff --git a/13032-0.txt b/13032-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7cb3492 --- /dev/null +++ b/13032-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5404 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13032 *** + +THE + +BOOK OF NOODLES: + +_STORIES OF SIMPLETONS; OR, +FOOLS AND THEIR FOLLIES_. + +BY +W.A. CLOUSTON, + +_Author of "Popular Tales and Fictions; their Migrations and +Transformations_" + +"Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling when all +is done."--_Twelfth Night_. + + + +LONDON: + +ELLIOT STOCK, 62, PATERNOSTER ROW. + +1888. + + + + +Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 67-24351 + + + + +TO MY DEAR FRIEND + +DAVID ROSS, LL.D., M.A., B.Sc., + +PRINCIPAL OF THE +CHURCH OF SCOTLAND TRAINING COLLEGE, +GLASGOW, + +THIS COLLECTION OF FACETIÆ + +IS DEDICATED. + + + + + + +_PREFACE_. + + +_Like popular tales in general, the original sources of stories of +simpletons are for the most part not traceable. The old Greek jests of +this class had doubtless been floating about among different peoples +long before they were reduced to writing. The only tales and apologues +of noodles or stupid folk to which an approximate date can be assigned +are those found in the early Buddhist books, especially in the +"Játakas," or Birth-stories, which are said to have been related to his +disciples by Gautama, the illustrious founder of Buddhism, as incidents +which occurred to himself and others in former births, and were +afterwards put into a literary form by his followers. Many of the +"Játakas" relate to silly men and women, and also to stupid animals, the +latter being, of course, men re-born as beasts, birds, or reptiles. But +it is not to be supposed that all are of Buddhist invention; some had +doubtless been current for ages among the Hindus before Gautama +promulgated his mild doctrines. Scholars are, however, agreed that these +fictions date at latest from a century prior to the Christian era._ + +_Of European noodle-stories, as of other folk-tales, it may be said +that, while they are numerous, yet the elements of which they are +composed are comparatively very few. The versions domiciled in different +countries exhibit little originality, farther than occasional +modifications in accordance with local manners and customs. Thus for the +stupid Brahman of Indian stories the blundering, silly son is often +substituted in European variants; for the brose in Norse and Highland +tales we find polenta or macaroni in Italian and Sicilian versions. The +identity of incidents in the noodle-stories of Europe with those in what +are for us their oldest forms, the Buddhist and Indian books, is very +remarkable, particularly so in the case of Norse popular fictions, +which, there is every reason to believe, were largely introduced through +the Mongolians; and the similarity of Italian and West Highland stories +to those of Iceland and Norway would seem to indicate the influence of +the Norsemen in the Western Islands of Scotland and in the south of +Europe._ + +_It were utterly futile to attempt to trace the literary history of +most of the noodle-stories which appear to have been current throughout +European countries for many generations, since they have practically +none. Soon after the invention of printing collections of facetiæ were +rapidly multiplied, the compilers taking their material from oral as +well as written sources, amongst others, from mediæval collections of +"exempla" designed for the use of preachers and the writings of the +classical authors of antiquity. With the exception of those in Buddhist +works, it is more than probable that the noodle-stories which are found +among all peoples never had any other purpose than that of mere +amusement. Who, indeed, could possibly convert the "witless devices" of +the men of Gotham into vehicles of moral instruction? Only the monkish +writers of the Middle Ages, who even "spiritualised" tales which, if +reproduced in these days, must be "printed for private circulation"!_ + +_Yet may the typical noodle of popular tales "point a moral," after a +fashion. Poor fellow! he follows his instructions only too literally, +and with a firm conviction that he is thus doing a very clever thing. +But the consequence is almost always ridiculous. He practically shows +the fallacy of the old saw that "fools learn by experience," for his +next folly is sure to be greater than the last, in spite of every +caution to the contrary. He is generally very honest, and does +everything, like the man in the play, "with the best intentions." His +mind is incapable of entertaining more than one idea at a time; but to +that he holds fast, with the tenacity of the lobster's claw: he cannot +be diverted from it until, by some accident, a fresh idea displaces it; +and so on he goes from one blunder to another. His blunders, however, +which in the case of an ordinary man would infallibly result in disaster +to himself or to others, sometimes lead him to unexpected good fortune. +He it is, in fact, to whom the great Persian poet Sádí alludes when he +says, in his charming "Gulistán," or Rose Garden, "The alchemist died of +grief and distress, while the blockhead found a treasure under a ruin." +Men of intelligence toil painfully to acquire a mere "livelihood"'; the +noodle stumbles upon great wealth in the midst of his wildest vagaries. +In brief, he is--in stories, at least--a standing illustration of the +"vanity of human life"!_ + +_And now a few words as to the history and design of the following +work. When the Folk-lore Society was formed, some nine years since, the +late Mr. W.J. Thoms, who was one of the leading men in its formation, +promised to edit for the Society the "Merry Tales of the Mad Men of +Gotham," furnishing notes of analogous stories, a task which he was +peculiarly qualified to perform. As time passed on, however, the +infirmities of old age doubtless rendered the purposed work less and +less attractive to him, and his death, after a long, useful, and +honourable career, left it still undone. What particular plan he had +sketched out for himself I do not know; but there can be no doubt that +had he carried it out the results would have been most valuable. And, +since he did not perform his self-allotted task, his death is surely a +great loss, perhaps an irreparable loss, to English students of +comparative folk-lore._ + +_More than five years ago, with a view of urging Mr. Thoms to set +about the work, I offered to furnish him with some material in the shape +of Oriental noodle-stories; but from a remark in his reply I feared +there would be no need for such services as I could render him. That +fear has been since realised, and the present little book is now offered +as a humble substitute for the intended work of Mr. Thoms, until it is +displaced by a more worthy one._ + +_Since the "Tales of the Men of Gotham" ceased to be reproduced in +chap-book form, the first reprint of the collection was made in 1840, +with an introduction by Mr. J.O. Halliwell (now Halliwell-Phillipps); +and that brochure is become almost as scarce as the chap-book copies +themselves: the only copy I have seen is in the Euing collection in the +Glasgow University Library. The tales were next reprinted in the +"Shakespeare Jest-books," so ably edited and annotated by Mr. W. Carew +Hazlitt, in three volumes (1864). They were again reproduced in Mr. John +Ashton's "Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century" (1882)._ + +_It did not enter into the plan of any of these editors to cite +analogues or variants of the Gothamite Tales; nor, on the other hand, +was it any part of my design in the present little work to reproduce the +Tales in the same order as they appear in the printed collection. Yet +all that are worth reproducing in a work of this description will be +found in the chapters entitled "Gothamite Drolleries," of which they +form, indeed, but a small portion._ + +_My design has been to bring together, from widely scattered sources, +many of which are probably unknown or inaccessible to ordinary readers, +the best of this class of humorous narratives, in their oldest existing +Buddhist and Greek forms as well as in the forms in which they are +current among the people in the present day. It will, perhaps, be +thought by some that a portion of what is here presented might have been +omitted without great loss; but my aim has been not only to compile an +amusing story-book, but to illustrate to some extent the migrations of +popular fictions from country to country. In this design I was assisted +by Captain R.C. Temple, one of the editors of the "Indian Antiquary," +and one of the authors of "Wide-awake Stories," from the Punjab and +Kashmir, who kindly directed me to sources whence I have drawn some +curious Oriental parallels to European stories of simpletons._ + +_W.A.C._ + + +*.* _While my "Popular Tales and Fictions" was passing through the +press, in 1886, I made reference (in vol. i., p. 65) to the present +work, as it was purposed to be published that year, but Mr. Stock has +had unavoidably to defer its publication till now._ + +_W.A.C_. + +GLASGOW, _March_, 1888. + + + +CONTENTS. + + +CHAPTER I. + +ANCIENT GRECIAN NOODLES 1-15 + + +CHAPTER II. + +GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES: + +Reputed communities of stupids in different countries--The noodles of +Norfolk: their lord's bond; the dog and the honey; the fool and his sack +of meal--Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham: Andrew Borde not the author-- +The two Gothamites at Notts Bridge--The hedging of the cuckoo--How the +men of Gotham paid their rents--The twelve fishers and the courtier--The +_Gúrú Paramartan_--The brothers of Bakki--Drowning the eel--The +Gothamite and his cheese--The trivet--The buzzard--The gossips at the +alehouse--The cheese on the highway--The wasp's nest--Casting sheep's +eyes--The devil in the meadow--The priest of Gotham--The "boiling" +river--The moon a green cheese--The "carles of Austwick"--The Wiltshire +farmer and his pigs + 16-55 + + +CHAPTER III. + +GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES (_continued_): + +The men of Schilda: the dark council-house; the mill-stone; the cat-- +Sinhalese noodles: the man who observed Buddha's five precepts--The fool +and the _Rámáyana_--The two Arabian noodles--The alewife and her +hens--"Sorry he has gone to heaven"--The man of Hama and the man of +Hums--_Bizarrures_ of the Sieur Gaulard--The rustic and the dog + 56-80 + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES (_continued_): + +The simpleton and the sharpers--The schoolmaster's lady-love--The judge +and the thieves--The calf's head--The Kashmírí and his store of rice-- +The Turkish noodle: the kerchief; the caftan; the wolf's tail; the right +hand and the left; the stolen cheese; the moon in the well--The good +dreams--Chinese noodles: the lady and her husband; the stolen spade; the +relic-hunter--Indian noodles: the fools and the mosquitoes; the fools +and the palm-trees; the servants and the trunks; taking care of the +door; the fool and the aloes-wood; the fool and the cotton; the cup lost +in the sea; the fool and the thieves; the simpletons who ate the +buffalo; the princess who was made to grow; the washerman's ass +transformed; the foolish herdsman--Noodle-stories moralised--The +brothers and their heritage--Sowing roasted sesame + 81-120 + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE SILLY SON: + +Simple Simon--The Norse booby--The Russian booby--The Japanese noodle-- +The Arabian idiot--The English silly son--The Sinhalese noodle with the +robbers--The Italian booby--The Arab simpleton and his cow--The Russian +fool and the birch-tree--The silly wife deceived by her husband--The +Indian fool on the tree-branch--The Indian monk who believed he was +dead--The Florentine fool and the young men--The Indian silly son as a +fisher; as a messenger; killing a mosquito; as a pupil--The best of the +family--The doctor's apprentice + 121-170 + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE FOUR SIMPLE BRÁHMANS: + +Introduction 171 +Story of the first Bráhman 176 +Story of the second Bráhman 178 +Story of the third Bráhman 181 +Story of the fourth Bráhman 185 +Conclusion 190 + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE THREE GREAT NOODLES 191-218 + + * * * * * + + +APPENDIX. + +JACK OF DOVER'S QUEST OF THE FOOL OF ALL FOOLS 219 + + + + +THE BOOK OF NOODLES. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +ANCIENT GRECIAN NOODLES. + + +"Old as the days of Hierokles!" is the exclamation of the "classical" +reader on hearing a well-worn jest; while, on the like occasion, that of +the "general" reader--a comprehensive term, which, doubtless, signifies +one who knows "small Latin and less Greek"--is, that it is "a Joe +Miller;" both implying that the critic is too deeply versed in +_joke-ology_ to be imposed upon, to have an old jest palmed on him +as new, or as one made by a living wit. That the so-called jests of +Hierokles are _old_ there can be no doubt whatever; that they were +collected by the Alexandrian sage of that name is more than doubtful; +while it is certain that several of them are much older than the time in +which he flourished, namely, the fifth century: it is very possible that +some may date even as far back as the days of the ancient Egyptians! It +is perhaps hardly necessary to say that honest Joseph Miller, the +comedian, was not the compiler of the celebrated jest-book with which +his name is associated; that it was, in fact, simply a bookseller's +trick to entitle a heterogeneous collection of jokes, "quips, and +cranks, and quiddities," _Joe Millers Jests; or, The Wit's Vade +Mecum_. And when one speaks of a jest as being "a Joe Miller," he +should only mean that it is "familiar as household words," not that it +is of contemptible antiquity, albeit many of the jokes in "Joe Miller" +are, at least, "as old as Hierokles," such, for instance, as that of the +man who trained his horse to live on a straw _per diem_, when it +suddenly died, or that of him who had a house to sell and carried about +a brick as a specimen of it. + +The collection of facetiæ ascribed to Hierokles, by whomsoever it was +made, is composed of very short anecdotes of the sayings and doings of +pedants, who are represented as noodles, or simpletons. In their +existing form they may not perhaps be of much earlier date than the +ninth century. They seem to have come into the popular facetiæ of Europe +through the churchmen of the Middle Ages, and, after having circulated +long orally, passed into literature, whence, like other kinds of tales, +they once more returned to the people. We find in them the indirect +originals of some of the bulls and blunders which have in modern times +been credited to Irishmen and Scotch Highlanders, and the germs also, +perhaps, of some stories of the Gothamite type: as brave men lived +before Agamemnon, so, too, the race of Gothamites can boast of a very +ancient pedigree! By far the greater number of them, however, seem now +pithless and pointless, whatever they may have been considered in +ancient days, when, perhaps, folk found food for mirth in things which +utterly fail to tickle our "sense of humour" in these double-distilled +days. Of the [Greek: Asteia], or facetiæ, of Hierokles, twenty-eight +only are appended to his Commentary on Pythagoras and the fragments of +his other works edited, with Latin translations, by Needham, and +published at Cambridge in 1709. A much larger collection, together with +other Greek jests--of the people of Abdera, Sidonia, Cumæ, etc.--has +been edited by Eberhard, under the title of _Philogelos Hieraclis el +Philagrii Facetia_ which was published at Berlin in 1869. + +In attempting to classify the best of these relics of ancient wit--or +witlessness, rather--it is often difficult to decide whether a +particular jest is of the Hibernian bull, or blunder, genus or an +example of that droll stupidity which is the characteristic of noodles +or simpletons. In the latter class, however, one need not hesitate to +place the story of the men of Cumæ, who were expecting shortly to be +visited by a very eminent man, and having but one bath in the town, they +filled it afresh, and placed an open grating in the middle, in order +that half the water should be kept clean for his sole use. + +But we at once recognise our conventional Irishman in the pedant who, on +going abroad, was asked by a friend to buy him two slave-boys of fifteen +years each, and replied, "If I cannot find such a pair, I will bring you +one of thirty years;" and in the fellow who was quarrelling with his +father, and said to him, "Don't you know how much injury you have done +me? Why, had you not been born, I should have inherited my grandfather's +estate;" also in the pedant who heard that a raven lived two hundred +years, and bought one that he should ascertain the fact for himself. + +Among Grecian Gothamites, again, was the hunter who was constantly +disturbed by dreams of a boar pursuing him, and procured dogs to sleep +with him. Another, surely, was the man of Cumæ who wished to sell some +clothes he had stolen, and smeared them with pitch, so that they should +not be recognised by the owner. They were Gothamites, too, those men of +Abdera who punished a runaway ass for having got into the gymnasium and +upset the olive oil. Having brought all the asses of the town together, +as a caution, they flogged the delinquent ass before his fellows. + +Some of the jests of Hierokles may be considered either as witticisms or +witless sayings of noodles; for example, the story of the man who +recovered his health though the doctor had sworn he could not live, and +afterwards, being asked by his friends why he seemed to avoid the doctor +whenever they were both likely to meet, he replied, "He told me I should +not live, and now I am ashamed to be alive;" or that of the pedant who +said to the doctor, "Pardon me for not having been sick so long;" or +this, "I dreamt that I saw and spoke to you last night:" quoth the +other, "By the gods, I was so busy, I did not hear you." + +But our friend the Gothamite reappears in the pedant who saw some +sparrows on a tree, and went quietly under it, stretched out his robe, +and shook the tree, expecting to catch the sparrows as they fell, like +ripe fruit again, in the pedant who lay down to sleep, and, finding he +had no pillow, bade his servant place a jar under his head, after +stuffing it full of feathers to render it soft; again, in the +cross-grained fellow who had some honey for sale, and a man coming up to +him and inquiring the price, he upset the jar, and then replied, "You +may shed my heart's blood like that before I tell such as you;" and +again, in the man of Abdera who tried to hang himself, when the rope +broke, and he hurt his head; but after having the wound dressed by the +doctor, he went and accomplished his purpose. And we seem to have a +trace of them in the story of the pedant who dreamt that a nail had +pierced his foot, and in the morning he bound it up; when he told a +friend of his mishap, he said, "Why do you sleep barefooted?" + +The following jest is spread--_mutatis mutandis_--over all Europe: +A pedant, a bald man, and a barber, making a journey in company, agreed +to watch in turn during the night. It was the barber's watch first. He +propped up the sleeping pedant, and shaved his head, and when his time +came, awoke him. When the pedant felt his head bare, "What a fool is +this barber," he cried, "for he has roused the bald man instead of me!" + +A variant of this story is related of a raw Highlander, fresh from the +heather, who put up at an inn in Perth, and shared his bed with a negro. +Some coffee-room jokers having blackened his face during the night, when +he was called, as he had desired, very early next morning, and got up, +he saw the reflection of his face in the mirror, and exclaimed in a +rage, "Tuts, tuts! The silly body has waukened the wrang man." + +In connection with these two stories may be cited the following, from a +Persian jest-book: A poor wrestler, who had passed all his life in +forests, resolved to try his fortune in a great city, and as he drew +near it he observed with wonder the crowds on the road, and thought, "I +shall certainly not be able to know myself among so many people if I +have not something about me that the others have not." So he tied a +pumpkin to his right leg and, thus decorated, entered the town. A young +wag, perceiving the simpleton, made friends with him, and induced him to +spend the night at his house. While he was asleep, the joker removed the +pumpkin from his leg and tied it to his own, and then lay down again. In +the morning, when the poor fellow awoke and found the pumpkin on his +companion's leg, he called to him, "Hey! get up, for I am perplexed in +my mind. Who am I, and who are you? If I am myself, why is the pumpkin +on your leg? And if you are yourself, why is the pumpkin not on my leg?" + +Modern counterparts of the following jest are not far to seek: Quoth a +man to a pedant, "The slave I bought of you has died." Rejoined the +other, "By the gods, I do assure you that he never once played me such a +trick while I had him." The old Greek pedant is transformed into an +Irishman, in our collections of facetiæ, who applied to a farmer for +work. "I'll have nothing to do with you," said the farmer, "for the last +five Irishmen I had all died on my hands." Quoth Pat, "Sure, sir, I can +bring you characters from half a dozen gentlemen I've worked for that I +never did such a thing." And the jest is thus told in an old translation +of _Les Contes Facetieux de Sieur Gaulard_: "Speaking of one of his +Horses which broake his Neck at the descent of a Rock, he said, Truly it +was one of the handsomest and best Curtails in all the Country; he neuer +shewed me such a trick before in all his life."[1] + +Equally familiar is the jest of the pedant who was looking out for a +place to prepare a tomb for himself, and on a friend indicating what he +thought to be a suitable spot, "Very true," said the pedant, "but it is +unhealthy." And we have the prototype of a modern "Irish" story in the +following: A pedant sealed a jar of wine, and his slaves perforated it +below and drew off some of the liquor. He was astonished to find his +wine disappear while the seal remained intact. A friend, to whom he had +communicated the affair, advised him to look and ascertain if the liquor +had not been drawn off from below. "Why, you fool," said he, "it is not +the lower, but the upper, portion that is going off." + +It was a Greek pedant who stood before a mirror and shut his eyes that +he might know how he looked when asleep--a jest which reappears in +Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_ in this form: "A wealthy monsieur in +France (hauing profound reuenues and a shallow braine) was told by his +man that he did continually gape in his sleepe, at which he was angry +with his man, saying he would not belieue it. His man verified it to be +true; his master said that he would neuer belieue any that told him so, +except (quoth hee) I chance to see it with mine owne eyes; and therefore +I will have a great Looking glasse at my bed's feet for the purpose to +try whether thou art a lying knaue or not."[2] + +Not unlike some of our "Joe Millers" is the following: A citizen of +Cumæ, on an ass, passed by an orchard, and seeing a branch of a fig-tree +loaded with delicious fruit, he laid hold of it, but the ass went on, +leaving him suspended. Just then the gardener came up, and asked him +what he did there. The man replied, "I fell off the ass."--An analogue +to this drollery is found in an Indian story-book, entitled _Katha +Manjari_: One day a thief climbed up a cocoa-nut tree in a garden to +steal the fruit. The gardener heard the noise, and while he was running +from his house, giving the alarm, the thief hastily descended from the +tree. "Why were you up that tree?" asked the gardener. The thief +replied, "My brother, I went up to gather grass for my calf." "Ha! ha! +is there grass, then, on a cocoa-nut tree?" said the gardener. "No," +quoth the thief; "but I did not know; therefore I came down again."--And +we have a variant of this in the Turkish jest of the fellow who went +into a garden and pulled up carrots, turnips, and other kinds of +vegetables, some of which he put into a sack, and some into his bosom. +The gardener, coming suddenly on the spot, laid hold of him, and said, +"What are you seeking here?" The simpleton replied, "For some days past +a great wind has been blowing, and that wind blew me hither." "But who +pulled up these vegetables?" "As the wind blew very violently, it cast +me here and there; and whatever I laid hold of in the hope of saving +myself remained in my hands." "Ah," said the gardener, "but who filled +this sack with them?" "Well, that is the very question I was about to +ask myself when you came up." + +The propensity with which Irishmen are credited of making ludicrous +bulls is said to have its origin, not from any lack of intelligence, but +rather in the fancy of that lively race, which often does not wait for +expression until the ideas have taken proper verbal form. Be this as it +may, a considerable portion of the bulls popularly ascribed to Irishmen +are certainly "old as the jests of Hierokles," and are, moreover, +current throughout Europe. Thus in Hierokles we read that one of +twin-brothers having recently died, a pedant, meeting the survivor, +asked him whether it was he or his brother who had deceased.--Taylor has +this in his _Wit and Mirth_, and he probably heard it from some one +who had read the facetious tales of the Sieur Gaulard: "A nobleman of +France (as he was riding) met with a yeoman of the Country, to whom he +said, My friend, I should know thee. I doe remember I haue often seene +thee. My good Lord, said the countriman, I am one of your Honers poore +tenants, and my name is T.J. I remember better now (said my Lord); there +were two brothers of you, but one is dead; I pray, which of you doth +remaine alive?"--Mr. W. Carew Hazlitt, in the notes to his edition of +Taylor's collection _(Shakespeare Jest Books_, Third Series), cites +a Scotch parallel from _The Laird of Logan_: "As the Paisley +steamer came alongside the quay[3] at the city of the Seestus,[4] a +denizen of St. Mirren's hailed one of the passengers: 'Jock! Jock! distu +hear, man? Is that you or your brother?'" And to the same point is the +old nursery rhyme,-- + + "Ho, Master Teague, what is your story? + I went to the wood, and killed a tory;[5] + I went to the wood, and killed another: + Was it the same, or was it his brother?"[6] + +We meet with a very old acquaintance in the pedant who lost a book and +sought for it many days in vain, till one day he chanced to be eating +lettuces, when, turning a corner, he saw it on the ground. Afterwards +meeting a friend who was lamenting the loss of his girdle, he said to +him, "Don't grieve; buy some lettuces; eat them at a corner; turn round +it, go a little way on, and you will find your girdle." But is there +anything like this in "Joe Miller"?--Two lazy fellows were sleeping +together, when a thief came, and drawing down the coverlet made off with +it. One of them was aware of the theft, and said to the other, "Get up, +and run after the man that has stolen our coverlet." "You blockhead," +replied his companion, "wait till he comes back to steal the bolster, +and we two will master him." And has "Joe" got this one?--A pedant's +little boy having died, many friends came to the funeral, on seeing whom +he said, "I am ashamed to bring out so small a boy to so great a crowd." + +An epigram in the _Anthologia_ may find a place among noodle +stories: + + "A blockhead, bit by fleas, put out the light, + And, chuckling, cried, 'Now you can't see to bite!'" + +This ancient jest has been somewhat improved in later times. Two +Irishmen in the East Indies, being sorely pestered with mosquitoes, kept +their light burning in hopes of scaring them off, but finding this did +not answer, one suggested they should extinguish the light and thus +puzzle their tormentors to find them, which was done. Presently the +other, observing the light of a firefly in the room, called to his +bedfellow, "Arrah, Mike, sure your plan's no good, for, bedad, here's +one of them looking for us wid a lantern!" + +Our specimens may be now concluded with what is probably the best of the +old Greek jokes. The father of a man of Cumæ having died at Alexandria, +the son dutifully took the body to the embalmers. When he returned at +the appointed time to fetch it away, there happened to be a number of +bodies in the same place, so he was asked if his father had any +peculiarity by which his body might be recognised, and the wittol +replied, "He had a cough." + +[Illustration] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Etienne Tabourot, the author of this amusing little book, +who was born at Dijon in 1549 and died in 1590, is said to have written +the tales in ridicule of the inhabitants of Franche Comte, who were then +the subjects of Spain, and reputed to be stupid and illiterate. From a +manuscript translation, entitled _Bizarrures; or, The Pleasant and +Witlesse and Simple Speeches of the Lord Gaulard of Burgundy_, +purporting to be made by "J.B., of Charterhouse," probably about the +year 1660, in the possession of Mr. Frederick William Cosens, London, +fifty copies, edited, with a preface, by "A.S." (Alexander Smith), were +printed at Glasgow in 1884. I am indebted to the courtesy of my friend +Mr. F.T. Barrett, Librarian of the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, for +directing my attention to this curious work, a copy of which is among +the treasures of that already important institution. + +[2] "_Wit and Mirth_. Chargeably collected out of Taverns, +Ordinaries, Innes, Bowling-greenes and Allyes, Alehouses, Tobacco-shops, +Highwayes, and Water-passages. Made up and fashioned into Clinches, +Bulls, Quirkes, Yerkes, Quips, and Jerkes. Apothegmatically bundled vp +and garbled at the request of John Garrett's Ghost." (1635)--such is the +elaborate title of the collection of jests made by John Taylor, the +Water Poet, which owes very little to preceding English jest-books. The +above story had, however, been told previously in the _Bizarrures_ +of the Sieur Gaulard: "His cousine Dantressesa reproued him one day that +she had found him sleeping in an ill posture with his mouth open, to +order which for the tyme to come he commanded his seruant to hang a +looking glasse upon the curtaine at his Bed's feet, that he might +henceforth see if he had a good posture in his sleep." + +[3] Only a Liliputian steamer could go up the "river" Cart! + +[4] "Seestu" is a nickname for Paisley, the good folks of that busy town +being in the habit of frequently interjecting, "Seestu?"--_i.e.,_ +"Seest thou?"--in their familiar colloquies. + +[5] "Tory" is said to be the Erse term for a robber. + +[6] Halliwell's _Nursery Rhymes of England_, vol. iv. of Percy +Society's publications. + + + +CHAPTER II. + +GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES, WITH VARIANTS AND ANALOGUES. + + +It seems to have been common to most countries, from very ancient times, +for the inhabitants of a particular district, town, or village to be +popularly regarded as pre-eminently foolish, arrant noodles or +simpletons. The Greeks had their stories of the silly sayings and doings +of the people of Bæotia, Sidonia, Abdera, etc. Among the Perso-Arabs the +folk of Hums (ancient Emessa) are reputed to be exceedingly stupid. The +Kabaïl, or wandering tribes of Northern Africa, consider the Beni Jennad +as little better than idiots. The Schildburgers are the noodles of +German popular tales. In Switzerland the townsmen of Belmont, near +Lausanne, are typical blockheads. And England has her "men of Gotham"--a +village in Nottinghamshire--who are credited with most of the noodle +stories which have been current among the people for centuries past, +though other places share to some extent in their not very enviable +reputation: in Yorkshire the "carles" of Austwick, in Craven; some +villages near Marlborough Downs, in Wiltshire; and in the counties of +Sutherland and Ross, the people of Assynt. + +But long before the men of Gotham were held up to ridicule as fools, a +similar class of stories had been told of the men of Norfolk, as we +learn from a curious Latin poem, _Descriptio Norfolciensium_, +written, probably, near the end of the twelfth century, by a monk of +Peterborough, which is printed in Wright's _Early Mysteries and Other +Latin Poems_. This poem sets out with stating that Cæsar having +despatched messengers throughout the provinces to discover which were +bad and which were good, on their return they reported Norfolk as the +most sterile, and the people the vilest and different from all other +peoples. Among the stories related of the stupidity of the men of +Norfolk is the following: Being oppressed by their lord, they gave him a +large sum of money on condition that he should relieve them from future +burdens, and he gave them his bond to that effect, sealed with a seal of +green wax. To celebrate this, they all went to the tavern and got drunk. +When it became dark, they had no candle, and were puzzled how to procure +one, till a clever fellow among the revellers suggested that they should +use the wax seal of the bond for a candle--they should still have the +words of the bond, which their lord could not repudiate; so they made +the wax seal into a candle, and burned it while they continued their +merry-making. This exploit coming to the knowledge of their lord, he +reimposes the old burdens on the rustics, who complain of his injustice, +at the same time producing the bond. The lord calls a clerk to examine +the document, who pronounces it to be null and void in the absence of +the lord's seal, and so their oppression continues. + +Another story is of a man of Norfolk who put some honey in a jar, and in +his absence his dog came and ate it all up. When he returned home and +was told of this, he took the dog and forced him to disgorge the honey, +put it back into the jar, and took it to market. A customer having +examined the honey, declared it to be putrid. "Well," said the +simpleton, "it was in a vessel that was not very clean."--Wright has +pointed out that this reappears in an English jest-book of the +seventeenth century. "A cleanly woman of Cambridgeshire made a good +store of butter, and whilst she went a little way out of the town about +some earnest occasions, a neighbour's dog came in in the meantime, and +eat up half the butter. Being come home, her maid told her what the dog +had done, and that she had locked him up in the dairy-house. So she took +the dog and hang'd him up by the heels till she had squeez'd all the +butter out of his throat again, whilst she, pretty, cleanly soul, took +and put it to the rest of the butter, and made it up for Cambridge +market. But her maid told her she was ashamed to see such a nasty trick +done. 'Hold your peace, you fool!' says she; ''tis good enough for +schollards. Away with it to market!'"[1]--Perhaps the original form is +found in the _Philogelos Hieraclis et Philagrii Facetiæ_, edited by +Eberhard. A citizen of Cumæ was selling honey. Some one came up and +tasted it, and said that it was all bad. He replied, "If a mouse had not +fallen into it, I would not sell it." + +The well-known Gothamite jest of the man who put a sack of meal on his +own shoulders to save his horse, and then got on the animal's back and +rode home, had been previously told of a man of Norfolk, thus: + + "Ad foram ambulant diebus singulis; + Saccum de lolio portant in humeris, + Jumentis ne noccant: bene fatuis, + Ut prolocutiis sum acquantur bestiis." + +It reappears in the _Bizarrures_ of the Sieur Gaulard:[2] "Seeing +one day his mule charged with a verie great Portmantle, [he] said to his +groome that was upon the back of the mule, thou lasie fellowe, hast thou +no pitie upon that poore Beast? Take that portmantle upon thine owne +shoulders to ease the poore Beast." And in our own time it is told of an +Irish exciseman with a keg of smuggled whisky. + +How such stories came to be transferred to the men of Gotham, it were +fruitless to inquire.[3] Similar jests have been long current in other +countries of Europe and throughout Asia, and accident or malice may have +fixed the stigma of stupidity on any particular spot. There is probably +no ground whatever for crediting the tale of the origin of the proverb, +"As wise as the men of Gotham," although it is reproduced in Thoroton's +_Nottinghamshire_, i. 42-3: + +"King John, intending to pass through this place, towards Nottingham, +was prevented by the inhabitants, they apprehending that the ground over +which a king passed was for ever after to become a public road. The +King, incensed at their proceedings, sent from his court soon afterwards +some of his servants to inquire of them the reason of their incivility +and ill-treatment, that he might punish them. The villagers, hearing of +the approach of the King's servants, thought of an expedient to turn +away his Majesty's displeasure from them. When the messengers arrived at +Gotham, they found some of the inhabitants engaged in endeavouring to +drown an eel in a pool of water; some were employed in dragging carts +upon a large barn to shade the wood from the sun; and others were +engaged in hedging a cuckoo, which had perched itself upon an old bush. +In short, they were all employed in some foolish way or other, which +convinced the King's servants that it was a village of fools." + +The fooleries ascribed to the men of Gotham were probably first +collected and printed in the sixteenth century; but that jests of the +"fools of Gotham" were current among the people long before that period +is evident from a reference to them in the _Widkirk Miracle Plays_, +the only existing MS. of which was written about the reign of Henry VI.: + + "Foles al sam; + Sagh I never none so fare + Bote the soles of Gotham." + +The oldest known copy of the _Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam_ +was printed in 1630, and is preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford. +Warton, in his _History of English Poetry_, mentions an edition, +which he says was printed about 1568, by Henry Wikes, but he had never +seen it. But Mr. Halliwell (now Halliwell-Phillips), in his _Notices +of Popular English Histories_, cites one still earlier, which he +thinks was probably printed between 1556 and 1566: "Merie Tales of the +Mad Men of Gotam, gathered together by A.B., of Phisike Doctour. +[colophon:] Imprinted at London, in Flet-Stret, beneath the Conduit, at +the signe of S. John Evangelist, by Thomas Colwell, n.d. 12°, black +letter." The book is mentioned in _A Briefe and Necessary +Introduction_, etc., by E.D. (8vo, 1572), among a number of other +folk-books: "Bevis of Hampton, Guy of Warwicke, Arthur of the Round +Table, Huon of Bourdeaux, Oliver of the Castle, The Four Sonnes of +Amond, The Witles Devices of Gargantua, Howleglas, Esop, Robyn Hoode, +Adam Bell, Frier Rushe, The Fooles of Gotham, and a thousand such +other."[4] And Anthony à Wood, in his _Athenæ Oxonienses_ (1691-2), +says it was "printed at London in the time of K. Hen. 8, in whose reign +and after it was accounted a book full of wit and mirth by scholars and +gentlemen. Afterwards being often printed, [it] is now sold only on the +stalls of ballad-singers." It is likely that the estimation in which the +book was held "by scholars and gentlemen" was not a little due to the +supposition that "A.B., of Phisike Doctour," by whom the tales were said +to have been "gathered together," was none other than Andrew Borde, or +Boorde, a Carthusian friar before the Reformation, one of the physicians +to Henry VIII., a great traveller, even beyond the bounds of +Christendom, "a thousand or two and more myles," a man of great +learning, withal "of fame facete." For to Borde have the _Merie Tales +of the Mad Men of Gotham_ been generally ascribed down to our own +times. There is, however, as Dr. F.J. Furnivall justly remarks, "no good +external evidence that the book was written by Borde, while the internal +evidence is against his authorship."[5] In short, the ascription of its +compilation to "A.B., of Phisike Doctour," was clearly a device of the +printer to sell the book.[6] + +The _Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham_ continued to be printed as a +chap-book down to the close of the first quarter of the present century; +and much harmless mirth they must have caused at cottage firesides in +remote rural districts occasionally visited by the ubiquitous pedlar, in +whose well-filled pack of all kinds of petty merchandise such drolleries +were sure to be found. Unlike other old collections of facetiæ, the +little work is remarkably free from objectionable stories; some are +certainly not very brilliant, having, indeed, nothing in them +particularly "Gothamite," and one or two seem to have been adapted from +the Italian novelists. Of the twenty tales comprised in the collection, +the first is certainly one of the most humorous: + +There were two men of Gotham, and one of them was going to the market at +Nottingham to buy sheep, and the other was coming from the market, and +both met on Nottingham bridge. "Well met!" said the one to the other. +"Whither are you a-going?" said he that came from Nottingham. "Marry," +said he that was going thither, "I am going to the market to buy sheep." +"Buy sheep!" said the other. "And which way will you bring them home?" +"Marry," said the other, "I will bring them over this bridge." "By Robin +Hood," said he that came from Nottingham, "but thou shalt not." "By Maid +Marian," said he that was going thither, "but I will." "Thou shalt not," +said the one. "I will," said the other. Then they beat their staves +against the ground, one against the other, as if there had been a +hundred sheep betwixt them. "Hold them there," said the one. "Beware of +the leaping over the bridge of my sheep," said the other. "They shall +all come this way," said one. "But they shall not," said the other. And +as they were in contention, another wise man that belonged to Gotham +came from the market, with a sack of meal upon his horse; and seeing and +hearing his neighbours at strife about sheep, and none betwixt them, +said he, "Ah, fools, will you never learn wit? Then help me," said he +that had the meal, "and lay this sack upon my shoulder." They did so, +and he went to the one side of the bridge and unloosed the mouth of the +sack, and did shake out all the meal into the river. Then said he, "How +much meal is there in the sack, neighbours?" "Marry," answered they, +"none." "Now, by my faith," answered this wise man, "even so much wit is +there in your two heads to strive for the thing which you have not." Now +which was the wisest of these three persons, I leave you to judge. + +Allusions to these tales are of frequent occurrence in our literature of +the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Dekker, in his _Gul's Horn +Book_ (1609), says, "It is now high time for me to have a blow at thy +head, which I will not cut off with sharp documents, but rather set it +on faster, bestowing upon it such excellent serving that if all the wise +men of Gotham should lay their heads together, their jobbernowls should +not be able to compare with thine;" and Wither, in his _Abuses_, +says, + + "And he that tryes to doe it might have bin + One of the crew that hedged the cuckoo in," + +alluding to one of the most famous exploits of the wittols: + +On a time the men of Gotham would have pinned in the cuckoo, whereby she +should sing all the year, and in the midst of the town they made a hedge +round in compass, and they had got a cuckoo, and had put her into it, +and said, "Sing here all the year, and thou shalt lack neither meat nor +drink." The cuckoo, as soon as she perceived herself encompassed within +the hedge, flew away. "A vengeance on her!" said they. "We made not our +hedge high enough." + +The tales had, however, attained popular favour much earlier. Mr. +Halliwell-Phillipps has pointed out that in _Philotimus_ (1583) the +men of Gotham are remembered as having "tied their rentes in a purse +about an hare's necke, and bade her to carrie it to their landlord," an +excellent plan, which is thus described: + +On a time the men of Gotham had forgotten to pay their rent to their +landlord. The one said to the other, "To-morrow is our payday, and what +remedy shall we find to send our money to our lord?" The one said, "This +day I have taken a quick [i.e., live] hare, and she shall carry it, for +she is light of foot." "Be it so," said all. "She shall have a letter +and a purse to put in our money, and we shall direct her the ready way." +And when the letters were written, and the money put in a purse, they +did tie them about the hare's neck, saying, "First thou must go to +Loughborough, and then to Leicester; and at Newark there is our lord, +and commend us to him, and there is his duty [i.e., due]." The hare, as +soon as she was out of their hands, she did run a clean contrary way. +Some cried to her, saying, "Thou must go to Loughborough first." Some +said, "Let the hare alone; she can tell a nearer way than the best of us +all do: let her go." Another said, "It is a noble hare; let her alone; +she will not keep the highway for fear of the dogs." + +The well-worn "Joe Miller" of the Irishman who tried to count the party +to which he belonged, and always forgot to count himself, which is also +known in Russia and in the West Highlands of Scotland, is simply a +variant of this drollery: + +On a certain day there were twelve men of Gotham that went to fish, and +some stood on dry land; and in going home one said to the other, "We +have ventured wonderfully in wading: I pray God that none of us come +home and be drowned." "Nay, marry," said one to the other, "let us see +that; for there did twelve of us come out." Then they told (i.e., +counted) themselves, and every one told eleven. Said one to the other, +"There is one of us drowned." They went back to the brook where they had +been fishing, and sought up and down for him that was wanting, making +great lamentation. A courtier, coming by, asked what it was they sought +for, and why they were sorrowful. "Oh," said they, "this day we went to +fish in the brook; twelve of us came out together, and one is drowned." +Said the courtier, "Tell [count] how many there be of you." One of them +said, "Eleven," and he did not tell himself. "Well," said the courtier, +"what will you give me, and I will find the twelfth man?" "Sir," said +they, "all the money we have got." "Give me the money," said the +courtier, and began with the first, and gave him a stroke over the +shoulders with his whip, which made him groan, saying, "Here is one," +and so served them all, and they all groaned at the matter. When he came +to the last, he paid him well, saying, "Here is the twelfth man." "God's +blessing on thy heart," said they, "for thus finding our dear brother!" + +This droll adventure is also found in the _Gooroo Paramartan_, a +most amusing work, written in the Tamil language by Beschi, an Italian +Jesuit, who was missionary in India from 1700 till his death, in 1742. +The Gooroo (teacher) and his five disciples, who are, like himself, +noodles, come to a river which they have to cross, and which, as the +Gooroo informs them, is a very dangerous stream. To ascertain whether it +is at present "asleep," one of them dips his lighted cheroot in the +water, which, of course, extinguishes it, upon which he returns to the +Gooroo and reports that the river is still in a dangerous mood. So they +all sit down, and begin to tell stories of the destructive nature of +this river. One relates how his grandfather and another man were +journeying together, driving two asses laden with bags of salt, and +coming to this river, they resolved to bathe in it, and the asses, +tempted by the coolness of the water, at the same time knelt down in it. +When the men found that their salt had disappeared, they congratulated +themselves on their wonderful escape from the devouring stream, which +had eaten up all their salt without even opening the bags. Another +disciple relates a story similar to the so-called Æsopian fable of the +dog and his shadow, this river being supposed to have devoured a piece +of meat which the dog had dropped into it. At length the river is found +to be quiescent, a piece of charred wood having been plunged into it +without producing any effect like that of the former experiment; and +they determine to ford it, but with great caution. Arrived on the other +side, they count their number, like the men of Gotham, and discover that +one is not present. A traveller, coming up, finds the missing man by +whacking each of them over the shoulder. The Gooroo, while gratified +that the lost one was found, was grumbling at his sore bones--for the +traveller had struck pretty hard--when an old woman, on learning of +their adventure, told them that, in her young days, she and her female +companions were once returning home from a grand festival, and adopted +another plan for ascertaining if they were all together. Gathering some +of the cattle-droppings, they kneaded them into a cake, in which they +each made a mark with the tip of the nose, and then counted the marks--a +plan which the Gooroo and his disciples should make use of on future +occasions. + +The Abbé Dubois has given a French translation of the Adventures of the +Gooroo Paramartan among the _Contes Divers_ appended to his not +very valuable selection of tales and apologues from Tamil, Telegu, and +Cannada versions of the _Panchatantra_ (Five Chapters, not "Cinq +Ruses," as he renders it), a Sanskrit form of the celebrated Fables of +Bidpaï, or Pilpay. An English rendering of Beschi's work, by Babington, +forms one of the publications of the Oriental Translation Fund. Dubois +states that he found the tales of the Gooroo current in Indian countries +where Beschi's name was unknown, and he had no doubt of their Indian +origin. However this may be, the work was probably designed, as +Babington thinks, to satirise the Bráhmans, as well as to furnish a +pleasing vehicle of instruction to those Jesuits in India whose duties +required a knowledge of the Tamil language. + +A story akin to that of the Gothamite fishers, if not, indeed, an older +form of it, is told in Iceland of the Three Brothers of Bakki, who came +upon one of the hot springs which abound in that volcanic island, and +taking off their boots and stockings, put their feet into the water and +began to bathe them. When they would rise up, they were perplexed to +know each his own feet, and so they sat disconsolate, until a wayfarer +chanced to pass by, to whom they told their case, when he soon relieved +their minds by striking the feet of each, for which important service +they gave him many thanks.[7] This story reappears, slightly modified, +in Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_: A party of +masons, engaged in building a dyke, take shelter during a heavy shower, +and when it has passed, they continue sitting, because their legs had +got mixed together, and none knew his own, until they were put right by +a traveller with a big stick. We have here an evident relic of the +Norsemen's occupation of the Hebrides. + +Several of the tales of the Gothamites are found almost unaltered in +Gaelic. That of the twelve fishers has been already mentioned, and here +is the story of the attempt to drown an eel, which Campbell gives in +similar terms in his _Tales of the West Highlands_: + +When that Good Friday was come, the men of Gotham did cast their heads +together what to do with their white herring, their red herring, their +sprats, and salt fish. One consulted with the other, and agreed that +such fish should be cast into a pond or pool (the which was in the +middle of the town), that it might increase the next year; and every man +did cast them into the pool. The one said, "I have thus many white +herrings;" another said, "I have thus many sprats;" another said, "I +have thus many salt fishes; let us all go together into the pool, and we +shall fare like lords the next Lent." At the beginning of next Lent the +men did draw the pond, to have their fish, and there was nothing but a +great eel. "Ah," said they all, "a mischief on this eel, for he hath eat +up all our fish!" "What shall we do with him?" said the one to the +other. "Kill him!" said one of them. "Chop him all to pieces!" said +another. "Nay, not so," said the other; "let us drown him." "Be it so," +said all. They went to another pool, and did cast the eel into the +water. "Lie there," said they, "and shift for thyself, for no help thou +shalt have of us;" and there they left the eel to be drowned. + +Campbell's Gaelic story differs so little from the above that we must +suppose it to have been derived directly from the English chap-book. +Oral tradition always produces local variations from a written story, of +which we have an example in a Gaelic version of this choice exploit: + +There was a man of Gotham who went to the market of Nottingham to sell +cheese; and as he was going down the hill to Nottingham Bridge, one of +his cheeses fell out of his wallet and ran down the hill. "Ah," said the +fellow, "can you run to the market alone? I will now send one after the +other;" then laying down the wallet and taking out the cheeses, he +tumbled them down the hill one after the other; and some ran into one +bush, and some into another; so at last he said, "I do charge you to +meet me in the market-place." And when the man came into the market to +meet the cheeses, he stayed until the market was almost done, then went +and inquired of his neighbours and other men if they did see his cheeses +come to market. "Why, who should bring them?" said one of the +neighbours. "Marry, themselves," said the fellow; "they knew the way +well enough," said he: "a vengeance on them! For I was afraid to see my +cheeses run so fast, that they would run beyond the market. I am +persuaded that they are at this time almost as far as York." So he +immediately takes a horse and rides after them to York; but to this day +no man has ever heard of the cheeses. + +In one Gaelic variant a woman is going to Inverness with a basket filled +with balls of worsted of her own spinning, and going down a hill, one of +the balls tumbles out and rolls along briskly, upon which she sends the +others after it, holding the ends of each in her hand; and when she +reaches the town, she finds a "ravelled hank" instead of her neat balls +of worsted. In another version a man goes to market with two bags of +cheese, and sends them downhill, like the Gothamite. After waiting at +the market all day in vain, he returns home, and tells his wife of his +misfortune. She goes to the foot of the hill and finds all the cheese. + +The next Gothamite tale also finds its counterpart in the Gaelic +stories: There was a man of Gotham who bought at Nottingham a trivet, or +brandiron, and as he was going home his shoulders grew sore with the +carriage thereof, and he set it down; and seeing that it had three feet, +he said, "Ha! hast thou three feet, and I but two? Thou shalt bear me +home, if thou wilt," and set himself down thereupon, and said to the +trivet, "Bear me as long as I have borne thee; but if thou do not, thou +shalt stand still for me." The man of Gotham did see that his trivet +would not go farther. "Stand still, in the mayor's name," said he, "and +follow me if thou wilt. I will tell thee right the way to my home." When +he did come to his house, his wife said, "Where is my trivet?" The man +said, "He hath three legs, and I have but two; and I did teach him the +way to my house. Let him come home if he will." "Where left ye the +trivet?" said the woman. "At Gotham hill," said the man. His wife did +run and fetch home the trivet her own self, or else she had lost it +through her husband's wit. + +In Campbell's version a man having been sent by his wife with her +spinning-wheel to get mended, as he was returning home with it the wind +set the wheel in motion, so he put it down, and bidding it go straight +to his house, set off himself. When he reached home, he asked his wife +if the spinning-wheel had arrived yet, and on her replying that it had +not, "I thought as much," quoth he, "for I took the shorter way." + +A somewhat similar story is found in Rivière's French collection of +tales of the Kabaïl, Algeria, to this effect: The mother of a youth of +the Beni-Jennad clan gave him a hundred reals to buy a mule; so he went +to market, and on his way met a man carrying a water-melon for sale. +"How much for the melon?" he asks. "What will you give?" says the man. +"I have only got a hundred reals," answered the booby; "had I more, you +should have it." "Well," rejoined the man, "I'll take them." Then the +youth took the melon and handed over the money. "But tell me," says he, +"will its young one be as green as it is?" "Doubtless," answered the +man, "it will be green." As the booby was going home, he allowed the +melon to roll down a slope before him. It burst on its way, when up +started a frightened hare. "Go to my house, young one," he shouted. +"Surely a green animal has come out of it." And when he got home, he +inquired of his mother if the young one had arrived. + +In the _Gooroo Paramartan_ there is a parallel incident to this +last. The noodles are desirous of providing their Gooroo with a horse, +and a man sells them a pumpkin, telling them it is a mare's egg, which +only requires to be sat upon for a certain time to produce a fine young +horse. The Gooroo himself undertakes to hatch the mare's egg, since his +disciples have all other matters to attend to; but as they are carrying +it through a jungle, it falls down and splits into pieces; just then a +frightened hare runs before them; and they inform the Gooroo that, a +fine young colt came out of the mare's egg, with very long ears, and ran +off with the speed of the wind. It would have proved a fine horse for +their revered Gooroo, they add; but he consoles himself for the loss by +reflecting that such an animal would probably have run away with him. + +A number of the Gothamite tales in the printed collection are not only +inferior to those which are preserved orally, but can be considered in +no sense examples of preeminent folly. Three consist of tricks played by +women upon their husbands, such as are found in the ordinary jest-books +of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In one a man, who had taken +a buzzard, invites some friends to dine with him. His wife, with two of +her gossips, having secretly eaten the buzzard, kills and cooks an old +goose, and sets it before him and his guests; the latter call him a +knave to mock them thus with an old goose, and go off in great anger. +The husband, resolved to put himself right with his friends, stuffs the +buzzard's feathers into a sack, in order to show them that they were +mistaken in thinking he had tried to deceive them with an old goose +instead of a fine fat buzzard. But before he started on this business, +his wife contrived to substitute the goose's feathers, which he +exhibited to his friends as those of the buzzard, and was soundly +cudgelled for what they believed to be a second attempt to mock them.-- +Two other stories seem to be derived from the Italian novelists: of the +man who intended cutting off his wife's hair[8] and of the man who +defied his wife to cuckold him. Two others turn upon wrong responses at +a christening and a marriage, which have certainly nothing Gothamite in +them. Another is a dull story of a Scotchman who employed a carver to +make him as a sign of his inn a boar's head, the tradesman supposing +from his northern pronunciation that he meant _bare_ head.--In the +nineteenth tale, a party of gossips are assembled at the alehouse, and +each relates in what manner she is profitable to her husband: one saves +candles by sending all her household to bed in daylight; another, like +the old fellow and Tib his wife in _Jolly Good Ale and Old_, eats +little meat, but can swig a gallon or two of ale, and so forth. + +We have, however, our Gothamite once more in the story of him who, +seeing a fine cheese on the ground as he rode along the highway, tried +to pick it up with his sword, and finding his sword too short, rode back +to fetch a longer one for his purpose, but when he returned, he found +the cheese was gone. "A murrain take it!" quoth he. "If I had had this +sword, I had had this cheese myself, and now another hath got it!" Also +in the smith who took a red-hot iron bar and thrust it into the thatch +of his smithy to destroy a colony of wasps, and, of course, burned down +the smithy--a story which has done duty in modern days to "point a +moral" in the form of a teetotal tract, with a drunken smith in place of +the honest Gothamite![9] + +The following properly belongs to stories of the "silly son" class: +There was a young man of Gotham the which should go wooing to a fair +maid. His mother did warn him beforehand, saying, "When thou dost look +upon her, cast a sheep's-eye, and say, 'How do ye, sweet pigsnie?'" The +fellow went to the butcher's and bought seven or eight sheep's eyes; and +when this lusty wooer did sit at dinner, he would cast in her face a +sheep's eye, saying, "How dost thou, my pretty pigsnie?" "How do I?" +said the wench. "Swine's-face, why dost thou cast the sheep's eye upon +me?" "O sweet pigsnie, have at thee another!" "I defy thee, +Swine's-face," said the wench. The fellow, being abashed, said, "What, +sweet pigsnie! Be content, for if thou do live until the next year, thou +wilt be a foul sow." "Walk, knave, walk!" said she; "for if thou live +till the next year, thou wilt be a stark knave, a lubber, and a fool." + +It is very evident that the men of Gotham were of "honest" Jack +Falstaff's opinion that the better part of valour is discretion: On a +time there was a man of Gotham a-mowing in the meads and found a great +grasshopper. He cast down his scythe, and did run home to his +neighbours, and said that there was a devil in the field that hopped in +the grass. Then there was every man ready with clubs and staves, with +halberts, and with other weapons, to go and kill the grasshopper. When +they did come to the place where the grasshopper should be, said the one +to the other, "Let every man cross himself from the devil, or we will +not meddle with him." And so they returned again, and said, "We were all +blessed this day that we went no farther." "Ah, cowards," said he that +had his scythe in the mead, "help me to fetch my scythe." "No," said +they; "it is good to sleep in a whole skin: better it is to lose thy +scythe than to mar us all." + +There is some spice of humour in the concluding tale of the printed +collection, although it has no business there: On Ash Wednesday the +priest said to the men of Gotham, "If I should enjoin you to prayer, +there is none of you that can say your paternoster; and you be now too +old to learn. And to enjoin you to fast were foolishness, for you do not +eat a good meal's meat in a year. Wherefore do I enjoin thee to labour +all the week, that thou mayest fare well to dine on Sunday, and I will +come to dinner and see it to be so, and take my dinner." Another man he +did enjoin to fare well on Monday, and another on Tuesday, and one after +another that one or other should fare well once a week, that he might +have part of his meat. "And as for alms," said the priest, "ye be +beggars all, except one or two; therefore bestow alms on yourselves." + +Among the numerous stories of the Gothamites preserved orally, but not +found in the collection of "A.B., of Phisicke Doctour," is the +following, which seems to be of Indian extraction: + +One day some men of Gotham were walking by the riverside, and came to a +place where the contrary currents caused the water to boil as in a +whirlpool. "See how the water boils!" says one. "If we had plenty of +oatmeal," says another, "we might make enough porridge to serve all the +village for a month." So it was resolved that part of them should go to +the village and fetch their oatmeal, which was soon brought and thrown +into the river. But there presently arose the question of how they were +to know when the porridge was ready. This difficulty was overcome by the +offer of one of the company to jump in, and it was agreed that if he +found it ready for use, he should signify the same to his companions. +The man jumped in, and found the water deeper than he expected. Thrice +he rose to the surface, but said nothing. The others, impatient at his +remaining so long silent, and seeing him smack his lips, took this for +an avowal that the porridge was good, and so they all jumped in after +him and were drowned. + +Another traditional Gothamite story is related of a villager coming home +at a late hour and, seeing the reflection of the moon in a horse-pond, +believed it to be a green cheese, and roused all his neighbours to help +him to draw it out. They raked and raked away until a passing cloud sank +the cheese, when they returned to their homes grievously +disappointed.[10]--This is also related of the villagers near the +Marlborough Downs, in Wiltshire, and the _sobriquet_ of +"moon-rakers," applied to Wiltshire folk in general, is said to have had +its origin in the incident; but they assert that it was a keg of +smuggled brandy, which had been sunk in a pond, that the villagers were +attempting to fish up, when the exciseman coming suddenly upon the +scene, they made him believe they were raking the reflection of the +moon, thinking it a green cheese, an explanation which is on a par with +the apocryphal tale of the Gothamites and the messengers of King John. + +The absurd notion of the moon being a fine cheese is of very respectable +antiquity, and occurs in the noodle-stories of many countries. It is +referred to by Rabelais, and was doubtless the subject of a popular +French tale in his time. In the twenty-second story of the _Disciplina +Clericalis_ of Peter Alfonsus, a Spanish Jew, who was baptised in +1106, a fox leaves a wolf in a well, looking after a supposed cheese, +made by the image of the moon in the water; and the same fable had been +told by the Talmudists in the fifth century.[11] The well-known "Joe +Miller" of the party of Irishmen who endeavoured to reach a "green +cheese" in the river by hanging one by another's legs finds its parallel +in a Mecklenburg story, in which some men by the same contrivance tried +to get a stone from the bottom of a well, and the incident is thus +related in the old English jest-book entitled _The Sacke Full of +Newes_: + +There were three young men going to Lambeth along by the waterside, and +one played with the other, and they cast each other's caps into the +water in such sort as they could not get their caps again. But over the +place where their caps were did grow a great old tree, the which did +cover a great deal of the water. One of them said to the rest, "Sirs, I +have found a notable way to come by them. First I will make myself fast +by the middle with one of your girdles unto the tree, and he that is +with you shall hang fast upon my girdle, and he that is last shall take +hold on him that holds fast on my girdle, and so with one of his hands +he may take up all our caps, and cast them on the sand." And so they +did; but when they thought that they had been most secure and fast, he +that was above felt his girdle slack, and said, "Soft, sirs! My girdle +slacketh." "Make it fast quickly," said they. But as he was untying it +to make it faster they fell all three into the water, and were well +washed for their pains. + +Closely allied to these tales is the Russian story of the old man who +planted a cabbage-head in the cellar, under the floor of his cottage, +and, strange to say, it grew right up to the sky. He climbs up the +cabbage-stalk till he reaches the sky. There he sees a mill, which gives +a turn, and out come a pie and a cake, with a pot of stewed grain on the +top. The old man eats his fill and drinks his fill; then he lies down to +sleep. By-and-bye he awakes, and slides down to earth again. + +He tells his wife of the good things up in the sky, and she induces him +to take her with him. She slips into a sack, and the old man takes it in +his teeth and begins to climb up. The old woman, becoming tired, asked +him if it was much farther, and just as he was about to say, "Not much +farther," the sack slipped from between his teeth, and the old woman +fell to the ground and was smashed to pieces. + +There are many variants of this last story (which is found in Mr. +Ralston's most valuable and entertaining collection of Russian +folk-tales), but observe the very close resemblance which it bears to +the following Indian tale of the fools and the bull of Siva, from the +_Kathá Sarit Ságara_ (Ocean of the Streams of Story), the grand +collection, composed in Sanskrit verse by Somadeva in the eleventh +century, from a similar work entitled _Vrihat Kathá_ (Great Story), +written in Sanskrit prose by Gunadhya, in the sixth century:[12] + +In a certain convent, which was full of fools, there was a man who was +the greatest fool of the lot. He once heard in a treatise on law, which +was being read aloud, that a man who has a tank made gains a great +reward in the next world. Then, as he had a large fortune, he had made a +large tank full of water, at no great distance from his own convent. One +day this prince of fools went to take a look at that tank of his, and +perceived that the sand had been scratched up by some creature. The next +day too he came, and saw that the bank had been torn up in another part +of the tank, and being quite astonished, he said to himself, "I will +watch here to-morrow the whole day, beginning in the early morning, and +I will find out what creature it is that does this." After he had formed +this resolution, he came there early next morning, and watched, until at +last he saw a bull descend from heaven and plough up the bank with its +horns. He thought, "This is a heavenly bull, so why should I not go to +heaven with it?" And he went up to the bull, and with both his hands +laid hold of the tail behind. Then the holy bull lifted up, with the +utmost force, the foolish man who was clinging to its tail, and carried +him in a moment to its home in Kailása.[13] There the foolish man lived +for some time in great comfort, feasting on heavenly dainties, +sweetmeats, and other things which he obtained. And seeing that the bull +kept going and returning, that king of fools, bewildered by destiny, +thought, "I will go down clinging to the tail of the bull and see my +friends, and after I have told them this wonderful tale, I will return +in the same way." Having formed this resolution, the fool went and clung +to the tail of the bull one day when it was setting out, and so returned +to the surface of the earth. When he entered the convent, the other +blockheads who were there embraced him, and asked him where he had been, +and he told them. Then all these foolish men, having heard the tale of +his adventures, made this petition to him: "Be kind, and take us also +there; enable us also to feast on sweetmeats." He consented, and told +them his plan for doing it, and next day led them to the border of the +tank, and the bull came there. And the principal fool seized the tail of +the bull with his two hands, and another took hold of his feet, and a +third in turn took hold of his. So, when they had formed a chain by +hanging on to one another's feet, the bull flew rapidly up into the air. +And while the bull was going along, with all the fools clinging to its +tail, it happened that one of the fools said to the principal fool, +"Tell us now, to satisfy our curiosity, how large were the sweetmeats +which you ate, of which a never-failing supply can be obtained in +heaven?" Then the leader had his attention diverted from the business in +hand, and quickly joined his hands together like the cup of a lotus, and +exclaimed in answer, "So big." But in so doing he let go the tail of the +bull, and accordingly he and all those others fell from heaven, and were +killed; and the bull returned to Kailása; but the people who saw it were +much amused.[14] + +"Thus," remarks the story-teller, "fools do themselves injury by asking +questions and giving answers without reflection"; he then proceeds to +relate a story in illustration of the apothegm that "association with +fools brings prosperity to no man": + +A certain fool, while going to another village, forgot the way. And when +he asked the way, the people said to him, "Take the path that goes up by +the tree on the bank of the river." Then the fool went and got on the +trunk of that tree, and said to himself, "The men told me that my way +lay up the trunk of this tree." And as he went on climbing up it, the +bough at the end bent with his weight, and it was all he could do to +avoid falling by clinging to it. While he was clinging to it, there came +that way an elephant that had been drinking water, with his driver on +his back. And the fool called to him, saying, "Great sir, take me down." +The elephant-driver laid hold of him by the feet with both his hands, to +take him down from the tree. Meanwhile the elephant went on, and the +driver found himself clinging to the feet of the fool, who was clinging +to the end of the tree. Then said the fool to the driver, "Sing +something, in order that the people may hear, and come at once and take +us down." So the elephant-driver, thus appealed to, began to sing, and +he sang so sweetly that the fool was much pleased; and in his desire to +applaud him, he forgot what he was about, let go his hold of the tree, +and prepared to clap him with both his hands; and immediately he and the +elephant-driver fell into the river and were drowned. + +The germ of all stories of this class is perhaps found in the +_Játakas_, or Buddhist Birth Stories: A pair of geese resolve to +migrate to another country, and agree to carry with them a tortoise, +their intimate friend, taking the ends of a stick between their bills, +and the tortoise grasping it by the middle with his mouth. As they are +flying over Bánáres, the people exclaim in wonder to one another at such +a strange sight, and the tortoise, unable to maintain silence, opens his +mouth to rebuke them, and by so doing falls to the ground, and is dashed +into pieces. This fable is also found in Babrius. (115); in the _Kathá +Sarit Ságara_; in the several versions of the Fables of Bidpaï; and +in the _Avadánas_, translated into French from the Chinese by +Stanislas Julien. + + * * * * * + +To return to Gothamite stories. According to one of those which are +current orally, the men of Gotham had but one knife among them, which +was stuck in a tree in the middle of the village for their common use, +and many amusing incidents, says Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps, arose out of +their disputes for the use of this knife. The "carles" of Austwick, in +Yorkshire, are said also to have had but one knife, or "whittle," which +was deposited under a tree, and if it was not found there when wanted, +the "carle" requiring it called out, "Whittle to the tree!" This plan +did very well for some years, until it was taken one day by a party of +labourers to a neighbouring moor, to be used for cutting their bread and +cheese. When the day's labour was done, they resolved to leave the knife +at the place, to save themselves the trouble of carrying it back, as +they should want it again next day; so they looked about for some object +to mark the spot, and stuck it into the ground under a black cloud that +happened to be the most remarkable object in sight. But next day, when +they returned to the place, the cloud was gone, and the "whittle" was +never seen again. + +When an Austwick "carle" comes into any of the larger towns of +Yorkshire, it is said he is greeted with the question, "Who tried to +lift the bull over the gate?" in allusion to the following story: An +Austwick farmer, wishing to get a bull out of a field--how the animal +got into it, the story does not inform us--procured the assistance of +nine of his neighbours to lift the animal over the gate. After trying in +vain for some hours, they sent one of their number to the village for +more help. In going out he opened the gate, and after he had gone away, +it occurred to one of those who remained that the bull might be allowed +to go out in the same manner. + +Another Austwick farmer had to take a wheelbarrow to a certain town, +and, to save a hundred yards by going the ordinary road, he went through +the fields, and had to lift the barrow over twenty-two stiles. + +It was a Wiltshire man, however (if all tales be true), who determined +to cure the filthy habits of his hogs by making them roost upon the +branches of a tree, like birds. Night after night the pigs were hoisted +up to their perch, and every morning one of them was found with its neck +broken, until at last there were none left.--And quite as witless, +surely, was the device of the men of Belmont, who once desired to move +their church three yards farther westward, so they carefully marked the +exact distance by leaving their coats on the ground. Then they set to +work to push with all their might against the eastern wall. In the +meantime a thief had gone round to the west side and stolen their coats. +"Diable!" exclaimed they on finding that their coats were gone, "we have +pushed too far!" + +[Illustration] +[Illustration] + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] _Coffee House Jests_. Fifth edition. London. 1688. P. 36. + +[2] "See _ante_, p. 8, note." [Transcriber's note: This is Chapter I, +Footnote 1 in this etext.] + +[3] Fuller, while admitting that "an hundred fopperies are forged and +fathered on the townsfolk of Gotham," maintains that "Gotham doth breed +as wise people as any which laugh at their simplicity." + +[4] Collier's _Bibliographical Account_, etc., vol. i., p. 327. + +[5] Forewords to Borde's _Introduction of Knowledge_, etc., edited, +for the Early English Text Society, by F.J. Furnivall. + +[6] It is equally certain that Borde had no hand either in the _Jests +of Scogin_ or _The Mylner of Abyngton_, the latter an imitation +of Chaucer's _Reve's Tale_. + +[7] Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_, Second Series. + +[8] An imitation of Boccaccio, _Decameron_, Day vii., nov. 8, who +perhaps borrowed the story from Guerin's _fabliau_ "De la Dame qui +fit accroire a son Mari qu'il avait rêve; _alias_, Les Cheveux +Coupés" (Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, ed. 1781, tome ii., 280). + +[9] A slightly different version occurs in the _Tale of Beryn_, +which is found in a unique MS. of Chaucer's _Canterbury Tales_, and +which forms the first part of the old French romance of the _Chevalier +Berinus_. In the English poem Beryn, lamenting his misfortunes, and +that he had disinherited himself, says: + + "But I fare like the man, that for to swale his vlyes [i.e. flies] + He stert in-to the bern, and aftir stre he hies, + And goith a-bout with a brennyng wase, + Tyll it was atte last that the leam and blase + Entryd in-to the chynys, wher the whete was, + And kissid so the evese, that brent was al the plase." + +It is certain that the author of the French original of the _Tale of +Beryn_ did not get this story out of our jests of the men of Gotham. + +[10] There is an analogous Indian story of a youth who went to a tank to +drink, and observing the reflection of a golden-crested bird that was +sitting on a tree, he thought it was gold in the water, and entered the +tank to take it up, but he could not lay hold of it as it appeared and +disappeared in the water. But as often as he ascended the bank he again +saw it in the water, and again he entered the tank to lay hold of it, +and still he got nothing. At length his father saw and questioned him, +then drove away the bird, and explaining the matter to him, took the +foolish fellow home. + +We have already seen that the men of Abdera (p. 5) flogged an ass before +its fellows for upsetting a jar of olive oil, but what is that compared +with the story of the ass that drank up the moon? According to Ludovicus +Vives, a learned Spanish writer, certain townspeople imprisoned an ass +for drinking up the moon, whose reflection, appearing in the water, was +covered with a cloud while the ass was drinking. Next day the poor beast +was brought to the bar to be sentenced according to his deserts. After +the grave burghers had discussed the affair for some time, one at length +rose up and declared that it was not fit the town should lose its moon, +but rather that the ass should be cut open and the moon he had swallowed +taken out of him, which, being cordially approved by the others, was +done accordingly. + +[11] This is also one of the Fables of Marie de France (thirteenth +century). + +[12] A complete translation of the _Kathá Sarit Ságara_, by +Professor C.H. Tawney, with notes of variants, which exhibit his wide +acquaintance with the popular fictions of all lands, has been recently +published at Calcutta (London agents, Messrs. Trübner and Co.), a work +which must prove invaluable to every English student of comparative +folk-lore. + +[13] Siva's paradise, according to Hindu mythology, is on Mount Kailása, +in the Himályas, north of Mánasa. + +[14] Tawney's translation, which is used throughout this work. + + + +CHAPTER III. + +GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES (_continued_). + + +The Schildburgers, it has been already remarked, are the Gothamites of +Germany, and the stories of their stupidity, after being orally current +for years among the people, were collected near the close of the +sixteenth century, the earliest known edition being that of 1597. In a +most lively and entertaining article on "Early German Comic Romances" +(_Foreign Quarterly Review_, No. 40, 1837), the late Mr. W.J. Thoms +has furnished an account of the exploits of the Schildburgers, from +which the following particulars and tales are extracted: "There have +been few happier ideas than that of making these simpletons descend from +one of the wise men of Greece, and representing them as originally +gifted with such extraordinary talents as to be called to the councils +of all the princes of the earth, to the great detriment of their +circumstances and the still greater dissatisfaction of their wives, and +then, upon their being summoned home to arrange their disordered +affairs, determining, in their wisdom, to put on the garb of stupidity, +and persevering so long and so steadfastly in their assumed character as +to prove 'plain fools at last.' No way inferior is the end of this +strange tale, which assumes even somewhat of serious interest when the +Schildburgers, after performing every conceivable piece of folly, and +receiving the especial privilege of so doing under the seal and +signature of the emperor, by the crowning act of their lives turn +themselves out of house and home, whereby they are compelled, like the +Jews, to become outcasts and wanderers over the face of the earth, by +which means it has arisen that there is no spot, however remote, on +which some of their descendants, who may be known by their +characteristic stupidity, are not to be found." + +Their first piece of folly was to build a council-house without windows. +When they entered it, and, to use the words of the nursery ballad, "saw +they could not see," they were greatly puzzled to account for such a +state of things; and having in vain gone outside and examined the +building to find why the inside was dark, they determined to hold a +council upon the subject on the following day. At the time appointed +they assembled, each bringing with him a torch, which, on seating +himself, he stuck in his hat. After much discussion, one genius, +brighter than the rest, decided that they could not see for want of +daylight, and that they ought on the morrow to carry in as much of it as +possible. Accordingly, the next day, when the sun shone, all the sacks, +bags, boxes, baskets, tubs, pans, etc. of the village were filled with +its beams and carefully carried into the council-house and emptied +there, but with no good effect. After this they removed the roof, by the +advice of a traveller, whom they rewarded amply for the suggestion. This +plan answered famously during the summer, but when the rains of winter +fell, and they were forced to replace the roof, they found the house +just as dark as ever. Again they met, again they stuck their torches in +their hats, but to no purpose, until by chance one of them was quitting +the house, and groping his way along the wall, when a ray of light fell +through a crevice and upon his beard, whereupon he suggested, what had +never occurred to any of them, that it was possible they might get +daylight in by making a window. + +Another tale relates how the boors of Schilda contrived to get their +millstone twice down from a high mountain: + +The boors of Schilda had built a mill, and with extraordinary labour +they had quarried a millstone for it out of a quarry which lay on the +summit of a high mountain; and when the stone was finished, they carried +it with great labour and pain down the hill. When they had got to the +bottom, it occurred to one of them that they might have spared +themselves the trouble of carrying it down by letting it roll down. +"Verily," said he, "we are the stupidest of fools to take these +extraordinary pains to do that which we might have done with so little +trouble. We will carry it up, and then let it roll down the hill by +itself, as we did before with the tree which we felled for the +council-house." + +This advice pleased them all, and with greater labour they carried the +stone to the top of the mountain again, and were about to roll it down, +when one of them said, "But how shall we know where it runs to? Who will +be able to tell us aught about it?" "Why," said the bailiff, who had +advised the stone being carried up again, "this is very easily managed. +One of us must stick in the hole [for the millstone, of course, had a +hole in the middle], and run down with it." This was agreed to, and one +of them, having been chosen for the purpose, thrust his head through the +hole, and ran down the hill with the millstone. Now at the bottom of the +mountain was a deep fish-pond, into which the stone rolled, and the +simpleton with it, so that the Schildburgers lost both stone and man, +and not one among them knew what had become of them. And they felt +sorely angered against their old companion who had run down the hill +with the stone, for they considered that he had carried it off for the +purpose of disposing of it. So they published a notice in all the +neighbouring boroughs, towns, and villages, calling on them, that "if +any one come there with a millstone round his neck, they should treat +him as one who had stolen the common goods, and give him to justice." +But the poor fellow lay in the pond, dead. Had he been able to speak, he +would have been willing to tell them not to worry themselves on his +account, for he would give them their own again. But his load pressed so +heavily upon him, and he was so deep in the water, that he, after +drinking water enough--more, indeed, than was good for him--died; and he +is dead at the present day, and dead he will, shall, and must remain! + +The forty-seventh chapter recounts "How the Schildburgers purchased a +mouser, and with it their own ruin": + +Now it happened that there were no cats in Schilda, and so many mice +that nothing was safe, even in the bread-basket, for whatsoever they put +there was sure to be gnawed or eaten; and this grieved them sorely. And +upon a time there came a traveller into the village, carrying a cat in +his arms, and he entered the hostel. The host asked him, "What sort of a +beast is that?" Said he, "It is a mouser." Now the mice at Schilda were +so quiet and so tame that they never fled before the people, but ran +about all day long, without the slightest fear. So the traveller let the +cat run, who, in the sight of the host, soon caught numbers of mice. Now +when the people were told this by the host, they asked the man whether +the mouser was to be sold, for they would pay him well for it. He said, +"It certainly was not to be sold; but seeing that it would be so useful +to them, he would let them have it if they would pay him what was +right," and he asked a hundred florins for it. The boors were glad to +find that he asked so little, and concluded a bargain with him, he +agreeing to take half the money down, and to come again in six months to +fetch the rest. As soon as the bargain was struck on both sides, they +gave the traveller the half of the money, and he carried the mouser into +the granary, where they kept their corn, for there were most mice there. +The traveller went off with the money at full speed, for he feared +greatly lest they should repent them of the bargain, and want their +money back again; and as he went along he kept looking behind him to see +that no one was following him. Now the boors had forgotten to ask what +the cat was to be fed upon, so they sent one after him in haste to ask +him the question. But when he with the gold saw that some one was +following him, he hastened so much the more, so that the boor could by +no means overtake him, whereupon he called out to him from afar off, +"What does it eat?" "What you please! What you please!" quoth the +traveller. But the peasant understood him to say, "Men and beasts! Men +and beasts!" Therefore he returned home in great affliction, and said as +much to his worthy masters. + +On learning this they became greatly alarmed, and said, "When it has no +more mice to eat, it will eat our cattle; and when they are gone, it +will eat us! To think that we should lay out our good money in buying +such a thing!" And they held counsel together and resolved that the cat +should be killed. But no one would venture to lay hold of it for that +purpose, whereupon it was determined to burn the granary, and the cat in +it, seeing that it was better they should suffer a common loss than all +lose life and limb. So they set fire to the granary. But when the cat +smelt the fire, it sprang out of a window and fled to another house, and +the granary was burned to the ground. Never was there sorrow greater +than that of the Schildburgers when they found that they could not kill +the cat. They counselled with one another, and purchased the house to +which the cat had fled, and burned that also. But the cat sprang out +upon the roof, and sat there, washing itself and putting its paws behind +its ears, after the manner of cats; and the Schildburgers understood +thereby that the cat lifted up its hands and swore an oath that it would +not leave their treatment of it unrevenged. Then one of them took a long +pole and struck at the cat, but the cat caught hold of the pole, and +began to clamber down it, whereupon all the people grew greatly alarmed +and ran away, and left the fire to burn as it might. And because no one +regarded the fire, nor sought to put it out, the whole village was +burned to a house, and notwithstanding that, the cat escaped. And the +Schildburgers fled with their wives and children to a neighbouring +forest. And at this time was burned their chancery and all the papers +therein, which is the reason why their history is not to be found +described in a more regular manner. + +Thus ended the career of the Schildburgers as a community, according to +the veracious chronicle of their marvellous exploits, the first of +which, their carrying sunshine into the council-house, is a favourite +incident in the noodle-stories of many countries, and has its parallel +in the Icelandic story of the Three Brothers of Bakki: They had observed +that in winter the weather was colder than in summer, also that the +larger the windows of a house were the colder it was. All frost and +sharp cold, therefore, they thought sprang from the fact that houses had +windows in them. So they built themselves a house on a new plan, without +windows in it at all. It followed, of course, that there was always +pitch darkness in it. They found that this was rather a fault in the +house, but comforted themselves with the certainty that in winter it +would be very warm; and as to light, they thought they could contrive +some easy means of getting the house lighted. One fine day in the middle +of summer, when the sunshine was brightest, they began to carry the +darkness out of the house in their caps, and emptied it out when they +came into the sunshine, which they then carried into the dark room. Thus +they worked hard the whole day, but in the evening, when they had done +all their best, they were not a little disappointed to find that it was +as dark as before, so much so that they could not tell one hand from the +other.[1] + +There is a Kashmírí story which bears a slight resemblance to the +exploit of the Schildburgers with the cat. A poor old woman used to beg +her food by day and cook it at night. Half of the food she would eat in +the morning, and the other half in the evening. After a while a cat got +to know of this arrangement, and came and ate the meal for her. The old +woman was very patient, but at last could no longer endure the cat's +impudence, and so she laid hold of it. She argued with herself as to +whether she should kill it or not. "If I slay it," she thought, "it will +be a sin; but if I keep it alive, it will be to my heavy loss." So she +determined only to punish it. She procured some cotton wool and some +oil, and soaking the one in the other, tied it on to the cat's tail and +then set it on fire. Away rushed the cat across the yard, up the side of +the window, and on to the roof, where its flaming tail ignited the +thatch and set the whole house on fire. The flames soon spread to other +houses, and the whole village was destroyed.[2] + +An older form of this incident is found in the introduction to a Persian +poetical version of the Book of Sindibád (_Sindibád Náma_), of +which a unique MS. copy, very finely illuminated, but imperfect, is +preserved in the Library of the India Office:[3] In a village called +Buzina-Gird (i.e., Monkey Town) there was a goat that was in the habit +of butting at a certain old woman whenever she came into the street. One +day the old woman had been to ask fire from a neighbour, and on her +return the goat struck her so violently with his horns when she was off +her guard as to draw blood. Enraged at this, she applied the fire which +she held to the goat's fleece, which kindled, and the animal ran to the +stables of the elephant-keeper, and rubbed his sides against the reeds +and willows. They caught fire, which the wind soon spread, and the heads +and faces of the warlike elephants were scorched. With the sequel--how +the king caused all the monkeys to be slaughtered, as their fat was +required to cure the scorched elephants--we have no concern at +present.[4] + + * * * * * + +In Ceylon whole districts, such as Tumpane, in the central province, +Morora Korle, in the southern province, and Rayigam Korle, in the +western province, are credited with being the abode of fools. A learned +writer on the proverbial sayings of the Sinhalese states that these +often refer to "popular stories of stupid people to which foolish +actions are likened. The stories of the Tumpane villagers who tried to +unearth and carry off a well because they saw a bees' nest reflected in +the water; of the Morora Korle boatmen who mistook a bend in the river +for the sea, left their cargo there, and returned home; of the Rayigam +Korle fools who threw stones at the moon to frighten her off one fine +moonlight night when they thought she was coming too near, and that +there was danger of her burning their crops, are well known, and it is +customary to ask a man if he was born in one of these places if he has +done anything particularly foolish. The story of the double-fool--i.e., +of the man who tried to lighten the boat by carrying his pingo load over +his shoulders;[5] of the man who stretched out his hands to be warmed by +the fire on the other side of the river; of the rustic's wife who had +her own head shaved, so as not to lose the barber's services for the day +when he came, and her husband was away from home; of the villagers who +tied up their mortars in the village in the belief that the elephant +tracks in the rice fields were caused by the mortars wandering about at +night; of the man who would not wash his body in order to spite the +river; of the people who flogged the elk-skin at home to avenge +themselves on the deer that trespassed in the fields at night; and of +the man who performed the five precepts--all these are popular stories +of foolish people which have passed into proverbs."[6] + +The last of the stories referred to in the above extract is as follows: +A woman once rebuked her husband for not performing the five (Buddhist) +precepts. "I don't know what they are," he replied. "Oh, it's very +easy," she said; "all you have to do is to go to the priest and repeat +what he says after him." "Is that all?" he answered. "Then I'll go and +do it at once." Off he went, and as he neared the temple the priest saw +him and called out, "Who are you?" to which he replied, "Who are you?" +"What do you want?" demands the priest. "What do you want?" the +blockhead answers dutifully. "Are you mad?" roared the priest. "Are you +mad?" returned the rustic. "Here," said the priest to his attendants, +"take and beat him well;" and notwithstanding that he carefully repeated +the words again, taken and thoroughly well thrashed he was, after which +he crawled back to his wife and said, "What a wonderful woman you are! +You manage to repeat the five precepts every day, and are strong and +healthy, while I, who have only said them once, am nearly dead with +fever from the bruises."[7] + +To this last may be added a story in the _Kathá Manjari_, a +Canarese collection, of the stupid fellow and the _Rámáyana_, one +of the two great Hindú epics: One day a man was reading the +_Rámáyana_ in the bazaar, and a woman, thinking her husband might +be instructed by hearing it, sent him there. He went, and stood leaning +on his crook--for he was a shepherd--when presently a practical joker, +seeing his simplicity, jumped upon his shoulders, and he stood with the +man on his back until the discourse was concluded. When he reached home, +his wife asked him how he liked the _Rámáyana_. "Alas!" said he, +"it was not easy; it was a man's load." + + * * * * * + +The race of Gothamites is indeed found everywhere--in popular tales, if +not in actual life; and their sayings and doings are not less diverting +when husband and wife are well mated, as in the following story: + +An Arab observing one morning that his house was ready to tumble about +his ears from decay, and being without the means of repairing it, went +with a long face to his wife, and informed her of his trouble. She said, +"Why, my dear, need you distress yourself about so small a matter? You +have a cow worth thirty dirhams; take her to the market and sell her for +that sum. I have some thread, which I will dispose of to-day, and I +warrant you that between us both we shall manage very well." The man at +once drove the cow to the market, and gave her over for sale to the +appraiser of cattle. The salesman showed her to the bystanders, directed +their attention to all her good points, expatiated on all her good +qualities, and, in short, passed her off as a cow of inestimable value. +To all this the simpleton listened with delight and astonishment; he +heard his cow praised for qualities that no other cow ever possessed, +and determined in his own mind not to lose so rare a bargain, but +purchase her himself and balk the chapmen. He therefore called out to +the appraiser, and asked him what she was going at. The salesman +replied, "At fifteen dirhams and upwards." "By the head of the Prophet," +exclaimed the wittol, "had I known that my cow was such a prodigy of +excellence, you should not have caught me in the market with her for +sale." Now it happened that he had just fifteen dirhams, and no more, +and these he thrust upon the broker, exclaiming, "The cow is mine; I +have the best claim to her." He then seized the cow and drove her home, +exulting all the way as if he had found a treasure. On reaching home he +inquired eagerly for his wife, to inform her of his adventure, but was +told she was not returned from market. He waited impatiently for her +return, when he sprang up to meet her, crying, "Wife, I have done +something to-day that will astonish you. I have performed a marvellous +exploit!" "Patience!" says his wife. "Perhaps I have done something +myself to match it. But hear my story, and then talk of cleverness, if +you please." The husband desired her to proceed. + +"When I went to market," says she, "I found a man in want of thread. I +showed him mine, which he approved of, and having bargained for it, he +agreed to pay me according to the weight. I told him it weighed so much, +which he seemed to discredit, and weighed it himself. Observing it to +fall short of the weight I had mentioned, and fearing I should lose the +price I at first expected, I requested him to weigh it over again, and +make certain. In the meantime, taking an opportunity unobserved, I +stripped off my silver bracelets and put them slily into the scale with +my thread. The scale, of course, now preponderated, and I received the +full price I had demanded." Having finished her story, she cried out, +"Now, what do you think of your wife?" "Amazing! amazing!" said he. +"Your capacity is supernatural. And now, if you please, I will give you +a specimen of mine," and he related his adventure at the market. "O +husband," she exclaimed when he had told his story, "had we not +possessed such consummate wisdom and address, how could we have +contrived means to repair our old house? In future vex not yourself +about domestic concerns, since by the exercise of our talents we need +never want for anything!" + +The exploits of that precious pair may be compared with the following: +An alewife went to the market with a brood of chickens and an old black +hen. For the hen and one chicken she could not find a purchaser; so, +before leaving the town, she called upon a surgeon, to try to effect a +sale. He bought the chicken, but declined taking the hen. She then asked +him if he would draw a tooth for it. The tooth was drawn, and he +expressed his surprise on finding it was perfectly sound. "Oh," said +she, "I knew it was sound; but it was worth while having it drawn for +the old hen." She then called upon another surgeon, and had a second +tooth drawn, as sound as the other. "What's to pay?" she inquired. "A +shilling," said the surgeon. "Very well," rejoined the hostess, with a +chuckle; "you left a shilling due in my house the other night, and now +we are quits." "Certainly we are," responded the perplexed tooth-drawer, +and the delighted old woman returned to her hostelry, to acquaint all +her gossips of how cleverly she had outwitted the doctors. + + * * * * * + +Ferrier says, in his _Illustrations of Sterne_, that the facetious +tales of the Sieur Gaulard laid the foundation of some of the jests in +our old English collections. A few of them found their way somehow into +Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_, and this is one: A monsieur chanced to +meet a lady of his acquaintance, and asked her how she did and how her +good husband fared, at which she wept, saying that her husband was in +heaven. "In heaven!" quoth he. "It is the first time that I heard of it, +and I am sorry for it with all my heart." + +Similar in its point is a story in _Archie Armstrong's Banquet of +Jests_:[8] Sitting over a cup of ale in a winter night, two widows +entered into discourse of their dead husbands, and after ripping up +their good and bad qualities, saith one of them to the maid, "I prithee, +wench, reach us another light, for my husband (God rest his soul!) above +all things loved to see good lights about the house. God grant him light +everlasting!" "And I pray you, neighbour," said the other, "let the maid +lay on some more coals or stir up the fire, for my husband in his +lifetime ever loved to see a good fire. God grant him fire everlasting!" + +This seems cousin-german to the Arabian story of two men, one of whom +hailed from the town of Hama (ancient Hamath), the other from Hums +(ancient Emessa). Those towns are not far apart, but the people of the +former have the reputation of being very clever, while those of the +latter are proverbially as stupid. (And for the proper understanding of +the jest it should perhaps be explained that the Arabic verb _hama_ +means to "protect" or "defend," the verb _hamasa_ to "roast" or +"toast.") These men had some business of importance with the nearest +magistrate, and set out together on their journey. The man of Hums, +conscious of his own ignorance, begged his companion to speak first in +the audience, in order that he might get a hint as to how such a formal +matter should be conducted. Accordingly, when they came into the pasha's +presence, the man of Hama went forward, and the pasha asked him, "Where +are you from?" "Your servant is from Hama," said he. "May Allah PROTECT +(_hama_) your excellency!" The pasha then turned to the other man, +and asked, "And where are you from?" to which he answered, "Your servant +is from Hums. May Allah ROAST _(hamasa)_ your excellency!" + + * * * * * + +Not a few of the _Bizarrures_ of the Sieur Gaulard are the +prototypes of bulls and foolish sayings of the typical Irishman, which +go their ceaseless round in popular periodicals, and are even +audaciously reproduced as original in our "comic" journals--save the +mark! To cite some examples: + +A friend one day told M. Gaulard that the Dean of Besançon was dead. +"Believe it not," said he; "for had it been so he would have told me +himself, since he writes to me about everything." + +M. Gaulard asked his secretary one evening what hour it was. "Sir," +replied the secretary, "I cannot tell you by the dial, because the sun +is set." "Well," quoth M. Gaulard, "and can you not see by the candle?" + +On another occasion the Sieur called from his bed to a servant desiring +him to see if it was daylight yet. "There is no sign of daylight," said +the servant. "I do not wonder," rejoined the Sieur, "that thou canst not +see day, great fool as thou art. Take a candle and look with it out at +the window, and thou shalt see whether it be day or not." + +In a strange house, the Sieur found the walls of his bedchamber full of +great holes. "This," exclaimed he in a rage, "is the cursedest chamber +in all the world. One may see day all the night through." + +Travelling in the country, his man, to gain the fairest way, rode +through a field sowed with pease, upon which M. Gaulard cried to him, +"Thou knave, wilt thou burn my horse's feet? Dost thou not know that +about six weeks ago I burned my mouth with eating pease, they were so +hot?" + +A poor man complained to him that he had had a horse stolen from him. +"Why did you not mark his visage," asked M. Gaulard, "and the clothes he +wore?" "Sir," said the man, "I was not there when he was stolen." Quoth +the Sieur, "You should have left somebody to ask him his name, and in +what place he resided." + +M. Gaulard felt the sun so hot in the midst of a field at noontide in +August that he asked of those about him, "What means the sun to be so +hot? How should it not keep its heat till winter, when it is cold +weather?" + +A proctor, discoursing with M. Gaulard, told him that a dumb, deaf, or +blind man could not make a will but with certain additional forms. "I +pray you," said the Sieur, "give me that in writing, that I may send it +to a cousin of mine who is lame." + +One day a friend visited the Sieur and found him asleep in his chair. "I +slept," said he, "only to avoid idleness; for I must always be doing +something." + +The Abbé of Poupet complained to him that the moles had spoiled a fine +meadow, and he could find no remedy for them. "Why, cousin," said M. +Gaulard, "it is but paving your meadow, and the moles will no more +trouble you." + +M. Gaulard had a lackey belonging to Auvergne, who robbed him of twelve +crowns and ran away, at which he was very angry, and said he would have +nothing that came from that country. So he ordered all that was from +Auvergne to be cast out of the house, even his mule; and to make the +animal more ashamed, he caused his servants to take off its shoes and +its saddle and bridle. + + * * * * * + +Although Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_ is the most "original" of our old +English jest-books--that is to say, it contains very few stories in +common with preceding collections--yet some of the diverting tales he +relates are traceable to very distant sources, more especially the +following: + +A country fellow (that had not walked much in streets that were paved) +came to London, where a dog came suddenly out of a house, and furiously +ran at him. The fellow stooped to pick up a stone to cast at the dog, +and finding them all fast rammed or paved in the ground, quoth he, "What +a strange country am I in, where the people tie up the stones and let +the dogs loose!" + +Three centuries and a half before the Water Poet heard this exquisitely +humorous story, the great Persian poet Sa'dí related it in his +_Gulistán_ (or Rose-garden), which was written A.D. 1278: + +A poor poet presented himself before the chief of a gang of robbers, and +recited some verses in his praise. The robber-chief, however, instead of +rewarding him, as he fondly expected, ordered him to be stripped of his +clothes and expelled from the village. The dogs attacking him in the +rear, the unlucky bard stooped to pick up a stone to throw at them, and +finding the stones frozen in the ground, he exclaimed, "What a vile set +of men are these, who set loose the dogs and fasten the stones!" + +Now here we have a very curious instance of the migration of a popular +tale from Persia--perchance it first set out on its travels from India +--in the thirteenth century, when grave and reverend seigniors wagged +their beards and shook their portly sides at its recital, to London in +the days of the Scottish Solomon (more properly dubbed "the wisest fool +in Christendom"!), when Taylor, the Water Poet, probably heard it told, +in some river-side tavern, amidst the clinking of beer-cans and the +fragrant clouds blown from pipes of Trinidado, and "put it in his book!" +How it came into England it would be interesting to ascertain. It may +have been brought to Europe by the Venetian merchants, who traded +largely in the Levant and with the Moors in Northern Africa. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_, Second Series, p. +626. + +[2] _Dictionary of Kashmírí Proverbs and Sayings_. Explained and +illustrated from the rich and interesting folk-lore of the Valley. By +the Rev. J. Hinton Knowles. Bombay: 1885. + +[3] This work was composed A.H. 776 (A.D. 1374-5), as the anonymous +author takes care to inform us in his opening verses. + +[4] A still older form of the story occurs in the _Pancha Tantra_ +(Five Sections), a Sanskrit version of the celebrated Fables of Bidpai, +in which a gluttonous ram is in the habit of going to the king's kitchen +and devouring all food within his reach. One of the cooks beat him with +a burning log of wood, and the ram rushed off with his blazing fleece +and set the horses' stables on fire, and so forth. The story is most +probably of Buddhist extraction. + +[5] A Sinhalese variant of the exploit of the man of Norfolk and of the +man of Gotham with the sack of meal. "See _ante_, p. 19." [Transcriber's +note: this approximates to the text reference for Chapter II +Footnote 1 in this etext.] + +[6] Mr. C.J.R. le Mesurier in _The Orientalist_ (Kandy, Ceylon: +1884), pp. 233-4. + +[7] _The Orientalist_, 1884, p. 234. A much fuller version, with +subsequent incidents, is given in the same excellent periodical, pp. +36-38. + +[8] Archie Armstrong was Court jester to James I. of England. It is +needless, perhaps, to say that he had no hand in this book of facetiæ, +which is composed for the most part of jests taken out of earlier +collections. + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +GOTHAMITE DROLLERIES _(continued)._ + + +Tales of sharpers' tricks upon simpletons do not quite fall within the +scope of the present series of papers, but there is one, in the +_Arabian Nights_--not found, however, in our common English version +of that fascinating story-book--which deserves a place among +noodle-stories, since it is so diverting, is not very generally known, +and is probably the original of the early Italian novel of the _Monk +Transformed_, which is ascribed to Michele Colombo: + +A rustic simpleton was walking homeward dragging his ass after him by +the halter, which a brace of sharpers observing, one said to his fellow, +"Come with me, and I will take the ass from that man." He then quietly +advanced to the ass, unloosed it from the halter, and gave the animal to +his companion, who went off with it, after which he put the halter over +his own head, and allowed the rustic to drag him for some little +distance, until he with the ass was fairly out of sight, when he +suddenly stopped, and the man having tugged at the halter several times +without effect, looked round, and, amazed to see a human being in place +of his beast, exclaimed, "Who art thou?" The sharper answered, "I was +thy ass; but hear my story, for it is wonderful. I had a good and pious +mother, and one day I came home intoxicated. Grieved to see me in such a +state, she gently reproved me, but I, instead of being penetrated with +remorse, beat her with a stick, whereupon she prayed to Allah, and, in +answer to her supplication, lo! I was transformed into an ass. In that +shape I have continued until this day, when my mother, as it appears, +has interceded for my restoration to human form, as before." The +simpleton, believing every word of this strange story, raised his eyes +to heaven, saying, "Of a truth there is no power but from Allah! But, +pray, forgive me for having used thee as I have done." The sharper +readily granted his forgiveness, and went off to rejoin his companion +and dispose of the ass; while the simpleton returned home, and showing +his wife the bridle, told her of the marvellous transformation which had +occurred. His wife, in hopes of propitiating Heaven, gave alms and +offered up many prayers to avert evil from them, on account of their +having used a human being as an ass. At length the simpleton, having +remained idle at home for some time, went one day to the market to +purchase another ass, and on entering the place where all the animals +were fastened, he saw with astonishment his old ass offered for sale. +Putting his mouth to its ear, he whispered, "Woe to thee, unlucky! +Doubtless thou hast again been intoxicated; but, by Allah, I will never +buy thee!" + +Another noodle-story, of a different class, in the _Arabian +Nights_, may be here cited in full from Sir R.F. Burton's +translation of that delightful work, privately printed for the +subscribers, and it will serve, moreover, as a fair specimen of the +admirable manner in which that ripe scholar has represented in English +the quaint style of his original: + +[Quoth one of the learned,] I passed once by a school wherein a +schoolmaster was teaching children; so I entered, finding him a +good-looking man, and a well-dressed, when he rose to me and made me sit +with him. Then I examined him in the Koran, and in syntax and prosody, +and lexicography; and behold, he was perfect in all required of him; and +I said to him, "Allah strengthen thy purpose! Thou art indeed versed in +all that is requisite." Thereafter I frequented him a while, discovering +daily some new excellence in him, and quoth I to myself, "This is indeed +a wonder in any dominie; for the wise are agreed upon a lack of wit in +children's teachers."[1] Then I separated myself from him, and sought +him and visited him only every few days, till coming to see him one day, +as of wont, I found the school shut, and made inquiry of his neighbours, +who replied, "Some one is dead in his house." So I said in my mind, "It +behoveth me to pay him a visit of condolence," and going to his house, +knocked at the door, when a slave-girl came out to me and asked, "What +dost thou want?" and I answered, "I want thy master." She replied, "He +is sitting alone mourning;" and I rejoined, "Tell him that his friend +So-and-so seeketh to console him." She went in and told him; and he +said, "Admit him." So she brought me in to him, and I found him seated +alone, and his head bound with mourning fillets. So I said to him, +"Allah requite thee amply! This is a path all must perforce tread, and +it behoveth thee to take patience," adding, "but who is dead unto thee?" +He answered, "One who was dearest of the folk to me, and best beloved." +"Perhaps thy father?" "No." "Thy brother?" "No." "One of thy kindred?" +"No." Then asked I, "What relation was the dead to thee?" and he +answered, "My lover." Quoth I to myself, "This is the first proof to +swear by of his lack of wit." So I said to him, "Assuredly there be +others than she, and fairer;" and he made answer, "I never saw her that +I might judge whether or no there be others fairer than she." Quoth I to +myself, "This is another proof positive." Then I said to him, "And how +couldst thou fall in love with one thou hast never seen?" He replied, +"Know that I was sitting one day at the window, when, lo! there passed +by a man, singing the following distich: + + "'Umm Amr', thy boons Allah repay! + Give back my heart, be't where it may!'" + +The schoolmaster continued, "When I heard the man humming these words as +he passed along the street, I said to myself, 'Except this Umm Amru were +without equal in the world, the poets had not celebrated her in ode and +canzon.' So I fell in love with her; but two days after, the same man +passed, singing the following couplet: + + "'Ass and Umm Amr' went their way, + Nor she nor ass returned for aye.' + +Thereupon I knew that she was dead, and mourned for her. This was three +days ago, and I have been mourning ever since." So I left him and fared +forth, having assured myself of the weakness of the gerund-grinder's +wit[2]. + +Here, surely, was the very Father of Folly, but what shall we say of +judges and magistrates being sometimes (represented as) equally witless? +Thus we are told, among the cases decided by a Turkish Kází, that two +men came before him one of whom complained that the other had almost bit +his ear off. The accused denied this, and declared that the fellow had +bit his own ear. After pondering the matter for some time, the judge +told them to come again two hours later. Then he went into his private +room, and attempted to bring his ear and his mouth together; but all he +did was to fall backwards and break his head. Wrapping a cloth round his +head, he returned to court, and the two men coming in again presently, +he thus decided the question: "No man can bite his own ear, but in +trying to do so he may fall down and break his head." + +A Sinhalese story, which is also well known in various forms in India, +furnishes a still more remarkable example of forensic sagacity. It is +thus related by the able editor of _The Orientalist_, vol. i., p. +191: + +One night some thieves broke into the house of a rich man, and carried +away all his valuables. The man complained to the justice of the peace, +who had the robbers captured, and when brought before him, inquired of +them whether they had anything to say in their defence. "Sir," said +they, "we are not to blame in this matter; the robbery was entirely due +to the mason who built the house; for the walls were so badly made, and +gave way so easily, that we were quite unable to resist the temptation +of breaking in." Orders were then given to bring the mason to the +court-house. On his arrival he was informed of the charge brought +against him. "Ah," said he, "the fault is not mine, but that of the +coolie, who made mortar badly." When the coolie was brought, he laid the +blame on the potter, who, he said, had sold him a cracked chattie, in +which he could not carry sufficient water to mix the mortar properly. +Then the potter was brought before the judge, and he explained that the +blame should not be laid upon him, but upon a very pretty woman, who, in +a beautiful dress, was passing at the time he was making the chattie, +and had so riveted his attention, that he forgot all about the work. +When the woman appeared, she protested that the fault was not hers, for +she would not have been in that neighbourhood at all had the goldsmith +sent home her earrings at the proper time; the charge, she argued, +should properly be brought against him. The goldsmith was brought, and +as he was unable to offer any reasonable excuse, he was condemned to be +hanged. Those in the court, however, begged the judge to spare the +goldsmith's life; "for," said they, "he is very sick and ill-favoured, +and would not make at all a pretty spectacle." "But," said the judge, +"somebody must be hanged." Then they drew the attention of the court to +the fact that there was a fat Moorman in a shop opposite, who was a much +fitter subject for an execution, and asked that he might be hanged in +the goldsmith's stead. The learned judge, considering that this +arrangement would be very satisfactory, gave judgment accordingly. + +If some of the last-cited stories are not precisely Gothamite +drolleries, though all are droll enough in their way, there can be no +doubt whatever that we have a Sinhalese brother to the men of Gotham in +the following: A villager in Ceylon, whose calf had got its head into a +pot and could not get it out again, sent for a friend, celebrated for +his wisdom, to release the poor animal. The sagacious friend, taking in +the situation at a glance, cut off the calf's head, broke the pot, and +then delivered the head to the owner of the calf, saying, "What will you +do when I am dead and gone?"--And we have another Gothamite in the +Kashmírí who bought as much rice as he thought would suffice for a +year's food, and finding he had only enough for eleven months, concluded +it was better to fast the other month right off, which he did +accordingly; but he died just before the month was completed, leaving +eleven months' rice in his house. + + * * * * * + +The typical noodle of the Turks, the Khoja Nasru-'d-Dín, is said to have +been a subject of the independent prince of Karaman, at whose capital, +Konya, he resided, and he is represented as a contemporary of Timúr +(Tamerlane), in the middle of the fourteenth century. The pleasantries +which are ascribed to him are for the most part common to all countries, +but some are probably of genuine Turkish origin. To cite a few +specimens: The Khoja's wife said to him one day, "Make me a present of a +kerchief of red Yemen silk, to put on my head." The Khoja stretched out +his arms and said, "Like that? Is that large enough?" On her replying in +the affirmative he ran off to the bazaar, with his arms still stretched +out, and meeting a man on the road, he bawled to him, "Look where you +are going, O man, or you will cause me to lose my measure!" + +Another day the Khoja's wife washed his caftan and spread it upon a tree +in the garden of the house. That night the Khoja goes out, and thinks he +sees in the moonlight a man motionless upon a tree in the garden. "Give +me my bow and arrows," said he to his wife, and having received them, he +shot the caftan, piercing it through and through, and then returned into +the house. Next morning, when he discovered that it was his own caftan +he had shot at, he exclaimed, "By Allah, had I happened to be in it, I +should have killed myself!" + +The Ettrick Shepherd's well-known story of the two Highlanders and the +wild boar has its exact parallel in the Turkish jest-book, as follows: +One day the Khoja went with his friend Sheragh Ahmed to the den of a +wolf, in order to take the cubs. Said the Khoja to Ahmed, "Do you go in, +and I will watch without;" and Ahmed went in, to take the cubs in the +absence of the old wolf. But she came back presently, and had got +half-way into her den when the Khoja seized hold of her tail. The wolf +in her struggles cast up a great dust into the eyes of Ahmed, who called +out to the Khoja, "Hallo! what does all this dust mean?" The Khoja +replied, "If the wolf's tail breaks, you will soon know what the dust +means!" + +Several of the jests closely resemble "Joe Millers" told of Irishmen, +such as this: It happened one night, after the Khoja and a guest had +lain down to sleep, that the taper went out. "O Khoja Effendi," said the +guest, "the taper is gone out. But there is a taper at your right side. +Pray bring it and let us light it." Quoth the Khoja, "You must surely be +a fool to think that I should know my right hand in the dark." And this: +A thief having stolen a piece of salted cheese from the Khoja, he ran +immediately and seated himself on the border of a fountain. Said the +people to him, "O Khoja, what have you come here to look for in such a +hurry?" The Khoja replied, "The thief will certainly come here to drink +as soon as he has eaten my salted cheese; I always do so myself." + +And here is one of the Gothamite class: One evening the Khoja went to +the well to draw water, and seeing the moon reflected in the water, he +exclaimed, "The moon has fallen into the well; I must pull it out." So +he let down the rope and hook, and the hook became fastened to a stone, +whereupon he exerted all his strength, and the rope broke, and he fell +upon his back. Looking into the sky, he saw the moon, and cried out +joyfully, "Praise be to Allah! I am sorely bruised, but the moon has got +into its place again." + +There is a well-worn jest of an Irishman who, being observed by a friend +to look exceedingly blank and perplexed, was asked what ailed him. He +replied that he had had a dream. "Was it a good or a bad dream?" +"Faith," said he, "it was a little of both; but I'll tell ye. I dreamt +that I was with the Pope, who was the finest gentleman in the whole +district; and after we had conversed a while, his Holiness axed me, +Would I drink? Thinks I to myself, 'Would a duck swim?' So, seeing the +whisky and the lemons and the sugar on the side-board, I said, I didn't +mind if I took a drop of punch. 'Cold or hot?' says his Holiness. 'Hot, +your Holiness,' says I. So on that he steps down to the kitchen for the +boiling water, but, bedad, before he came back, I woke straight up; and +now it's distressing me that I didn't take it cold!" + +We have somewhat of a parallel to this in a Turkish jest: The Khoja +dreamt that some one gave him nine pieces of money, but he was not +content, and said, "Make it ten." Then he awoke and found his hands +empty. Instantly closing his eyes again, and holding out his hand, he +said, "I repent; give me the nine pieces[3]." + +But the Chinese relate the very counterpart of our Irishman's story. A +confirmed drunkard dreamt that he had been presented with a cup of +excellent wine, and set it by the fire to warm[4], that he should better +enjoy the flavour of it; but just as he was about to drink off the +delicious draught he awoke. "Fool that I am," he cried, "why was I not +content to drink it cold?"[5] + + * * * * * + +The Chinese seem to have as keen a sense of humour as any other people. +They tell a story, for instance, of a lady who had been recently +married, and on the third day saw her husband returning home, so she +slipped quietly behind him and gave him a hearty kiss. The husband was +annoyed, and said she offended all propriety. "Pardon! pardon!" said +she. "I did not know it was you." Thus the excuse may sometimes be worse +than the offence. There is exquisite humour in the following +noodle-story: Two brothers were tilling the ground together. The elder, +having prepared dinner, called his brother, who replied in a loud voice, +"Wait till I have hidden my spade, and I shall at once be with you." +When he joined his elder brother, the latter mildly reproached him, +saying, "When one hides anything, one should keep silence, or at least +should not cry aloud about it, for it lays one open to be robbed." +Dinner over, the younger went back to the field, and looked for his +spade, but could not find it; so he ran to his brother and +_whispered_ mysteriously in his ear, "My spade is stolen!"--The +passion for collecting antique relics is thus ridiculed: A man who was +fond of old curiosities, though he knew not the true from the false, +expended all his wealth in purchasing mere imitations of the +lightning-stick of Tchew-Koung, a glazed cup of the time of the Emperor +Cheun, and the mat of Confucius; and being reduced to beggary, he +carried these spurious relics about with him, and said to the people in +the streets, "Sirs, I pray you, give me some coins struck by Taï-Koung." + + * * * * * + +Indian fiction abounds in stories of simpletons, and probably the oldest +extant drolleries of the Gothamite type are found in the _Játakas_, +or Buddhist Birth-stories. Assuredly they were own brothers to our mad +men of Gotham, the Indian villagers who, being pestered by mosquitoes +when at work in the forest, bravely resolved, according to _Játaka_ +44, to take their bows and arrows and other weapons and make war upon +the troublesome insects until they had shot dead or cut in pieces every +one; but in trying to shoot the mosquitoes they only shot, struck, and +injured one another. And nothing more foolish is recorded of the +Schildburgers than Somadeva relates, in his _Kathá Sarit Ságara_, +of the simpletons who cut down the palm-trees: Being required to furnish +the king with a certain quantity of dates, and perceiving that it was +very easy to gather the dates of a palm which had fallen down of itself, +they set to work and cut down all the date-palms in their village, and +having gathered from them their whole crop of dates, they raised them up +and planted them again, thinking they would grow. + +In illustration of the apothegm that "fools who attend only to the words +of an order, and do not understand the meaning, cause much detriment," +is the story of the servants who kept the rain off the trunks: The camel +of a merchant gave way under its load on a journey. He said to his +servants, "I will go and buy another camel to carry the half of this +camel's load. And you must remain here, and take particular care that if +it clouds over the rain does not wet the leather of these trunks, which +are full of clothes." With these words the merchant left the servants by +the side of the camel and went off, and suddenly a cloud came up and +began to discharge rain. Then the fools said, "Our master told us to +take care that the rain did not touch the leather of the trunks;" and +after they had made this sage reflection they dragged the clothes out of +the trunks and wrapped them round the leather. The consequence was that +the rain spoiled the clothes. Then the merchant returned, and in a rage +said to his servants, "You rascals! Talk of water! Why, the whole stock +of clothes is spoiled by the rain!" And they answered him, "You told us +to keep the rain off the leather of the trunks. What fault have we +committed?" He answered, "I told you that if the leather got wet the +clothes would be spoiled. I told you so in order to save the clothes, +not the leather." + +The story of the servant who looked after the door is a farther +illustration of the same maxim. A merchant said to his foolish servant, +"Take care of the door of my shop; I am going home for a short time." +After his master was gone, the fool took the shop-door on his shoulder +and went off to see an actor perform. As he was returning his master met +him, and gave him a scolding, and he answered, "I have taken care of +this door, as you told me." + +This jest had found its way into Europe three centuries ago. It is +related of Giufa, the typical Sicilian booby, and probably came to +England from Italy. This is how it is told in the _Sacke Full of +Newes_, a jest-book originally printed in the sixteenth century: "In +the countrey dwelt a Gentlewoman who had a French man dwelling with her, +and he did ever use to go to Church with her; and upon a time he and his +mistresse were going to church, and she bad him pull the doore after him +and follow her to the church; and so he took the doore betweene his +armes, and lifted it from the hooks, and followed his mistresse with it. +But when she looked behinde her and saw him bring the doore upon his +back, 'Why, thou foolish knave,' qd she, 'what wilt thou do with the +door?' 'Marry, mistresse,' qd he, 'you bad me pull the doore after me.' +'Why, fool,' qd she, 'I did command thee that thou shouldest make fast +the doore after thee, and not bring it upon thy back after me.' But +after this there was much good sport and laughing at his simplicity and +foolishnesse therein." + +In the capacity of a merchant the simpleton does very wonderful things, +and plumes himself on his sagacity, as we have already seen in the case +of the Arab and his cow. And here are a brace of similar stories: A +foolish man once went to the island of Katáha to trade, and among his +wares was a quantity of fragrant aloes-wood. After he had sold his other +goods, he could not find any one to take the aloes-wood off his hands, +for the people who live there are not acquainted with that article of +commerce. Then seeing people buying charcoal from the woodmen, he burnt +his stock of aloes-wood and reduced it to charcoal. He sold it for the +price which charcoal usually fetched, and returning home, boasted of his +cleverness, and became the laughing-stock of everybody.--Another +blockhead went to the market to sell cotton, but no one would buy it +from him, because it was not properly cleaned. In the meanwhile he saw +in the bazaar a goldsmith selling gold which he had purified by heating +it, and he saw it taken by a customer. Seeing that, he threw his cotton +into the fire in order to purify it, and it was all burned to ashes. + + There must be few who have not heard of the Irishman who was hired by a +Yarmouth maltster to help in loading a ship. As the vessel was about to +sail, the Irishman cried out from the quay, "Captain, I lost your shovel +overboard, but I cut a big notch on the rail-fence, round the stern, +just where it went down, so you will find it when you come back."--A +similar story is told of an Indian simpleton. He was sailing in a ship +when he let a silver cup fall from his hand into the water. Having taken +notes of the spot by observing the eddies and other signs in the water, +he said to himself, "I will bring it up from the bottom when I return." +As he was recrossing the sea, he saw the eddies and other signs, and +thinking he recognised the spot, he plunged into the water again and +again, to recover his cup, but he only got well laughed at for his +pains. + +We have an amusing commentary on the maxim that "distress is sure to +come from being in the company of fools" in the following, from the +Canarese story-book entitled _Kathé Manjari_: A foolish fellow +travelled with a shopkeeper. When it became dark, the fool lay down in +the road to sleep, but the shopkeeper took shelter in a hollow tree. +Presently some thieves came along the road, and one struck his feet +against the fool's legs, upon which he exclaimed to his companions, +"What is this? Is it a piece of wood?" The fool was angry, and said, "Go +away! go away! Is there a knot, well tied, containing five annas, in the +loins of a plank in your house?" The thieves then seized him, and took +away his annas. As they were moving off, they asked if the money was +good or bad, to which the noodle replied, "Ha! ha! is it of my money you +speak in that way, and want to know whether it is good or bad? Look-- +there is a shopkeeper in that tree," pointing with his finger--"show it +to him." Then the thieves went up to the shopkeeper and robbed him of +two hundred pagodas. + +In our next story, of the villagers who ate the buffalo, is exemplified +the fact that "fools, in the conceit of their folly, while they deny +what need not be denied, reveal what it is their interest to suppress, +in order to get themselves believed." Some villagers took a buffalo +belonging to a certain man, and killed it in an enclosure outside the +village, under a banyan tree, and dividing the flesh, ate it up. The +owner of the buffalo went and complained to the king, and he had the +villagers who had eaten the animal brought before him. The proprietor of +the buffalo said before the king, in their presence, "These men took my +buffalo under a banyan tree near the tank, and killed and ate it before +my eyes," whereupon an old fool among the villagers said, "There is no +tank or banyan tree in our village. He says what is not true; where did +we kill his buffalo or eat it?" When the man heard this, he replied, +"What! are there not a banyan tree and a tank on the east side of the +village? Moreover, you ate my buffalo on the eighth day of the lunar +month." The old fool then said, "There is no east side or eighth day in +our village." On hearing this, the king laughed, and said, to encourage +the fool, "You are a truthful person; you never say anything false; so +tell me the truth: did you eat that buffalo, or did you not?" The old +fool answered, "I was born three years after my father died, and he +taught me skill in speaking. So I never say what is untrue, my king. It +is true that we ate his buffalo, but all the rest that he alleges is +false." When the king heard this, he and his courtiers could not +restrain their laughter; but he restored the price of the buffalo to the +man, and fined the villagers. + +But sometimes even kings have been arrant noodles, and their credulity +quite as amusing--or amazing--as that of their subjects. Once on a time +there was a king who had a handsome daughter, and he summoned his +physicians, and said to them, "Make some preparation of salutary drugs, +which will cause my daughter to grow up quickly, so that she may be +married to a good husband." The physicians, wishing to get a living out +of this royal fool, replied, "There is a medicine which will do this, +but it can only be procured in a distant country; and while we are +sending for it, we must shut up your daughter in concealment, for this +is the treatment laid down in such cases." The king having consented, +they placed his daughter in concealment for several years, pretending +that they were engaged in procuring the medicine; and when she was grown +up, they presented her to the king, saying that she had been made to +grow by the preparation; so the king was highly pleased, and gave them +much wealth. + +Between an Indian rájá and an Indian dhobie, or washerman, there is the +greatest possible difference socially, but individually--when both are +noodles--there may be sometimes very little to choose; indeed, of the +two, all things considered, the difference, if any, is perhaps in favour +of the humble cleanser of body-clothes. A favourite story in various +parts of India, near akin to that last cited, is of a poor washerman and +his young ass. This simpleton one day, passing a school kept by a +mullah, or Muhammedan doctor of laws, heard him scolding his pupils, +exclaiming that they were still asses, although he had done so much to +make them men. The washerman thought that here was a rare chance, for he +happened to have the foal of the ass that carried his bundles of +clothes, which, since he had no child, he should get the learned mullah +to change into a boy. Thus thinking, he goes next day to the mullah, and +asks him to admit his foal into his school, in order that it should be +changed into the human form and nature. The preceptor, seeing the poor +fellow's simplicity, answered that the task was very laborious, and he +must have a fee of a hundred rupís. So the washerman went home, and soon +returned leading his foal, which, with the money, he handed over to the +teacher, who told him to come again on such a day and hour, when he +should find that the change he desired had been effected. But the +washerman was so impatient that he went to the teacher several times +before the day appointed, and was informed that the foal was beginning +to learn manners, that its ears were already become very much shorter, +and, in short, that it was making satisfactory progress. + +It happened, when the day came on which he was to receive his young ass +transformed into a fine, well-educated boy, the simpleton was kept busy +with his customers' clothes, but on the day following he found time to +go to the teacher, who told him it was most unfortunate he had not come +at the appointed hour, since the youth had quitted the school yesterday, +refusing to submit any longer to authority; but the teacher had just +learned that he had been made kází (or judge) in Cawnpore. At first the +washerman was disposed to be angry, but reflecting that, after all, the +business was better even than he anticipated, he thanked the preceptor +for all his care and trouble, and returned home. Having informed his +wife of his good luck, they resolved to visit their quondam young foal, +and get him to make them some allowance out of his now ample means. So, +shutting up their house, they travelled to Cawnpore, which they reached +in safety. Being directed to the kází's court, the washerman, leaving +his wife outside, entered, and discovered the kází seated in great +dignity, and before him were the pleaders, litigants, and officers of +the court. He had brought a bridle in one hand and a wisp of hay in the +other; but being unable, on account of the crowd, to approach the kází, +he got tired of waiting, so, holding up the bridle and the hay, he cried +out, "Khoor! khoor! khoor!" as he used to do in calling his donkeys, +thinking this would induce the kází to come to him. But, instead of +this, he was seized by the kází's order and locked up for creating a +disturbance. + +When the business of the court was over, the kází, pitying the supposed +madman, sent for him to learn the reason of his strange behaviour, and +in answer to his inquiries the simpleton said, "You don't seem to know +me, sir, nor recognise this bridle, which has been in your mouth so +often. You appear to forget that you are the foal of one of my asses, +that I got changed into a man, for the fee of a hundred rupis, by a +learned mullah who transforms asses into educated men. You forget what +you were, and, I suppose, will be as little submissive to me as you were +to the mullah when you ran away from him." All present were convulsed +with laughter: such a "case" was never heard of before. But the kází, +seeing how the mullah had taken advantage of the poor fellow's +simplicity, gave him a present of a hundred rupis, besides sufficient +for the expenses of his journey home, and so dismissed him. + + A party of rogues once found as great a blockhead in a rich Indian +herdsman, to whom they said, "We have asked the daughter of a wealthy +inhabitant of the town in marriage for you, and her father has promised +to give her." He was much pleased to hear this, and gave them an ample +reward for their trouble. After a few days they came again and told him +that his marriage had taken place. Again he gave them rich presents for +their good news. Some more days having passed, they said to him, "A son +has been born to you," at which he was in ecstacies and gave them all +his remaining wealth; but the next day, when he began to lament, saying, +"I am longing to see my son," the people laughed at him on account of +his having been cheated by the rogues, as if he had acquired the +stupidity of cattle from having so much to do with them. + +It is not generally known that the incident which forms the subject of +the droll Scotch song "The Barring of the Door," which also occurs in +the _Nights_ of Straparola, is of Eastern origin. In an Arabian +tale, a blockhead, having married his pretty cousin, gave the customary +feast to their relations and friends. When the festivities were over, he +conducted his guests to the door, and from absence of mind neglected to +shut it before returning to his wife. "Dear cousin," said his wife to +him when they were alone, "go and shut the street door." "It would be +strange indeed," he replied, "if I did such a thing. Am I just made a +bridegroom, clothed in silk, wearing a shawl and a dagger set with +diamonds, and am I to go and shut the door? Why, my dear, you are crazy. +Go and shut it yourself." "Oh, indeed!" exclaimed the wife. "Am I, +young, robed in a dress, with lace and precious stones--am I to go and +shut the street door? No, indeed! It is you who are become crazy, and +not I. Come, let us make a bargain," she continued; "and let the first +who speaks go and fasten the door." "Agreed," said the husband, and +immediately he became mute, and the wife too was silent, while they both +sat down, dressed as they were in their nuptial attire, looking at each +other and seated on opposite sofas. Thus they remained for two hours. +Some thieves happened to pass by, and seeing the door open, entered and +laid hold of whatever came to their hands. The silent couple heard +footsteps in the house, but opened not their mouths. The thieves came +into the room and saw them seated motionless and apparently indifferent +to all that might take place. They continued their pillage, therefore, +collecting together everything valuable, and even dragging away the +carpets from beneath them; they laid hands on the noodle and his wife, +taking from their persons every article of jewellery, while they, in +fear of losing the wager, said not a word. Having thus cleared the +house, the thieves departed quietly, but the pair continued to sit, +uttering not a syllable. Towards morning a police officer came past on +his tour of inspection, and seeing the door open, walked in. After +searching all the rooms and finding no person, he entered their +apartment, and inquired the meaning of what he saw. Neither of them +would condescend to reply. The officer became angry, and ordered their +heads to be cut off. The executioner's sword was about to perform its +office, when the wife cried out, "Sir, he is my husband. Do not kill +him!" "Oh, oh," exclaimed the husband, overjoyed and clapping his hands, +"you have lost the wager; go and shut the door." He then explained the +whole affair to the police officer, who shrugged his shoulders and went +away.[6] + +A party of noodles are substituted for the husband and wife in a Turkish +version of the tale, in the _History of the Forty Vazirs. _ Some +bang-eaters,[7] while out walking, found a sequin. They said, "Let us go +to a cook, and buy food and eat." So they went and entered a cook's shop +and said, "Master, give us a sequin's worth of food." The cook prepared +all kinds of food, and loaded a porter with it; and the bang-eaters took +him without the city, where there was a ruined tomb, which they entered +and sat down in, and the porter deposited the food and went away. The +bang-eaters began to partake of the food, when suddenly one of them +said, "The door is open; do one of you shut it, else some other +bang-eaters will come in and annoy us: even though they be friends, they +will do the deeds of foes." One of them replied, "Go thou and shut the +door," and they fell a-quarrelling. At length one said, "Come, let us +agree that whichever of us speaks or laughs shall rise and fasten the +door." They all agreed to this proposal, and left the food and sat quite +still. Suddenly a great number of dogs came in; not one of the +bang-eaters stirred or spoke, for if one spoke he would have to rise and +shut the door, so they spoke not. The dogs made an end of the food, and +ate it all up. Just then another dog leapt in from without, but no food +remained. Now one of the bang-eaters had partaken of everything, and +some of the food remained about his mouth and on his beard. That newly +come dog licked up the particles of food that were on the bang-eater's +breast, and while he was licking up those about his mouth, he took his +lip for a piece of meat and bit it. The bang-eater did not stir, for he +said within himself, "They will tell me to shut the door." But to ease +his soul he cried, "Ough!" inwardly cursing the dog. When the other +bang-eaters heard him make that noise, they said, "Rise, fasten the +door." He replied, "After loss, attention! Now that the food is gone, +and my lip is wounded, what is the use of shutting that door?" and +crying, "Woe! alas!" they each went in a different direction.[8] + +A similar story is known in Kashmir: Five friends chanced to meet, and +all having leisure, they decided to go to the bazaar and purchase a +sheep's head, and have a great feast in the house of one of the party, +each of whom subscribed four annas. The head was bought, but while they +were returning to the house it was remembered that there was not any +butter. On this one of the five proposed that the first of them that +should break silence by speaking should go for the butter. Now it was no +light matter to have to retrace one's steps back to the butter-shop, as +the way was long and the day was very hot. So they all five kept strict +silence. Pots were cleaned, the fire was prepared, and the head laid +thereon. Now and then one would cough, and another would groan, but +never a tongue uttered a word, though the fire was fast going out, and +the head was getting burnt, owing to there being no fat or butter +wherewith to grease the pot. Thus matters were when a policeman passed +by, and, attracted by the smell of cooking, looked in at the window, and +saw these five men perfectly silent and sitting around a burnt sheep's +head. Not knowing the arrangement, he supposed that these men were +either mad or were thieves, and so he inquired how they came there, and +how they obtained the head. Not a word was uttered in reply. "Why are +you squatting there in that stupid fashion?" shouted the policeman. +Still no reply. Then the policeman, full of rage that these wretched men +should thus mock at his authority, took them all off straight to the +police inspectors office. On arrival the inspector asked them the reason +of their strange behaviour, but he also got no reply. This rather tried +the patience and temper of the man of authority, who was generally +feared, and flattered, and bribed. So he ordered one of the five to be +immediately flogged. The poor fool bore it bravely, and uttered never a +sound; but when the blows repeatedly fell on the same wounded parts, he +could endure no longer, and cried out, "Oh! oh! Why do you beat me? +Enough, enough! Is it not enough that the sheep's head has been +spoiled?" + +His four associates now cried out, "Go to the bazaar and fetch the +butter."[9] + +There is quite as droll a version current among the people of Ceylon, to +the following effect: A gentleman once had in his employment twenty-five +idiots. In the old times it was customary with Sinhalese high families +not to allow their servants to eat from plates, but every day they were +supplied with plantain leaves, from which they took their food. After +eating, they were accustomed to shape the leaf into the form of a cup +and drink out of it. Now in this gentleman's house the duty of providing +the leaves devolved upon the twenty-five idiots, who were scarcely fit +for any other work. One day, when they had gone into the garden to cut +the leaves, they spoke among themselves and said, "Why should we, every +one of us, trouble ourselves to fetch plantain leaves, when one only +could very easily do it? Let us therefore lie down on the ground and +sleep like dead men, and let him who first utters a sound or opens his +eyes undertake the work." It was no sooner said than done. The men lay +in a heap like so many logs. At breakfast-time that day the hungry +servants went to the kitchen for their rice, only to be disappointed. No +leaves were forthcoming on which to distribute the food, and a complaint +was made to the master that the twenty-five idiots had not returned to +the house since they went out in the morning. Search was at once made, +and they were found fast asleep in the garden. After vainly endeavouring +to rouse them, the master concluded that they were dead, and ordered his +servants to dig a deep hole and bury them. A grave was then dug, and the +idiots were, one by one, thrown into it, but still there was no noise or +motion on their part. At length, when they were all put into the grave, +and were being covered up, a tool employed by one of the servants hit +sharply by accident against the leg of one of the idiots, who then +involuntarily moaned. Thereupon all the others exclaimed, "You were the +first to utter a sound; therefore from henceforth you must take upon +yourself the duty of providing the plantain leaves."[10] + +It has already been remarked that a literary Italian version of the +Silent Couple is found in the _Nights_ of Straparola, but there are +other variants orally current among the common people in different parts +of Italy. This is one from Venice: There were once a husband and a wife. +The former said one day to the latter, "Let us have some fritters." She +replied, "What shall we do for a frying-pan?" "Go and borrow one from my +godmother." "You go and get it; it is only a little way off." "Go +yourself, and I will take it back when we are done with it." So she went +and borrowed the pan, and when she returned said to her husband, "Here +is the pan, but you must carry it back." So they cooked the fritters, +and after they had eaten, the husband said, "Now let us go to work, both +of us, and the one who speaks first shall carry back the pan." Then she +began to spin, and he to draw his thread--for he was a shoemaker--and +all the time keeping silence, except that when he drew his thread he +said, "Leulerò! leulerò!" and she, spinning, answered, "Picicì! picicì! +piciciò!" And they said not another word. Now there happened to pass +that way a soldier with a horse, and he asked a woman if there was any +shoemaker in that street. She said there was one near by, and took him +to the house. The, soldier asked the shoemaker to come and cut his horse +a girth, and he would pay him. The latter made no answer but "Leulerò! +leulerò!" and his wife "Picicì! picicì! piciciò!" Then the soldier said, +"Come and cut my horse a girth, or I will cut your head off." The +shoemaker only answered, "Leulerò! leulerò!" and his wife "Picicì! +picicì! piciciò!" Then the soldier began to grow angry, and seized his +sword, and said to the shoemaker, "Either come and cut my horse a girth, +or I will cut your head off." But to no purpose. The shoemaker did not +wish to be the first one to speak, and only replied, "Leulerò! leulerò!" +and his wife "Picicì! picicì! piciciò!" Then the soldier got mad in good +earnest, seized the shoemaker's head, and was going to cut it off. When +his wile saw that, she cried out, "Ah, don't, for mercy's sake!" "Good!" +exclaimed her husband, "good! Now you go and carry the pan back to my +godmother, and I will go and cut the horse's girth." + +In a Sicilian version the man and wife fry some fish, and then set about +their respective work--shoemaking and spinning--and the one who finishes +first the piece of work begun is to eat the fish. While they are singing +and whistling at their work, a friend comes along, who knocks at the +door, but receives no answer. Then he enters and speaks to them, but +still no reply. Finally, in anger, he sits down at the table, and eats +up all the fish himself.[11] + +Thus, it will be observed, the droll incident which forms the subject of +the old Scotch song of "The Barring of the Door" is of world-wide +celebrity. + + * * * * * + +Gothamite stories appear to have been familiar throughout Europe during +the later Middle Ages, if we may judge from a chapter of the _Gesta +Romanorum_ in which the monkish compiler has curiously "moralised" +the actions of three noodles: + +We read in the "Lives of the Fathers" that an angel showed to a certain +holy man three men labouring under a triple fatuity. The first made a +faggot of wood, and because it was too heavy for him to carry, he added +to it more wood, hoping by such means to make it light. The second drew +water with great labour from a very deep well with a sieve, which he +incessantly filled. The third carried a beam in his chariot, and, +wishing to enter his house, whereof the gate was so narrow and low that +it would not admit him, he violently whipped his horse until they both +fell together into a deep well. Having shown this to the holy man, the +angel said, "What think you of these three men?" "That they are fools," +answered he. "Understand, however," returned the angel, "that they +represent the sinners of this world. The first describes that kind of +men who from day to day do add new sins to the old, because they cannot +bear the weight of those which they already have. The second man +represents those who do good, but do it sinfully, and therefore it is of +no benefit. And the third person is he who would enter the kingdom of +heaven with all his world of vanities, but is cast down into hell." + + * * * * * + +And now a few more Indian and other stories of the Gothamite class to +conclude the present section. In Málava there were two Bráhman brothers, +and the wealth inherited from their father was left jointly between +them. And while they were dividing that wealth they quarrelled about one +having too little and one having too much, and they made a teacher +learned in the Vedas arbitrator, and he said to them, "You must divide +everything your father left into two halves, so that you may not quarrel +about the inequality of the division." When the two fools heard this, +they divided every single thing into two equal parts--house, beds, in +fact, all their property, including their cattle. Henry Stephens (Henri +Estienne), in the Introduction to his Apology for Herodotus,[12] relates +some very amusing noodle-stories, such as of him who, burning his shins +before the fire, and not having wit enough to go back from it, sent for +masons to remove the chimney; of the fool who ate the doctor's +prescription, because he was told to "take it;" of another wittol who, +having seen one spit upon iron to try whether it was hot, did likewise +with his porridge; and, best of all, he tells of a fellow who was hit on +the back with a stone as he rode upon his mule, and cursed the animal +for kicking him. This last exquisite jest has its analogue in that of +the Irishman who was riding on an ass one fine day, when the beast, by +kicking at the flies that annoyed him, got one of its hind feet +entangled in the stirrup, whereupon the rider dismounted, saying, +"Faith, if you're going to get up, it's time I was getting down." + +The poet Ovid alludes to the story of Ino persuading the women of the +country to roast the wheat before it was sown, which may have come to +India through the Greeks, since we are told in the _Kathá Sarit +Ságara_ of a foolish villager who one day roasted some sesame seeds, +and finding them nice to eat, he sowed a large quantity of roasted +seeds, hoping that similar ones would come up. The story also occurs in +Coelho's _Contes Portuguezes_, and is probably of Buddhistic +origin. And an analogous story is told of an Irishman who gave his hens +hot water, in order that they should lay boiled eggs! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] This notion, that schoolmasters "lack wit," however absurd, seems to +have been entertained from ancient times, and to be still prevalent in +the East; the so-called jests of Hierokles are all at the expense of +pedants; and the Turkish typical noodle is Khoja _(i.e.,_ Teacher) +Nasru-'d-Dín, some of whose "witless devices" shall be cited presently. + +[2] _Elf Laylawa Layla_, or, The Book of a Thousand Nights and a +Night. Translated, with Introduction, Notes on the Manners and Customs +of Moslem Men, and a Terminal Essay on the History of _The Nights_, +by R.F. Burton. Vol. v. + +[3] The Khoja, however, was not such a fool as we might conclude from +the foregoing examples of his sayings and doings; for, being asked one +day what musical instrument he liked best, he answered, "I am very fond +of the music of plates and saucepans." + +[4] In China wine is almost invariably taken hot, according to Davis, in +his work on the Chinese. + +[5] This and the following specimens of Chinese stories of simpletons +are from "Contes et Bon Mots extraits d'un livre chinois intitule +_Siao li Siao_, traduit par M. Stanislas Julien," (_Journal +Asiatique_, tom. iv., 1824). + +[6] In another Arabian version, the man desires his wife to moisten some +stale bread she has set before him for supper, and she refuses. After an +altercation it is agreed that the one who speaks first shall get up and +moisten the bread. A neighbour comes in, and, to his surprise, finds +the couple dumb; he kisses the wife, but the man says nothing; he gives +the man a blow, but still he says nothing; he has the man taken before +the kází, but even yet he says nothing; the kází orders him to be +hanged, and he is led off to execution, when the wife rushes up and +cries out, "Oh, save my poor husband!" "You wretch," says the man, "go +home and moisten the bread!" + +[7] Bang is a preparation of hemp and coarse opium. + +[8] From Mr. E.J.W. Gibb's translation of the _Forty Vazirs_ +(London: 1886). + +[9] Knowles' _Dictionary of Kashmírí Proverbs and Sayings_, pp. +197-8. The article bought by the five men is called a _hir_, which +Mr. Knowles says "is the head of any animal used for food," and a +_sheep's_ head were surely fitting food for such noodles. Mr. +Knowles makes it appear that the whole affair of keeping silence was a +mere jest, but we have before seen that it is decidedly meant for a +noodle-story. + +[10] _The Orientalist_, 1884, p. 136. + +[11] Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 284-5. + +[12] A separate work from the _Apologie pour Herodote_ Such was the +exasperation of the French clerics at the bitter truths set forth in it, +that the author had to flee the country. An English translation, +entitled "_A World of Wonders;_ or, an introduction to a Treatise +tovching the Conformitie of Ancient and Modern Wonders; or, a +Preparative Treatise to the 'Apologie for Herodotus,'" etc., was +published at London in 1607, folio, and at Edinburgh 1608, also folio. +The _Apologie pour Herodote_ was printed at the Hague. + + + +CHAPTER V. + +THE SILLY SON. + + +Among the favourite jests of all peoples, from Iceland to Japan, from +India to England, are the droll adventures and mishaps of the silly son, +who contrives to muddle everything he is set to do. In vain does his +poor mother try to direct him in "the way he should go": she gets him a +wife, as a last resource; but a fool he is still, and a fool he will +always be. His blunders and disasters are chronicled in penny chap-books +and in nursery rhymes, of infinite variety. Who has not heard how + + Simple Simon went a-fishing + For to catch a whale, + But all the water he had got + Was in his mother's pail? + +an adventure which recalls another nursery rhyme regarding Simon's still +more celebrated prototypes: + + Three men of Gotham + Went to sea in a bowl; + If the bowl had been stronger, + My tale had been longer. + +Then there is the prose history of _Simple Simon's Misfortunes; or, +his Wife Marjory's Outrageous Cruelty_, which tells (1) of Simon's +wedding, and how his wife Marjory scolded him for putting on his +roast-meat clothes (_i.e.,_ Sunday clothes) the very next morning +after he was married; (2) how she dragged him up the chimney in a +basket, a-smoke-drying, wherein they used to dry bacon, which made him +look like a red herring; (3) how Simon lost a sack of corn as he was +going to the mill to have it ground; (4) how Simon went to market with a +basket of eggs, but broke them by the way: also how he was put into the +stocks; (5) how Simon's wife cudgelled him for not bringing her money +for the eggs; (6) how Simon lost his wife's pail and burnt the bottom of +her kettle; (7) how Simon's wife sent him to buy two pounds of soap, but +going over the bridge, he let his money fall in the river: also how a +ragman ran away with his clothes. No wonder if, after this crowning +misfortune, poor Simon "drank a bottle of sack, to poison himself, as +being weary of his life"! + +Again, we have _The Unfortunate Son; or, a Kind Wife is worth Gold, +being full of Mirth and Pastime_, which commences thus: + + There was a man but one son had, + And he was all his joy; + But still his fortune was but bad, + Though he was a pretty boy. + + His father sent him forth one day + To feed a flock of sheep, + And half of them were stole away + While he lay down asleep! + + Next day he went with one Tom Goff + To reap as he was seen, + When he did cut his fingers off, + The sickle was so keen! + +Another of the chap-book histories of noodles is that of _Simple John +and his Twelve Misfortunes_, an imitation of _Simple Simon_; it +was still popular amongst the rustics of Scotland fifty years ago. + + * * * * * + +The adventures of Silly Matt, the Norwegian counterpart of our typical +English booby, as related in Asbjornson's collection of Norse +folk-tales, furnish some curious examples of the transmission of popular +fictions: + +The mother of Silly Matt tells him one day that he should build a bridge +across the river and take toll of every one who wished to go over it; so +he sets to work with a will, and when the bridge is finished, stands at +one end--"at the receipt of custom." Three men come up with loads of +hay, and Matt demands toll of them, so they each give him a wisp of hay. +Next comes a pedlar, with all sorts of small wares in his pack, and Matt +gets from him two needles. On his return home his mother asks him what +he has got that day. "Hay and needles," says Matt. Well! and what had he +done with the hay? "I put some of it in my mouth," quoth he, "and as it +tasted like grass, I threw it into the river." She says he ought to have +spread it on the byre-floor. "Very good," replies the dutiful Matt; +"I'll remember that next time." And what had he done with the needles? +He stuck them into the hay. "Ah," says the mother, "you should rather +have stuck them in and out of your cap, and brought them home to me." +Well! well! Matt will not forget to do so next time. The following day a +man comes to the bridge with a sack of meal and gives Matt a pound of +it; then comes a smith, who gives him a gimlet: the meal he spread on +the byre-floor, and the gimlet he stuck in and out of his cap. His +mother tells him he should have come home for a bucket to hold the meal, +and the gimlet he should have put up his sleeve. Very good! Matt will +not forget next time. Another day some men come to the bridge with kegs +of brandy, of which Matt gets a pint, and pours it into his sleeve; next +comes a man driving some goats and their young ones, and gives Matt a +kid, which he treads down into a bucket. His mother says he should have +led the goat home with a cord round its neck, and put the brandy in a +pail. Next day he gets a pat of butter and drags it home with a string. +After this his mother despairs of his improvement, till it occurs to her +that he might not be such a noodle if he had a wife. So she bids him go +and see whether he cannot find some lass who will take him for a +husband. Should he meet any folk on his way, he ought to say to them, +"God's peace!" Matt accordingly sets off in quest of a wife, and meets a +she-wolf and her seven cubs. "God's peace!" says Matt, and then returns +home. When his mother learns of this, she tells him he should have +cried, "Huf! huf! you jade wolf!" Next day he goes off again, and +meeting a bridal party, he cries, "Huf! huf! you jade wolf!" and goes +back to his mother and acquaints her of this fresh adventure. "O you +great silly!" says she; "you should have said, 'Ride happily, bride and +bridegroom!'" Once more Matt sets out to seek a wife, and seeing on the +road a bear taking a ride on a horse, he exclaims joyfully, "Ride +happily, bride and bridegroom!" and then returns home. His mother, on +hearing of this new piece of folly, tells him he should have cried, "To +the devil with you!" Again he sets out, and meeting a funeral +procession, he roars, "To the devil with you!" His mother says he should +have cried, "May your poor soul have mercy!" and sends him off for the +fifth time to look for a lass. On the road he sees some gipsies busy +skinning a dead dog, upon which he piously exclaims, "May your poor soul +have mercy!" His mother now goes herself to get him a wife, finds a lass +that is willing to marry him, and invites her to dinner. She privately +tells Matt how he should comport himself in the presence of his +sweetheart; he should cast an eye at her now and then. Matt understands +her instruction most literally: stealing into the sheepfold, he plucks +out the eyes of all the sheep and goats, and puts them in his pocket. +When he is seated beside his sweetheart, he casts a "sheep's eye" at +her, which hits her on the nose.[1] + +This last incident, as we have seen, occurs in the _Tales of the Men +of Gotham ("ante_, p. 41" in original. This section is to be found +immediately after the reference to Chapter II, Footnote 9 in this +e-text), and it is also found in a Venetian story (Bernoni, +_Fiabe_, No. 11) entitled "The Fool," of which the following is the +first part: + +Once upon a time there was a mother who had a son with little brains. +One morning she said, "We must get up early, for we have to make bread." +So they both rose early, and began to make bread. The mother made the +loaves, but took no pains to make them the same size. Her son said to +her finally, "How small you have made this loaf, mother." "Oh," said +she, "it does not matter whether they are big or little, for the proverb +says, 'Large and small, all must go to mass.'" "Good! good!" said her +son. When the bread was made, instead of taking it to the baker's, the +son took it to the church, for it was the hour for mass, saying, "My +mother said that, 'large and small, all must go to mass.'" So he threw +the loaves down in the middle of the church. Then he went home to his +mother, and said, "I have done what you told me to do," "Good! Did you +take the bread to the baker's?" "O mother, if you had seen how they all +looked at me!" "You might also have cast an eye on them in return," said +his mother. "Wait; wait. I will cast an eye at them too," he exclaimed, +and went to the stable and cut out the eyes of all the animals, and +putting them in a handkerchief, went to the church, and when any man or +woman looked at him, he threw an eye at them.[2] + +Silly Matt has a brother in Russia, according to M. Leger's _Contes +Populaires Slaves_, published at Paris in 1882: An old man and his +wife had a son, who was about as great a noodle as could be. One day his +mother said to him, "My son, thou shouldst go about among people, to get +thyself sharpened and rubbed down a little." "Yes, mother," says he; +"I'm off this moment." So he went to the village, and saw two men +threshing pease. He ran up to them, and rubbed himself now on one and +then on the other. "No nonsense!" cried the men. "Get away." But he +continued to rub himself on them, till at last they would stand it no +longer, and beat him with their flails so lustily that he could hardly +crawl home. "What art thou crying about, child?" asked his mother. He +related his misfortune. "Ah, my child," said she, "how silly thou art! +Thou shouldst have said to them, 'God aid you, good men! Do you wish me +to help you to thresh?' and then they would have given thee some pease +for thy trouble, and we should have had them to cook and eat." On +another occasion the noodle again went through the village, and met some +people carrying a dead man. "May God aid you, good men!" he exclaimed. +"Do you wish me to help you to thresh?" But he got himself well thrashed +once more for this ill-timed speech. When he reached home, he howled, +"They've felled me to the ground, beaten me, and plucked my beard and +hair!" and told of his new mishap. "Ah, noodle!" said his mother, "thou +shouldst have said, 'God give peace to his soul!' Thou shouldst have +taken off thy bonnet, wept, and fallen upon thy knees. They would then +have given thee meat and drink." Again he went to the village, and met a +marriage procession. So he took off his bonnet, and cried with all his +might, "God grant peace to his soul!" and then burst into tears. "What +brute is this?" said the wedding company. "We laugh and amuse ourselves, +and he laments as if he were at a funeral." So they leaped out of the +carriages, and beat him soundly on the ribs. Home he returned, crying, +"They've beaten me, thrashed me, and torn my beard and hair!" and +related what had happened. "My son," said his mother, "thou shouldst +have leaped and danced with them." The next time he went to the village +he took his bagpipe under his arm. At the end of the street a cart-shed +was on fire. The noodle ran to the spot, and began to play on his +bagpipe and to dance and caper about, for which he was abused as before. +Going back to his mother in tears, he told her how he had fared. "My +son," said she, "thou shouldst have carried water and thrown it on the +fire, like the other folks." Three days later, when his ribs were well +again, the noodle went through the village once more, and seeing a man +roasting a little pig, he seized a vessel of water, ran up with it, and +threw the water on the fire. This time also he was beaten, and when he +got home, and told his mother of his ill-luck, she resolved never again +to allow him to go abroad; so he remains by the fireside, as great a +fool as ever. + + This species of noodle is also known in Japan. He is the hero of a +farce entitled _Hone Kaha_, or Ribs and Skin, which has been done +into English by Mr. Basil Hall Chamberlain, in his _Classical Poetry +of the Japanese_. The rector of a Buddhist temple tells his curate +that he feels he is now getting too old for the duties of his office, +and means to resign the benefice in his favour. Before retiring to his +private chamber, he desires the curate to let him know if any persons +visit the temple, and bids him, should he be in want of information +regarding any matter, to come to him. A parishioner calls to borrow an +umbrella. The curate lends him a new one, and then goes to the rector +and informs him of this visitor. "You have done wrong," says the rector. +"You ought to have said that you should have been happy to comply with +such a small request, but, unfortunately, the rector was walking out +with it the other day, when, at a place where four roads meet, a sudden +gust of wind blew the skin to one side and the ribs to another; we have +tied the ribs and skin together in the middle, and hung it from the +ceiling. Something like that," adds the rector, "something with an air +of truth about it, is what you should have said." Next comes another +parishioner, who wishes to borrow a horse. The curate replies with great +politeness, "The request with which you honour me is a mere trifle, but +the rector took it out with him a few days since, and coming to the +junction of four cross roads, a gust of wind blew the ribs to one side +and the skin to another, and we have tied them together, and hung them +from the ceiling; so I fear it would not suit your purpose." "It is a +horse I want," said the man. "Precisely--a horse: I am aware of it," +quoth the curate, and the man went off, not a little perplexed, after +which the curate reports this new affair to the rector, who says it was +to an umbrella, not to a horse, that such a story was applicable. Should +any one come again to borrow a horse, he ought to say, "I much regret +that I cannot comply with your request. The fact is, we lately turned +him out to grass, and becoming frolicsome, he dislocated his thigh, and +is now lying, covered with straw, in a corner of the stable." "Something +like that," adds the rector, "something with an air of truth about it, +is what you should say." A third parishioner comes to invite the rector +and the curate to a feast at his house. "For myself," says the curate, +"I promise to come; but I fear it will not be convenient for the rector +to accompany me." "I presume then," says the man, "that he has some +particular business on hand?" "No, not any particular business," answers +the curate; "but the truth is, we lately turned him out to grass, and +becoming frisky, he dislocated his thigh, and now lies in a corner of +the stable, covered with straw." "I spoke of the rector," says the +parishioner. "Yes, of the rector. I quite understand," responds the +curate, very complaisantly, upon which the man goes away, not knowing +what to make of such a strange account of the rector's condition. This +last affair puts the rector into a fury, and he cuffs his intended +successor, exclaiming, "When was I ever frisky, I should like to know?" + + As great a jolterhead as any of the foregoing was the hero of a story +in Cazotte's "Continuation" of the _Arabian Nights_, entitled +"L'Imbécille; ou, L'Histoire de Xailoun,"[3] This noodle's wife said to +him one day, "Go and buy some pease, and don't forget that it is pease +you are to buy; continually repeat 'Pease!' till you reach the +market-place." So he went off, with "Pease! pease!" always in his mouth. +He passed the corner of a street where a merchant who had pearls for +sale was proclaiming his wares in a loud voice, saying, "In the name of +the Prophet, pearls!" Xailoun's attention was at once attracted by the +display of pearls, and at the same time he was occupied in retaining the +lesson his wife had taught him, and putting his hand in the box of +pearls, he cried out, "Pease! pease!" The merchant, supposing Xailoun +played upon him and depreciated his pearls by wishing to make them pass +for false ones, struck him a severe blow. "Why do you strike me?" said +Xailoun. "Because you insult me," answered the merchant. "Do you suppose +I am trying to deceive people?" "No," said the noodle. "But what must I +say, then?" "If you will cry properly, say as I do, 'Pearls, in the name +of the Prophet!'" He next passed by the shop of a merchant from whom +some pearls had been stolen, and his manner of crying, "Pearls!" etc., +which was not nearly so loud as usual, appeared to the merchant very +suspicious. "The man who has stolen my pearls," thought he, "has +probably recognised me, and when he passes my shop lowers his voice in +crying the goods." Upon this suspicion he ran after Xailoun, and +stopping him, said, "Show me your pearls." The poor fool was in great +confusion, and the merchant thought he had got the thief. The supposed +seller of pearls was soon surrounded by a great crowd, and the merchant +at last discovered that he was a perfect simpleton. "Why," said he, "do +you cry that you sell pearls?" "What should I say, then?" asked Xailoun. +"It is not true," said the merchant, not listening to him. "It is not +true," exclaimed the noodle. "Let me repeat, 'It is not true,' that I +may not forget it;" and as he went on he kept crying, "It is not true." +His way led him towards a place where a man was proclaiming, "In the +name of the Prophet, lentils!" Xailoun, induced by curiosity, went up to +the man, his mouth full of the last words he remembered, and putting his +hand into the sack, cried, "It is not true." The sturdy villager gave +him a blow that caused him to stagger, saying, "What d'ye mean by giving +me the lie about my goods, which I both sowed and reaped myself?" Quoth +the noodle, "I have only tried to say what I ought to say." "Well, +then," rejoined the dealer, "you ought to say, as I do, 'Lentils, in the +name of the Prophet!'" So our noodle at once took up this new cry, and +proceeded on his way till he came to the bank of the river, where a +fisherman had been casting his net for hours, and had frequently changed +his place, without getting any fish. Xailoun, who was amused with every +new thing he saw, began to follow the fisherman, and, that he should not +forget his lesson, continued to repeat, "Lentils, in the name of the +Prophet!" Suddenly the fisherman made a pretence of spreading his net, +in order to wring and dry it, and having folded in his hand the rope to +which it was fastened, he took hold of the simpleton and struck him some +furious blows with it, saying, "Vile sorcerer! cease to curse my +fishing." Xailoun struggled, and at length disengaged himself. "I am no +sorcerer," said he. "Well, if you are not," answered the fisherman, "why +do you cause me bad luck by your words every time I throw my net?" "I +didn't mean to bring you bad luck," said the noodle. "I only repeat what +I was told to repeat." The fisherman then concluded that some of his +enemies, who wished to do him an ill turn without exposing themselves, +had prevailed upon this poor fellow to come and curse his fishing, so he +said, "I am sorry, brother, for having beaten you, but you were wrong to +pronounce the words you did, thereby bringing bad luck to me, who never +did you any harm." Quoth the simpleton, "I only tried to say the words +my wife told me not to forget." "Do you know them?" "Yes." "Well, place +yourself beside me, and each time I cast my net you must say, 'In the +name of the Prophet, instead of one, seven of the greatest and best!'" +But Xailoun thought what his wife had said was not so long as that. +"Oh, yes, it was," said the fisherman; "and take care you don't miss a +single word, and I shall give you some of the fish to take home with +you." That he might not forget, Xailoun repeated it very loud, but as +'he was afraid of the cord whenever he saw the fisherman drawing in his +net, he ran away as fast as he could, but still repeating, "In the name +of the Prophet, instead of one, seven of the greatest and best!" These +words he pronounced in the midst of a crowd of people, through which the +corpse of the kází (magistrate, or judge) was being carried to the +burying ground, and the mullahs who surrounded the bier, scandalised by +what they thought a horrible imprecation, exclaimed, "How darest thou, +wicked wretch, thus blaspheme? Is it not enough that Death has taken one +of the greatest men of Baghdád?" The poor simpleton was skulking off in +fear and trembling, when his sleeve was pulled by an aged slave, who +told him that he ought to say, "May Allah preserve his body and save his +soul!" So our noodle went on, repeating this new cry till he came to a +street where a dead ass was being carted away. "May Allah preserve his +body and save his soul!"' he exclaimed. "How he blasphemes!" said the +folk, and they set upon him with their fists and sticks, and gave him a +sound drubbing. At length he got clear of them, and by chance came to +the house of his wife's mother, but he only ventured to stand at the +door and peep within. He was recognised, however, and asked what he +would have to eat--goat's flesh? rice? _pease?_ Yes, it was pease +he wanted, and having got some, he hastened home, and after relating all +his mishaps, informed his wife, that her sister was very sick. His wife, +having prepared herself to go to her mother's house, tells the simpleton +to rock the baby should it awake and cry; feed the hen that was sitting; +if the ass was thirsty, give her to drink; shut the door, and take care +not to go to sleep, lest robbers should come and plunder the house. The +baby awakes, and Xailoun rocks it to sleep again; so far, well. The hen +seems uneasy; he concludes she is troubled with insects, like himself. +So he takes up the hen, and thinking the best way to kill the insects +was to stick a pin into them, he unluckily kills the hen. This was a +serious matter, and while he considers what he should do in the +circumstances, the ass begins to bray. "Ah," says he, "I've no time to +attend to you just now; but when I am on your back, you can carry me to +the river." Then he opened the door and let out the ass and her colt. +After this he sat down on the eggs, and took the baby in his arms. His +wife returning, knocks at the door. "Let me in, you fool," she cries. "I +can't, for I am nursing the baby and hatching the eggs." At length she +contrived to force open the door, and running up to her idiot of a +husband, fetched him a blow that caused him to crush all the +half-hatched eggs. Luckily she had met the ass and her foal on the road, +so the amount of mischief done by her stupid spouse in her absence was +not so great, all things considered.[4] + +The misadventures of the Arabian idiot in his expedition to purchase +pease present a close analogy to those of the typical English booby, +only the latter end tragically: + +A woman sent her son one day to buy a sheep's head and pluck, and, lest +he should forget his message, he kept bawling loudly as he went along, +"Sheep's head and pluck! sheep's head and pluck!" In getting over a +stile he fell and hurt himself, and forgot what he was sent for, so he +stood a little to consider; and at last he thought he recollected it, +and began to shout, "Liver and lights and gall and all!" which he was +repeating when he came up to a man who was very sick. The man, thinking +the booby was mocking him, laid hold of him, and after cuffing him, bade +the booby cry, "Pray God, send no more up!" So he ran along uttering +these words till he came to a field where a man was sowing wheat, who, +on hearing what he took for a curse upon his labour, seized and thrashed +him, and told him to repeat, "Pray God, send plenty more!" So the young +jolterhead at once "changed his tune," and was loudly singing out these +words when he met a funeral. The chief mourner punished him for what he +thought his fiendish wish, and bade him say, "Pray God, send the soul to +heaven!" which he was bawling when he met a he and a she-dog going to be +hanged. The good people who heard him were greatly shocked at his +seeming profanity, and striking him, strictly charged him to cry, "A he +and a she-dog going to be hanged!" On he went, accordingly, repeating +this new cry, till he met a man and a woman going to be married. When +the bridegroom heard what the booby said, he gave him many a good thump, +and bade him say, "I wish you much joy!" This he was crying at the top +of his voice when he came to a pit into which two labourers had fallen, +and one of them, enraged at what he thought his mockery of their +misfortune, exerted all his strength and scrambled out, then beat the +poor simpleton, and told him to say, "The one is out; I wish the other +was!" Glad to be set free, the booby went on shouting these words till +he met with a one-eyed man, who, like the others, taking what he was +crying for a personal insult, gave him another drubbing, and then bade +him cry, "The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!" So +he adopted this new cry, and continued his adventurous journey till he +came to a house, one side of which was on fire. The people, hearing him +bawling, "The one side gives good light, and I wish the other did!" at +once concluded that he had set the house a-blazing; so they put him in +prison, and the end was, the judge put on the black cap and condemned +him to be hanged![5] + + * * * * * + +When the noodle is persuaded, as in the following case of a Sinhalese +wittol, by a gang of thieves to join them in a plundering expedition, +they have little reason to be pleased with him, for he does not make a +good "cat's-paw." The Sinhalese noodle joined some thieves, took readily +to their ways, and was always eager to accompany them on their marauding +excursions. One night they took him with them, and boring a large hole +in the wall of a house,[6] they sent him in, telling him to hand out the +heaviest article he could lay hands upon. He readily went in, and seeing +a large kurakkan-grinder,[7] thought that was the heaviest thing in the +room, and attempted to remove it. But it proved too much for him alone, +so he gently awoke a man who was sleeping in the room, and said to him, +"My friend, pray help me to remove this kurakkan-grinder." The man +immediately guessed that thieves had entered the house, and gave the +alarm. The thieves, who were waiting outside quite expectant, rushed +away, and the noodle somehow or other managed to escape with them. + +Next night they again took him along with them, and after boring a hole +in the wall of another house, sent him in with strict injunctions not to +make a noise or wake anybody. He crept in noiselessly and entered a +large room, in which was an old woman, fast asleep by the fire, with +wide-open mouth. An earthen chattie, a wooden spoon, and a small bag of +pease were also placed by the fire. The noodle first proceeded to roast +some pease in the chattie. When they were roasted to a nice brownish +colour, and emitted a very tempting smell, he thought that the old woman +might also enjoy a mouthful. He considered for a while how he might best +offer some to her. He did not wish to wake her, as he was ordered not to +wake anybody. Suddenly a bright idea struck him. Why should he not feed +her? There she was sleeping with her mouth wide open. Surely it would be +no difficult task to put some pease into her mouth. Taking some of the +hot, smoking pease into the wooden spoon, he put the contents into her +mouth. The woman awoke, screaming with all her might. The noise roused +the other inmates of the house, who came rushing to the spot to see what +was the matter. This time also the noodle managed to escape with the +thieves; but in a subsequent adventure he, as well as the thieves, came +to grief.[8] + +The silly son of Italian popular tales is represented as being sent by +his mother to sell a piece of linen which she had woven, saying to him, +"Now listen attentively to what I say: Walk straight along the road. +Don't take less than such a price for this linen. Don't have any +dealings with women who chatter. Whether you sell it to any one you meet +on the way, or carry it into the market, offer it only to some quiet +sort of body whom you may see standing apart and not gossiping or +prating, for such as they will persuade you to take some sort of price +that won't suit me at all." The booby answers, "Yes, mamma," and goes +off on his errand, keeping straight on, instead of taking the turnings +leading to villages. It happened, as he went along, that the wife of the +syndic of the next town was driving out with her maids, and had got out +of the carriage, to walk a short distance, as the day was fine. Her maid +tells her that there goes the simple son of the poor widow by the brook. +"What are you going to do, my good lad?" kindly asks the lady. "I'm not +going to tell you," says the booby, "because you were chattering." "I +see your mother has sent you to sell this linen," continues the lady; "I +will buy it of you," and she offers to pay twice as much as his mother +had said she wanted. "Can't sell it to you," replies he, "for you were +chattering," and he continues his journey. Farther along he comes to a +plaster statue by the roadside, so he says to himself, "Here's one who +stands apart and doesn't chatter; this is the one to sell the linen to," +then aloud, "Will you buy my linen, good friend?" The statue maintained +its usual taciturnity, and the booby concluded, as it did not speak, it +was all right, so he said, "The price is so-and-so; have the money ready +by the time I come back, as I have to go on and buy some yarn for +mother." On he went accordingly, and bought the yarn, and then came back +to the statue. Some one passing by had in the meantime taken the linen. +Finding it gone, "It's all right," says he to himself; "she's taken it," +then aloud, "Where's the money I told you to have ready?" The statue +remained silent. "If you don't give me the money, I'll hit you on the +head," he exclaimed, and raising his stick, he knocked the head off, and +found it filled with gold coin. "That's where you keep your money, is +it? All right; I can pay myself." So saying, he filled his pockets with +the coin and went home. When he handed his mother the money, and told +her of his adventure with the quiet body by the roadside, she was afraid +lest the neighbours should learn of her windfall if the booby knew its +value, so she said to him, "You've only brought me a lot of rusty nails; +but never mind: you'll know better what to do next time," and put the +money in an earthen jar. In her absence, a ragman comes to the house, +and the booby asks him, "Will you buy some rusty nails?" The man desires +to see them. "Well," quoth he on beholding the treasure, "they're not +much worth, but I'll give you twelve pauls for the lot," and having +handed over the sum, went off with his prize. When his mother comes +home, the booby tells her what a bargain he had made for the rusty +nails. "Nails!" she echoes, in consternation. "Why, you foolish thing, +they were gold coins!" "Can't help that now, mamma," he answers +philosophically; "you told me they were old rusty nails." By another +lucky adventure, however, the booby is enabled to make up his mother's +loss, finding a treasure which a party of robbers had left behind them +at the foot of a tree. + +The incident of a simpleton selling something to an inanimate object and +discovering a hidden treasure occurs, in different forms, in the +folk-tales of Asiatic as well as European countries. In a manuscript +text of the _Arabian Nights_, brought from Constantinople by +Wortley Montague, and now preserved in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, a +more elaborate version of the Italian booby's adventure with the statue +is found, in the "Story of the Bang-eater and his Wife:" + +In former times there lived not far from Baghdad a half-witted fellow, +who was much addicted to the use of bang. Being reduced to poverty, he +was obliged to sell his cow, which he took to the market one day, but +the animal being in such a poor condition, no one would buy it, and +after waiting till he was weary he returned homeward. On the way he +stopped to repose himself under a tree, and tied the cow to one of the +branches, while he ate some bread, and drank an infusion of his bang, +which he always carried with him. In a short time it began to operate, +so as to bereave him of the little sense he had, and his head was filled +with ridiculous reveries. While he was musing, a bird beginning to +chatter from her nest in the tree, he fancied it was a human voice, and +that some woman had offered to purchase his cow, upon which he said, +"Reverend mother of Solomon,[9] dost thou wish to buy my cow?" The bird +again chattered. "Well," replied he, "what wilt thou give? I will sell +her a bargain." The bird repeated her noise. "Never mind," said the +fool, "for though thou hast forgotten to bring thy purse, yet, as I +daresay thou art an honest woman, and hast bidden me ten dinars, I will +trust thee with the cow, and call on Friday for the money." The bird +renewed her chattering; so, leaving the cow tied to a branch of the +tree, he returned home, exulting in the good bargain he had made for the +animal. When he entered the house, his wife inquired what he had got for +the cow, and he replied that he had sold her to an honest woman, who had +promised to pay him ten pieces of gold next Friday. The wife was +contented; and when Friday arrived, her noodle of a husband having, as +usual, taken a dose of bang, repaired to the tree, and hearing the bird +chattering as before, said, "Well, good mother, hast thou brought the +gold?" The bird croaked. The blockhead, supposing the imaginary woman +refused to pay him, became angry, and threw up a stone, which +frightening the bird, it flew from its nest in the tree and alighted on +a heap of ruins at some little distance. He now concluded that the woman +had desired him to take his money from the heap, into which he +accordingly dug, and found a copper vessel full of coin. This discovery +convinced him he was right, and being withal an honest fellow, he only +took ten pieces; then replacing the soil, "May Allah requite thee for +thy punctuality, good mother!" he exclaimed, and returned to his wife, +to whom he gave the money, informing her at the same time of the great +treasure his friend the imaginary old woman possessed, and where it was +concealed. + +The wife waited till night, when she brought away the pot of gold, which +her foolish husband observing, he said, "It is dishonest to rob one who +has paid us so punctually; and if thou dost not return it to its place, +I will inform the walí" (governor of the city). She laughed at his +simplicity, but fearing that he would execute his threat, she planned a +stratagem to render it of no avail. Going to market, she purchased some +meat and fish ready cooked, which she brought privately home, and +concealed in the house. At night, while her husband was sleeping off the +effects of his favourite narcotic, she strewed the provisions she had +brought outside the door, and then awakening him, cried out, "Dear +husband, a most wonderful thing has occurred: there has been a violent +storm while you slept, and, strange to tell, it has rained pieces of +broiled meat and fish, which now lie at the door!" The blockhead got up, +and seeing the food, was persuaded of the truth of his wife's story. The +flesh and fish were gathered up, and he partook with much glee of the +miraculous treat, but still said he would tell the walí of her having +stolen the treasure of the honest old woman. + +In the morning he actually repaired to the walí, and informed him that +his wife had stolen a pot of gold, which she had still in her +possession. Upon this the walí had the woman apprehended. She denied the +accusation, and was then threatened with death. "My lord," said she, +"the power is in your hands; but I am an injured woman, as you will find +by questioning my husband, who is deranged in his intellect. Ask him +when I committed the theft." The walí did so, and the simpleton +answered, "It was the evening of that night when it rained broiled fish +and ready-cooked flesh." On hearing this, "Wretch!" exclaimed the walí +in a fury, "dost thou dare to utter falsehoods before me? Who ever saw +it rain anything but water?" "As I hope for life," replied the fool, "I +speak the truth; for my wife and myself ate of the fish and flesh which +fell from the clouds." The woman, being appealed to, denied the +assertion of her husband. The walí, now convinced that the man was +crazy, released the woman, and sent her husband to the madhouse, where +he remained for some days, till his wife, pitying his condition, +contrived to get him set at liberty. She visited her husband, and +counselled him, should any one ask him if he had seen it rain fish and +flesh, to answer, "No; who ever saw it rain anything but water?" Then +she informed the keeper that he was come to his senses, and suggested he +should question him; and on the poor fellow answering properly he was +released. + + * * * * * + +In a Russian variant, an old man had three sons, one of whom was a +noodle. When the old man died, his property was shared between the +brothers, but all that the simpleton received was one ox, which he took +to the market to sell. On his way he chanced to pass an old birch-tree, +which creaked and groaned in the wind. He thinks the tree is offering to +buy his ox, and so he says, "Well, you shall have it for twenty +roubles." But the tree only creaked and creaked, and he fancied it was +asking the ox on credit. "Very good," says he. "You'll pay me tomorrow? +I'll wait till then." So he ties the ox to the tree and goes home. His +brothers question him about his ox, and he tells them he has sold it for +twenty roubles and is to get the money to-morrow, at which they laugh; +he is, they think; a greater fool than ever. Next morning he went to the +birch-tree, and found the ox was gone, for, in truth, the wolves had +eaten it. He demanded his money, but the tree only creaked and groaned, +as usual. "You'll pay me to-morrow?" he exclaimed. "That's what you said +yesterday. I'll have no more of your promises." So saying, he struck the +old birch-tree with his hatchet and sent the chips flying about. Now the +tree was hollow, and it soon split asunder from his blows; and in the +hollow trunk he found a pot full of gold, which some robbers had hidden +there. Taking some of the gold, he returns home, and shows it to his +brothers, who ask him how he got so much money. "A neighbour," he +replies, "gave it to me for my ox. But this is nothing like the whole of +it. Come along, brothers, and let us get the rest." They go, and fetch +the rest of the treasure, and on their way home they meet a diachok (one +of the inferior members of the Russian clerical body, though not one of +the clergy), who asks them what they are carrying. "Mushrooms," say the +two clever brothers; but the noodle cries, "That's not true; we're +carrying money: here, look at it." The diachok, with an exclamation, +flung himself upon the gold and began stuffing it into his pockets. At +this the noodle grew angry, dealt him a blow with his hatchet, and +killed him on the spot. The brothers dragged the body to an empty +cellar, and flung it in. Later in the evening the eldest said to the +other, "This business is sure to turn out badly. When they look for the +diachok, Simpleton will be sure to tell them all about it. So we had +better hide the body in some other place, and kill a goat and bury it in +the cellar." This they did accordingly. And after several days had +passed the people asked the noodle if he had seen the diachok. "Yes," he +answered. "I killed him some time ago with my hatchet, and my brothers +carried him to the cellar." They seize upon him and compel him to go +down into the cellar and bring out the body. He gets hold of the goat's +head, and asks, "Was your diachok dark-haired?" "He was." "Had he a +beard?" "Yes." "And horns?" "What horns are you talking of?" "Well, see +for yourselves," said he, tossing up the head to them. They saw it was a +goat's head, and went away home. + + * * * * * + +The reader cannot fail to remark the close resemblance there is between +the first parts of the Arabian and Russian stories; and the second parts +of both reappear in many tales of the Silly Son. The goat's carcase +substituted for the dead man occurs, for instance, in the Norse story of +Silly Matt; in the Sicilian story of Giufa; in M. Rivière's _Contes +Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura_; and "Foolish Sachúli," in +Miss Stokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_. The incident of the pretended +shower of broiled fish and flesh is found in Campbell's _Tales of the +West Highlands_ (porridge and pancakes); in Rivière's Tales of the +Kabaïl (fritters); "Foolish Sachúli" (sweetmeats); Giufà, the Sicilian +Booby (figs and raisins); and in M. Leger's _Contes Populaires +Slaves_, where, curiously enough, the trick is played by a husband +upon his wife. It is perhaps worth while reproducing the Russian story +from Leger, in a somewhat abridged form, as follows: + +In tilling the ground a labourer found a treasure, and carrying it home, +said to his wife, "See! Heaven has sent us a fortune. But where can we +conceal it?" She suggested he should bury it under the floor, which he +did accordingly. Soon after this the wife went out to fetch water, and +the labourer reflected that his wife was a dreadful gossip, and by +to-morrow night all the village would know their secret. So he removed +the treasure from its hiding-place and buried it in his barn, beneath a +heap of corn. When the wife came back from the well, he said to her +quite gravely, "To-morrow we shall go to the forest to seek fish; they +say there's plenty there at present." "What! fish in the forest?" she +exclaimed. "Of course," he rejoined; "and you'll see them there." Very +early next morning he got up, and took some fish, which he had concealed +in a basket. He went to the grocer's and bought a quantity of sweet +cakes. He also caught a hare and killed it. The fish and cakes he +disposed of in different parts of the wood, and the hare he hooked on a +fishing-line, and then threw it in the river. After breakfast he took +his wife with him into the wood, which they had scarcely entered when +she found a pike, then a perch, and then a roach, on the ground. With +many exclamations of surprise, she gathered up the fish and put them in +her basket. Presently they came to a pear-tree, from the branches of +which hung sweet cakes. "See!" she cried. "Cakes on a pear-tree!" "Quite +natural," replied he; "it has rained cakes, and some have remained on +this tree; travellers have picked up the rest." Continuing their way to +the village, they passed near a stream. "Wait a little," said the +husband; "I set my line early this morning, and I'll look if anything is +caught on it." He then pulled in the line, and behold, there was a hare +hooked on to it! "How extraordinary!" cries the good wife--"a hare in +the water!" "Why," says he, "don't you know there are hares in the water +as well as rats?" "No, indeed, I knew it not." They now returned home, +and the wife set about preparing all the nice eatables for supper. In a +day or two the labourer found from the talk of his acquaintances that +his finding the treasure was no secret in the village, and in less than +a week he was summoned to the castle. "Is it true," said the lord, "that +you have found a treasure?" "It is not true," was his reply. "But your +wife has told me all." "My wife does not know what she says--she is mad, +my lord." Hereupon the woman cries, "It is the truth, my lord; he has +found a treasure and buried it beneath the floor of our cottage." +"When?" "On the eve before the day we went into the forest to look for +fish." "What do you say?" "Yes; it was on the day that it rained cakes; +we gathered a basketful of them, and coming home, my husband fished a +fine hare out of the river." My lord declared the woman to be an idiot; +nevertheless he caused his servants to search under the labourer's +cottage floor, but nothing was found there, and so the shrewd fellow +secured his treasure. + +The silly son figures frequently in Indian story-books; sometimes a +number of fools' exploits are strung together and ascribed to one +individual, as in the tale of "Foolish Sachúli;" but generally they are +told as separate stories. The following adventure of Sachúli is also +found, in varied form, in Beschi's _Gooroo Paramartan_: One day +Sachúli climbed up a tree, and sat on a long branch, and began cutting +off the branch between the tree and himself. A man passing by called to +him, saying, "What are you doing up there? You will be killed if you cut +that branch off." "What do you say?" asked the booby, coming down. "When +shall I die?" "How can I tell?" said the man. "Let me go." "I will not +let you go until you tell me when I shall die." At last the man, in +order to get rid of him, said, "When you find a scarlet thread on your +jacket, then you will die." After this Sachúli went to the +_bazaar_, and sat down by some tailors, and in throwing away +shreds, a scarlet thread fell on his clothes. "Now I shall die!" +exclaimed the fool. "How do you know that?" the tailors inquired, when +he told them what the man had said about a scarlet thread, at which they +all laughed. Nevertheless, Sachúli went and dug a grave in the jungle +and lay down in it. + +Presently a sepoy comes along, bearing a pot of _ghi_, or clarified +butter, which he engages Sachúli to carry for him, and the noodle, of +course, lets it fall in the midst of his calculations of the uses to +which he should put the money he is promised by the sepoy. + +The incident of a blockhead cutting off the branch on which he is seated +seems to be almost universal. It occurs in the jests of the typical +Turkish noodle, the Khoja Nasr-ed-Dín, and there exist German, Saxon, +and Lithuanian variants of the same story. It is also known in Ceylon, +and the following is a version from a Hindú work entitled _Bharataka +Dwátrinsati_, Thirty-two Tales of Mendicant Monks: + +In Elákapura there lived several mendicant monks. One of them, named +Dandaka, once went, in the rainy season, into a wood in order to procure +a post for his hut. There he saw on a tree a fine branch bent down, and +he climbed the tree, sat on the branch, and began to cut it. Then there +came that way some travellers, who, seeing what he was doing, said, "O +monk, greatest of all idiots, you should not cut a branch on which you +yourself are sitting, for if you do so, when the branch breaks you will +fall down and die." After saying this the travellers went their way. The +monk, however, paid no attention to their speech, but continued to cut +the branch, remaining in the same posture, until at length the branch +broke, and he tumbled down. He then thought within himself, "Those +travellers are indeed wise and truthful, for everything has happened +just as they predicted; consequently I must be dead." So he remained on +the ground as if dead; he did not speak, nor did he stand up, nor did he +even breathe. People who came there from the neighbourhood raised him +up, but he did not stand; they endeavoured to make him speak, but could +not succeed. They then sent word to the other monks, saying, "Your +associate Dandaka fell down from a tree and died." Then came the monks +in large numbers, and when they saw that he was "dead," they lifted him +up in order to carry him to the place of cremation. Now when they had +gone a short distance they came upon a spot where the road divided +itself before them. Then said some, "We must go to the left," but others +said, "It is to the right that we must go." Thus a dispute arose among +them, and they were unable to come to any conclusion. The "dead" monk, +who was borne on a bier, said, "Friends, quarrel not among yourselves; +when I was alive, I always went by the left road." Then said some, "He +always spoke the truth; all that he ever said was nothing but the simple +fact. Let us therefore take the left road." This was agreed upon, and as +they were about to proceed towards the left some people who happened to +be present said, "O ye monks, ye are the greatest of all blockheads that +ye should proceed to burn this man while he is yet alive." They +answered, "Nay, but he is dead." Then the bystanders said, "He cannot be +dead, seeing that he yet speaks." They then set down the bier on the +ground, and Dandaka persistently declared that he was actually dead, and +related to them with the most solemn protestations the prediction of the +travellers, and how it was fulfilled. Hereupon the other monks remained +quite bewildered, unable to arrive at any decision as to whether Dandaka +was dead or alive, until at length, after a great deal of trouble, the +bystanders succeeded in convincing them that the man was not dead and in +inducing them to return to their dwelling. Dandaka also now stood up and +went his way, after having been heartily laughed at by the people.[11] + +A diverting story in the _Facetiæ_ of Poggius, entitled "Mortuus +Loqueus," from which it was reproduced in the Italian novels of Grazzini +and in our old collection _Tales and Quicke Answeres_, has a near +affinity with jests of this class, and also with the wide cycle of +stories in which a number of rogues combine to cheat a simpleton out of +his property. In the early English jest-book,[12] it is, in effect, as +follows: + +There once dwelt in Florence a noodle called Nigniaca, upon whom a party +of young men resolved to play a practical joke. Having arranged their +plans, one of them met him early one morning, and asked him if he was +not ill. "No," says the wittol. "I am well enough." "By my faith," quoth +the joker, "but you have a pale, sickly colour," and went his way. +Presently a second of the complotters came up to him, and asked him if +he was not suffering from an ague, for he certainly looked very ill. The +poor fellow now began to think that he was really sick, and was +convinced of this when a third man in passing told him that he should be +in his bed--he had evidently not an hour to live. Hearing this, Nigniaca +stood stock-still, saying to himself, "Verily, I have some sharp ague," +when a fourth man came and bade him go home at once, for he was a dying +man. So the simpleton begged this fourth man to help him home, which he +did very willingly, and after laying him in his bed, the other jokers +came to see him, and one of them, pretending to be a physician, felt his +pulse and declared the patient would die within an hour.[13] Then, +standing all about his bed, they said to each other, "Now he is sinking +fast; his speech and sight have failed him; he will soon give up the +ghost. Let us therefore close his eyes, cross his hands on his breast, +and carry him forth to be buried." The simpleton lay as still as though +he was really dead, so they laid him on a bier and carried him through +the city. A great crowd soon gathered, when it was known that they were +carrying the corpse of Nigniaca to his grave. And among the crowd was a +taverner's boy, who cried out, "What a rascal and thief is dead! By the +mass, he should have been hanged long ago." When the wittol heard +himself thus vilified, he lifted up his head and exclaimed, "I wish, you +scoundrel, I were alive now, as I am dead, and I would prove thee a +false liar to thy face;" upon which the jokers burst into laughter, set +down the "body" and ran away--leaving Nigniaca to explain the whole +affair to the marvelling multitude.[14] + +We read of another silly son, in the _Kathá Manjari_, whose father +said to him one day, "My boy, you are now grown big, yet you don't seem +to have much sense. You must, however, do something for your living. Go, +therefore, to the tank, and catch fish and bring them home." The lad +accordingly went to the tank, and having caused all the water--which was +required for the irrigation of his father's fields--to run to waste, he +picked up from the mud all the fishes he could find, and took them to +his father, not a little proud of his exploit.--In the _Kathá Sarit +Ságara_ it is related that a Bráhman told his foolish son one evening +that he must send him to the village early on the morrow, and thither +the lad went, without asking what he was to do. Returning home at night +very tired, he said to his father, "I have been to the village." "Yes," +said the Bráhman, "you went thither without an object, and have done no +good by it."--And in the Buddhist _Játakas_ we find what is +probably the original of a world-wide story: A man was chopping a felled +tree, when a mosquito settled on his bald head and stung him severely. +Calling to his son, who was sitting near him, he said, "My boy, there is +a mosquito stinging my head, like the thrust of a spear--drive it off." +"Wait a bit, father," said the boy, "and I will kill him with one blow." +Then he took up an axe and stood behind his father's back; and thinking +to kill the mosquito with the axe, he only killed his father. + +Among numerous variants is the story of the Sicilian booby, Giufà, who +was annoyed by the flies, and complained of them to the judge, who told +him that he was at liberty to kill a fly wherever he saw it: just then a +fly happened to alight on the judge's nose, which Giufà observing, he +immediately aimed at it so furious a blow with his fist, that he smashed +his worship's nose! + +The hopelessness of attempting to impart instruction to the silly son is +farther illustrated by the story in a Sinhalese collection: A gúrú was +engaged in teaching one of his disciples, but whilst he was teaching the +youth was watching the movements of a rat which was entering its hole. +As soon as the gúrú had finished his teaching, he said, "Well, my son, +has all entered in?" to which the youth replied, "Yes, all has entered +in except the tail." And from the same work is the following choice +example of "a happy family": A priest went one day to the house of one +of his followers, and amongst other things he said, "Tell me now, which +of your four children is the best-behaved?" The father replied, "Look, +sir, at that boy who has climbed to the top of that thatched building, +and is waving aloft a firebrand. Among them all, he is the divinely +excellent one." Whereupon the priest placed his finger on his nose, drew +a deep, deep sigh, and said, "Is it indeed so? What, then, must the +other three be?" + +The Turkish romance of the Forty Vazírs--the plan of which is similar to +that of the Book of Sindibád and its derivatives--furnishes us with two +stories of the same class, one of which is as follows, according to my +friend Mr. Gibb's complete translation (the first that has been made in +English), recently published:[15] + +They have told that in bygone times there was a king, and he had a +skilful minstrel. One day a certain person gave to the latter a little +boy, that he might teach him the science of music. The boy abode a long +time by him, and though the master instructed him, he succeeded not in +learning, and the master could make nothing of him. He arranged a scale, +and said, "Whatsoever thou sayest to me, say in this scale." So +whatsoever the boy said he used to say in that scale. Now one day a +spark of fire fell on the master's turban. The boy saw it and chanted, +"O master, I see something; shall I say it or no?" and he went over the +whole scale. Then the master chanted, "O boy, what dost thou see? +Speak!" and he too went over all that the boy had gone over. Then the +turn came to the boy, and he chanted, "O master, a spark has fallen on +thy turban, and it is burning." The master straightway tore off his +turban and cast it on the ground, and saw that it was burning. He blew +out the fire on this side and on that, and took it in his hand, and said +to the boy, "What time for chanting is this? Everything is good in its +own place," and he admonished him.[16] + +The other story tells how a king had a stupid son, and placed him in +charge of a cunning master, learned in the sciences, who declared it +would be easy for him to teach the boy discretion, and, before +dismissing him, the king gave the sage many rich gifts. After the boy +has been long under the tuition of his learned master, the latter, +conceiving him to be well versed in all the sciences, takes him to the +king, his father, who says to him, "O my son, were I to hold a certain +thing hidden in my hand, couldst thou tell me what it is?" "Yes," +answers the youth. Upon this the king secretly slips the ring off his +finger, and hides it in his hand, and then asks the boy, "What have I in +my hand?" Quoth the clever youth, "O father, it first came from the +hills." (The king thinks to himself, "He knows that mines are in the +hills.") "And it is a round thing," continues he--"it must be a +millstone." "Blockhead!" exclaims the irate king, "could a millstone be +hidden in a man's hand?" Then addressing the learned man, "Take him +away," he says, "and _teach_ him." + +Lastly, we have a somewhat different specimen of the silly son in the +doctor's apprentice, whose attempt to imitate his master was so +ludicrously unsuccessful. He used to accompany his master on his visits +to patients, and one day the doctor said to a sick man, to whom he had +been called, "I know what is the matter with you, and it is useless to +deny it;--you have been eating beans." On their way home, the +apprentice, admiring his master's sagacity, begged to be informed how he +knew that the patient had been eating beans. "Boy," said the doctor, +loftily, "I drew an inference." "An inference!" echoed this youth of +inquiring mind; "and what is an inference?" Quoth the doctor, "Listen: +when we came to the door, I observed the shells of beans lying about, +and I drew the inference that the family had had beans for dinner." +Another day it chanced that the doctor did not take his apprentice with +him when he went his rounds, and in his absence a message came for him +to visit a person who had been taken suddenly ill. "Here," thought the +apprentice, "is a chance for my putting master's last lesson into +practice;" so off he went to the sick man, and assuming as "knowing" an +air as he could, he felt his pulse, and then said to him severely, +"Don't deny it; I see by your pulse that you have been eating a horse. I +shall send you some medicine." When the doctor returned home he inquired +of his hopeful pupil, whether any person had called for him, upon which +the wittol proudly told him of his own exploit. "Eaten a horse!" +exclaimed the man of physic. "In the name of all that's wonderful, what +induced you to say such a thing?" Quoth the youth, simpering, "Why, sir, +I did as you did the other day, when we visited the old farmer--I drew +an inference." "You drew an inference, did you? And how did you draw the +inference that the man had eaten a horse?" "Why, very readily, sir; for +as I entered the house I saw a saddle hanging on the wall."[17] + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Abridged from the story of "Silly Matt" in Sir George W. Dasent's +_Tales from the Fjeld_. + +[2] Professor Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, p. 302. This actual +throwing of eyes occurs in the folk-tales of Europe generally. + +[3] In _Le Cabinet des Fées, 1788_ (tome xxxviii., p. 337 ff.).-- +There can be no such name as Xailoun in Arabic; that of the noodle's +wife, Oitba, may be intended for "Utba." Cazotte has so Frenchified the +names of the characters in his tales as to render their identification +with the Arabic originals (where he had any such) often impossible. +Although this story is not found in any known Arabian text of the +_Book of the Thousand and One Nights_, yet the incidents for the +most part occur in several Eastern story-books. + + [4] On a similar occasion Giufà, the Sicilian brother to the Arabian +fool, did somewhat more mischief. Once his mother went to church and +told him to make some porridge for his baby-sister. Giufà made a great +pot of porridge and fed the baby with it, and burned her mouth so that +she died. Another time his mother on leaving home told him to feed the +hen that was sitting and put her back in the nest, so that the eggs +should not get cold. Giufà stuffed the hen with food so that he killed +her, and then sat on the eggs himself until his mother returned.--See +Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 296-7. + +[5] Abridged and modified from a version in the _Folk-Lore Record_, +vol. iii., pp. 153-5. + +[6] The usual mode by which in the East thieves break into houses, which +are for the most part constructed of clay. See Job xxiv. 16. + +[7] Kurakkan is a species of grain. + +[8] _The Orientalist_, June, 1884, pp. 137-8. + +[9] Ummu Sulayman. In Arabia the mother is generally addressed in this +way as a mark of respect for having borne children, and the eldest gives +the title. Our bang-eater supposed he was addressing an old woman who +had (or might have had) a son named Solomon. + +[10] See Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales._ [Transcriber's note: +Footnote reference missing from original, p. 153] + +[11] From a paper on "Comparative Folk-lore," by W. Goonetilleke, in +_The Orientalist_, i., p. 122. + +[12] _Mery Tales, Wittie Questions, and Quicke Answeres, very pleasant +to be Readde._ Imprinted at London by H. Wykes, 1567. + +[13] Thus, too, Scogin and his "chamber-fellow" successively declared to +a rustic that the sheep he was driving were pigs. In Fortini's novels, +in like manner, a simpleton is persuaded that the kid he offered for +sale was a capon; and in the Spanish _El Conde Lucanor_, and the +German _Tyl Eulenspiegel_, a countryman is cheated out of a piece +of cloth. The original form of the incident is found in the +_Hitopadesa_, where three sharpers persuade a Bráhman that the goat +he is carrying for a sacrifice is a dog. This story of the Florentine +noodle--or rather Poggio's version--may have been suggested by a tale in +the _Gesta Romanorum_, in which the emperor's physician is made to +believe that he had leprosy. See my _Popular Tales and Fictions_, +where these and similar stories are compared in a paper entitled "The +Sharpers and the Simpleton." + +[14] In Powell and Magnusson's _Legends of Iceland_ (Second Series, +p. 627), a woman makes her husband believe that he is dressed in fine +clothes when he is naked; another persuades her husband that he is dead, +and as he is being carried to the burying-ground, he perceives the naked +man, who asserts that he is dressed, upon which he exclaims, "How I +should laugh if I were not dead!" And in a _fabliau_ by Jean de +Boves, "Le Villain de Bailleul; _aliàs_, Le Femme qui fit croire à +son Mari qu'il était mort," the husband exclaims, "Rascal of a priest, +you may well thank Heaven that I am dead, else I would belabour you +soundly with my stick."--See M. Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, ed. 1781, +tome v., pp. 192, 193. + +[5] _History of the Forty Viziers; or, The Forty Morns and Forty +Eves._ Translated from the Turkish, by E.J.W. Gibb, M.R.A.S. London: +G. Redway, 1886. + +[16] A variant of this is found in John Bromyard's _Summa +Prædicantium_, A 26, 34, as follows: + +Quidam sedebat juxta igneum, cujus vestem ignis intrabat. Dixit socius +suus, "Vis audire rumores?" "Ita," inquit, "bonos et non alios." Cui +alius, "Nescio nisi malos." "Ergo," inquit, "nolo audire." Et quum bis +aut ter ei hoc diceret, semper idem respondit. In fine, quum sentiret +vestem combustam, iratus ait socio, "Quare non dixisti mihi?" "Quia +(inquit) dixista quod noluisti audire rumores nisi placentes et illi non +erant tales." + +[17] Under the title of "The Phisitian that bare his Paciente in honde +that he had eaten an Asse" this jest occurs in _Merry Tales and Quicke +Answeres_, and Professor Crane gives a Sicilian version in his +_Italian Popular Tales_. + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE FOUR SIMPLE BRÁHMANS. + + +[As a sort of supplement to the sayings and doings of the silly son, the +following highly diverting Indian tale is here inserted, from the Abbé +Dubois' French rendering of the Tamil original, appended, with others, +to his selections from the _Panchatantra_. The story is known in +the north as well as in the south of India: in the Panjábi version there +are, however, but three noodle-heroes. It will be seen that the third +Bráhman's tale is another of the numerous silent couple class, and it +may possibly be the original form.] + + +_Introduction._ + +In a certain district, proclamation had been made of a Samaradanam being +about to be held.[1] Four Bráhmans, from different villages, going +thither, fell in upon the road, and, finding that they were all upon the +same errand, they agreed to proceed in company. A soldier, happening to +meet them, saluted them in the usual way, by touching hands and +pronouncing the words always applied on such occasions to Bráhmans, +"_Dandamarya_!" or "Health to my lord!" The four travellers made +the customary return, "_Asirvadam!_" and going on, they came to a +well, where they quenched their thirst and reposed themselves in the +shade of some trees. Sitting there, and finding no better subject of +conversation, one of them asked the others, whether they did not remark +how particularly the soldier had distinguished him by his polite +salutation. "You!" said another; "it was not you that he saluted, but +me." "You are both mistaken," says a third; "for you may remember that +when the soldier said, '_Dandamarya!_' he cast his eyes upon me." +"Not at all," replied the fourth; "it was I only he saluted; otherwise, +should I have answered him as I did, by saying, '_Asirvadam_'?" + +Each maintained his argument obstinately; and as none of them would +yield, the dispute had nearly come to blows, when the least stupid of +the four, seeing what was likely to happen, put an end to the brawl by +the following advice: "How foolish it is in us," said he, "thus to put +ourselves in a passion! After we have said all the ill of one another +that we can invent--nay, after going stoutly to fisticuffs, like Sudra +rabble, should we be at all nearer to the decision of our difference? +The fittest person to determine the controversy, I think, would be the +man who occasioned it. The soldier, who chose to salute one of us, +cannot yet be far off: let us therefore run after him as quickly as we +can, and we shall soon know for which of us he intended his salutation." + +This advice appeared wise to them all, and was immediately adopted. The +whole of them set off in pursuit of the soldier, and at last overtook +him, after running a league, and all out of breath. As soon as they came +in sight of him, they cried out to him to stop; and before they had well +approached him, they had put him in full possession of the nature of +their dispute, and prayed him to terminate it, by saying to which of +them he had directed his salutation. The soldier instantly perceiving +the character of the people he had to do with, and being willing to +amuse himself a little at their expense, coolly replied, that he +intended his salutation for the greatest fool of all four, and then, +turning on his heel, he continued his journey. + +The Bráhmans, confounded at this answer, turned back in silence. But all +of them had deeply at heart the distinction of the salutation of the +soldier, and the dispute was gradually renewed. Even the awkward +decision of the warrior could not prevent each of them from arrogating +to himself the pre-eminence of being noticed by him, to the exclusion of +the others. The contention, therefore, now became, which of the four was +the stupidest; and strange to say, it grew as warm as ever, and must +have come to blows, had not the person who gave the former advice, to +follow the soldier, interposed again with his wisdom, and spoken as +follows: "I think myself the greatest fool of us all. Each of you thinks +the same thing of himself. And after a fight, shall we be a bit nearer +the decision of the question? Let us, therefore, have a little patience. +We are within a short distance of Dharmapuri, where there is a choultry, +at which all little causes are tried by the heads of the village; and +let ours be judged among the rest." + +The others agreed in the soundness of this advice; and having arrived at +the village, they eagerly entered the choultry, to have their business +settled by the arbitrator. They could not have come at a better season. +The chiefs of the district, Bráhmans and others, had already met in the +choultry; and no other cause being brought forward, they proceeded +immediately to that of the four Bráhmans, who advanced into the middle +of the court, and stated that a sharp contest having arisen among them, +they were come to have it decided with fairness and impartiality. The +court desired them to proceed and explain the ground of their +controversy. Upon this, one of them stood forward and related to the +assembly all that had happened, from their meeting with the soldier to +the present state of the quarrel, which rested on the superior degree of +stupidity of one of their number. The detail created a general shout of +laughter. The president, who was of a gay disposition, was delighted +beyond measure to have fallen in with so diverting an incident. But he +put on a grave face, and laid it down, as the peculiarity of the cause, +that it could not be determined on the testimony of witnesses, and that, +in fact, there was no other way of satisfying the minds of the judges +than by each, in his turn, relating some particular occurrence of his +life, on which he could best establish his claim to superior folly. He +clearly showed that there could be no other means of determining to +which of them the salutation of the soldier could with justice be +awarded. The Bráhmans assented, and upon a sign being made to one of +them to begin, and the rest to keep silence, the first thus spoke: + +_Story of the First Bráhman_. + +I am poorly provided with clothing, as you see; and it is not to-day +only that I have been covered with rags. A rich and very charitable +Bráhman merchant once made a present of two pieces of cloth to attire +me--the finest that had ever been seen in our village. I showed them to +the other Bráhmans of the village, who all congratulated me on so +fortunate an acquisition. They told me it must be the fruit of some good +deeds that I had done in a preceding generation. Before I should put +them on, I washed them, according to the custom, in order to purify them +from the soil of the weaver's touch, and hung them up to dry, with the +ends fastened to two branches of a tree. A dog, then happening to come +that way, ran under them, and I could not discover whether he was high +enough to touch the clothes or not. I asked my children, who were +present, but they said they were not quite certain. How, then, was I to +discover the fact? I put myself upon all-fours, so as to be of the +height of the dog, and in that posture I crawled under the clothing. +"Did I touch it?" said I to the children, who were observing me. They +answered, "No," and I was filled with joy at the news. But after +reflecting a while, I recollected that the dog had a turned-up tail, and +that by elevating it above the rest of his body, it might well have +reached my cloth. To ascertain that, I fixed a leaf in my loin-cloth, +turning upwards, and then, creeping again on all-fours, I passed a +second time under the clothing. The children immediately cried out that +the point of the leaf on my back had touched the cloth. This proved to +me that the point of the dog's tail must have done so too, and that my +garments were therefore polluted. In my rage I pulled down the beautiful +raiment, and tore it in a thousand pieces, loading with curses both the +dog and his master. + +When this foolish act was known, I became the laughing-stock of all the +world, and I was universally treated as a madman. "Even if the dog had +touched the cloth," said they, "and so brought defilement upon it, might +not you have washed it a second time, and so have removed the stain? Or +might you not have given it to some poor Sudra, rather than tear it in +pieces? After such egregious folly, who will give you clothes another +time?" This was all true; for ever since, when I have begged clothing of +any one, the constant answer has been, that, no doubt, I wanted a piece +of cloth to pull to pieces. + +He was going on, when a bystander interrupted him by remarking that he +seemed to understand going on all-fours. "Exceedingly well," said he, +"as you shall see;" and off he shuffled, in that posture, amidst the +unbounded laughter of the spectators. "Enough! enough!" said the +president. "What we have both heard and seen goes a great way in his +favour. But let us now hear what the next has to say for himself in +proof of his stupidity." The second accordingly began by expressing his +confidence that if what they had just heard appeared to them to be +deserving of the salutation of the soldier, what he had to say would +change their opinion. + + _Story of the Second Bráhman_. + +Having got my hair and beard shaven one day, in order to appear decent +at a public festival of the Bráhmans, which had been proclaimed +throughout the district, I desired my wife to give the barber a penny +for his trouble. She heedlessly gave him a couple. I asked him to give +me one of them back, but he refused. Upon that we quarrelled, and began +to abuse each other; but the barber at length pacified me, by offering, +in consideration of the double fee, to shave my wife also. I thought +this a fair way of settling the difference between us. But my wife, +hearing the proposal, and seeing the barber in earnest, tried to make +her escape by flight. I took hold of her, and forced her to sit down, +while he shaved her poll in the same manner as they serve widows.[2] +During the operation she cried out bitterly; but I was inexorable, +thinking it less hard that my wife should be close-shaven than that my +penny should be given away for nothing. When the barber had finished, I +let her go, and she retired immediately to a place of concealment, +pouring down curses on me and the barber. He took his departure, and +meeting my mother in his way, told her what he had done, which made her +hasten to the house, to inquire into the outrage; and when she saw that +it was all true she also loaded me with incivilities. + +The barber published everywhere what had happened at our house; and the +villain added to the story that I had caught her with another man, which +was the cause of my having her shaved; and people were no doubt +expecting, according to our custom in such a case, to see her mounted on +an ass, with her face turned towards the tail. They came running to my +dwelling from all quarters, and actually brought an ass to make the +usual exhibition in the streets. The report soon reached my +father-in-law, who lived at a distance of ten or twelve leagues, and +he, with his wife, came also to inquire into the affair. Seeing their +poor daughter in that degraded state, and being apprised of the only +reason, they reproached me most bitterly; which I patiently endured, +being conscious that I was in the wrong. They persisted, however, in +taking her with them, and keeping her carefully concealed from every eye +for four whole years; when at length they restored her to me. + +This little accident made me lose the Samaradanam, for which I had been +preparing by a fast of three days; and it was a great mortification to +me to be excluded from it, as I understood it was a most splendid +entertainment. Another Samaradanam was announced to be held ten days +afterwards, at which I expected to make up for my loss. But I was +received with the hisses of six hundred Bráhmans, who seized my person, +and insisted on my giving up the accomplice of my wife, that he might be +prosecuted and punished, according to the severe rules of the caste. + +I solemnly attested her innocence, and told the real cause of the +shaving of her hair; when a universal burst of surprise took place, +every one exclaiming, how monstrous it was that a married woman should +be so degraded, without having committed the crime of infidelity. +"Either this man," said they, "must be a liar, or he is the greatest +fool on the face of the earth!" Such, I daresay, gentlemen, you will +think me, and I am sure you will consider my folly [looking with great +disdain on the first speaker] as being far superior to that of the +render of body-clothing. + +The court agreed that the speaker had put in a very strong case; but +justice required that the other two should also be heard. The third +claimant was indeed burning with impatience for his turn, and as soon as +he had permission, he thus spoke: + + _Story of the Third Brahman_. + +My name was originally Anantya; now all the world call me Betel Anantya, +and I will tell you how this nickname arose. My wife, having been long +detained at her father's house, on account of her youth, had cohabited +with me but about a month when, going to bed one evening, I happened to +say (carelessly, I believe), that all women were babblers. She retorted, +that she knew men who were not less babblers than women. I perceived at +once that she alluded to myself; and being somewhat piqued at the +sharpness of her retort, I said, "Now let us see which of us shall speak +first." "Agreed," quoth she; "but what shall be the forfeit?" "A leaf of +betel," said I. Our wager being thus made, we both addressed ourselves +to sleep, without speaking another word. + +Next morning, as we did not appear at our usual hour, after some +interval, they called us, but got no answer. They again called, and then +roared stoutly at the door, but with no success. The alarm began to +spread in the house. They began to fear that we had died suddenly. The +carpenter was called with his tools. The door of our room was forced +open, and when they got in they were not a little surprised to find both +of us wide awake, in good health, and at our ease, though without the +faculty of speech. My mother was greatly alarmed, and gave loud vent to +her grief. All the Bráhmans in the village, of both sexes, assembled, to +the number of one hundred; and after close examination, every one drew +his own conclusion on the accident which was supposed to have befallen +us. The greater number were of opinion that it could have arisen only +from the malevolence of some enemy who had availed himself of magical +incantations to injure us. For this reason, a famous magician was +called, to counteract the effects of the witchcraft, and to remove it. +As soon as he came, after steadfastly contemplating us for some time, he +began to try our pulses, by putting his finger on our wrists, on our +temples, on the heart, and on various other parts of the body; and after +a great variety of grimaces, the remembrance of which excites my +laughter, as often as I think of him, he decided that our malady arose +wholly from the effect of malevolence. He even gave the name of the +particular devil that possessed my wife and me and rendered us dumb. He +added that the devil was very stubborn and difficult to allay, and that +it would cost three or four pagodas for the offerings necessary for +compelling him to fly. + +My relations, who were not very opulent, were astonished at the grievous +imposition which the magician had laid on them. Yet, rather than we +should continue dumb, they consented to give him whatsoever should be +necessary for the expense of his sacrifice; and they farther promised +that they would reward him for his trouble as soon as the demon by whom +we were possessed should be expelled. He was on the point of commencing +his magical operations, when a Bráhman, one of our friends, who was +present, maintained, in opposition to the opinion of the magician and +his assistants, that our malady was not at all the effect of witchcraft, +but arose from some simple and ordinary cause, of which he had seen +several instances, and he undertook to cure us without any expense. + +He took a chafing-dish filled with burning charcoal, and heated a small +bar of gold very hot. This he took up with pincers, and applied to the +soles of my feet, then to my elbows, and the crown of my head. I endured +these cruel operations without showing the least symptom of pain, or +making any complaint; being determined to bear anything, and to die, if +necessary, rather than lose the wager I had laid. + +"Let us try the effect on the woman," said the doctor, astonished at my +resolution and apparent insensibility. And immediately taking the bit of +gold, well heated, he applied it to the sole of her foot. She was not +able to endure the pain for a moment, but instantly screamed out, +"Enough!" and turning to me, "I have lost my wager," she said; "there is +your leaf of betel." "Did I not tell you," said I, taking the leaf, +"that you would be the first to speak out, and that you would prove by +your own conduct that I was right in saying yesterday, when we went to +bed, that women are babblers?" + +Every one was surprised at the proceeding; nor could any of them +comprehend the meaning of what was passing between my wife and me; until +I explained the kind of wager we had made overnight, before going to +sleep. "What!" they exclaimed, "was it for a leaf of betel that you have +spread this alarm through your own house and the whole village?--for a +leaf of betel that you showed such constancy, and suffered burning from +the feet to the head upwards? Never in the world was there seen such +folly!" And so, from that time, I have been constantly known by the name +of Betel Anantya. + +The narrative being finished, the court were of opinion that so +transcendent a piece of folly gave him high pretensions in the depending +suit; but it was necessary also to hear the fourth and last of the +suitors, who thus addressed them: + + _Story of the Fourth Bráhman_. + +The maiden to whom I was betrothed, having remained six or seven years +at her father's house, on account of her youth, we were at last apprised +that she was become marriageable; and her parents informed mine that she +was in a situation to fulfil all the duties of a wife, and might +therefore join her husband. My mother being at that time sick, and the +house of my father-in-law being at the distance of five or six leagues +from ours, she was not able to undertake the journey. She therefore +committed to myself the duty of bringing home my wife, and counselled me +so to conduct myself, in words and actions, that they might not see that +I was only a brute. "Knowing thee as I do," said my mother, as I took +leave of her, "I am very distrustful of thee." But I promised to be on +my good behaviour; and so I departed. + +I was well received by my father-in-law, who gave a great feast to all +the Bráhmans of the village on the occasion. He made me stay three days, +during which there was nothing but festivity. At length the time of our +departure having arrived, he suffered my wife and myself to leave him, +after pouring out blessings on us both, and wishing us a long and happy +life, enriched with a numerous progeny. When we took leave of him, he +shed abundance of tears, as if he had foreseen the misery that awaited +us. + +It was then the summer solstice, and the day was exceedingly hot. We had +to cross a sandy plain of more than two leagues; and the sand, being +heated by the burning sun, scorched the feet of my young wife, who, +being brought up too tenderly in her father's house, was not accustomed +to such severe trials. She began to cry, and being unable to go on, she +lay down on the ground, saying she wished to die there. I was in +dreadful trouble, and knew not what step to take; when a merchant came +up, travelling the contrary way. He had a train of fifty bullocks, +loaded with various kinds of merchandise. I ran to meet him, and told +him the cause of my anxiety with tears in my eyes; and entreated him to +aid me with his good advice in the distressing circumstances in which I +was placed. He immediately answered, that a young and delicate woman, +such as my wife was, could neither remain where she lay nor proceed on +her journey, under a hot sun, without being exposed to certain death. +Rather than that I should see her perish, and run the hazard of being +suspected of having killed her myself, and being guilty of one of the +five crimes which the Bráhmans consider as the most heinous, he advised +me to give her to him, and then he would mount her on one of his cattle +and take her along with him. That I should be a loser, he admitted; +but, all things considered, it was better to lose her, with the merit of +having saved her life, than equally to lose her, under the suspicion of +being her murderer. "Her trinkets," he said, "may be worth fifteen +pagodas; take these twenty and give me your wife." + +The merchant's arguments appeared unanswerable; so I yielded to them, +and delivered to him my wife, whom he placed on one of his best oxen, +and continued his journey without delay. I continued mine also, and got +home in the evening, exhausted with hunger and fatigue, and with my feet +almost roasted with the burning sand, over which I had walked the +greater part of the day. Frightened to see me alone, "Where is your +wife?" cried my mother. I gave her a full account of everything that had +happened from the time I left her. I spoke of the agreeable and +courteous manner in which my father-in-law had received me, and how, by +some delay, we had been overtaken by the scorching heat of the sun at +noon, so that my wife must have perished and myself suspected of having +caused her death, had we proceeded; and that I had preferred to sell her +to a merchant who met us for twenty pagodas. And I showed my mother the +money. + +When I had done, my mother fell into an ecstasy of fury. She lifted up +her voice against me with cries of rage, and overwhelmed me with +imprecations and awful curses. Having given way to these first emotions +of despair, she sank into a more moderate tone: "What hast thou done! +Sold thy wife, hast thou! Delivered her to another man! A Bráhmanari is +become the concubine of a vile merchant! Ah, what will her kindred and +ours say when they hear the tale of this brutish stupidity--of folly so +unexampled and degrading?" + +The relations of my wife were soon informed of the sad adventure that +had befallen their unhappy girl. They came over to attack me, and would +certainly have murdered me and my innocent mother, if we had not both +made a sudden escape. Having no direct object to wreak their vengeance +upon, they brought the matter before the chiefs of the caste, who +unanimously fined me in two hundred pagodas, as a reparation to my +father-in-law, and issued a proclamation against so great a fool being +ever allowed to take another wife; denouncing the penalty of expulsion +from the caste against any one who should assist me in such an attempt. +I was therefore condemned to remain a widower all my life, and to pay +dear for my folly. Indeed, I should have been excluded for ever from my +caste, but for the high consideration in which the memory of my late +father is still held, he having lived respected by all the world. + +Now that you have heard one specimen of the many follies of my life, I +hope you will not consider me as beneath those who have spoken before +me, nor my pretensions altogether undeserving of the salutation of the +soldier. + + _Conclusion_. + +The heads of the assembly, several of whom were convulsed with laughter +while the Bráhmans were telling their stories, decided, after hearing +them all, that each had given such absolute proofs of folly as to be +entitled, in justice, to a superiority in his own way: that each of +them, therefore, should be at liberty to call himself the greatest fool +of all, and to attribute to himself the salutation of the soldier. Each +of them having thus gained his suit, it was recommended to them all to +continue their journey, if it were possible, in amity. The delighted +Brahmans then rushed out of court, each exclaiming that he had gained +his cause. + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] A Samaradanam is one of the public festivals given by pious people, +and sometimes by those in power, to the Bráhmans, who on such occasions +assemble in great numbers from all quarters. + +[2] In a Sinhalese story, referred to on ["p. 68" in original. This +approximates to the reference to Chapter III, Footnote 5 in this +e-text], it is, curiously enough, the woman herself "who has her head +shaved, so as not to lose the services of the barber for the day when he +came, and her husband was away from home." The story probably was +introduced into Ceylon by the Tamils; both versions are equally good as +noodle-stories. + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE THREE GREAT NOODLES. + + +Few folk-tales are more widely diffused than that of the man who set out +in quest of as great noodles as those of his own household. The details +may be varied more or less, but the fundamental outline is identical, +wherever the story is found; and, whether it be an instance of the +transmission of popular tales from one country to another, or one of +those "primitive fictions" which are said to be the common heritage of +the Aryans, its independent development by different nations and in +different ages cannot be reasonably maintained. + +Thus, in one Gaelic version of this diverting story--in which our old +friends the Gothamites reappear on the scene to enact their unconscious +drolleries--a lad marries a farmer's daughter, and one day while they +are all busily engaged in peat-cutting, she is sent to the house to +fetch the dinner. On entering the house, she perceives the speckled +pony's packsaddle hanging from the roof, and says to herself, "Oh, if +that packsaddle were to fall and kill me, what should I do?" and here +she began to cry, until her mother, wondering what could be detaining +her, comes, when she tells the old woman the cause of her grief, +whereupon the mother, in her turn, begins to cry, and when the old man +next comes to see what is the matter with his wife and daughter, and is +informed about the speckled pony's packsaddle, he, too, "mingles his +tears" with theirs. At last the young husband arrives, and finding the +trio of noodles thus grieving at an imaginary misfortune, he there and +then leaves them, declaring his purpose not to return until he has found +three as great fools as themselves. In the course of his travels he +meets with some strange folks: men whose wives make them believe +whatever they please--one, that he is dead; another, that he is clothed, +when he is stark naked; a third, that he is not himself. He meets with +the twelve fishers who always miscounted their number; the noodles who +went to drown an eel in the sea; and a man trying to get his cow on the +roof of his house, in order that she might eat the grass growing there. +But the most wonderful incident was a man coming with a cow in a cart: +and the people had found out that the man had stolen the cow, and that a +court should be held upon him, and so they did; and the justice they did +was to put the horse to death for carrying the cow.[1] + +In another Gaelic version a young husband had provided his house with a +cradle, in natural anticipation that such an interesting piece of +furniture would be required in due time. In this he was disappointed, +but the cradle stood in the kitchen all the same. One day he chanced to +throw something into the empty cradle, upon which his wife, his mother, +and his wife's mother set up loud lamentations, exclaiming, "Oh, if +_he_ had been there, he had been killed!" alluding to a potential +son. The man was so much shocked at such an exhibition of folly that he +left the country in search of three greater noodles. Among other +adventures, he goes into a house and plays tricks on some people there, +telling them his name is "_Saw ye ever my like_?" When the old man +of the house comes home he finds his people tied upon tables, and asks, +"What's the reason of this?" "Saw ye ever my like?" says the first. Then +going to a second man, he asks, "What's the reason of this?" "Saw ye +ever my like?" says the second. "I saw thy like in the kitchen," replies +the old man, and then he goes to the third: "What's the reason of this?" +"Saw ye ever my like?" says the third. "I have seen plenty of thy like," +quoth the old man; "but never before this day," and then he understood +that some one had been playing tricks on his people.[2] + +In Russian variants the old parents of a youth named Lutonya weep over +the supposititious death of a potential grandchild, thinking how sad it +would have been if a log which the old woman had dropped had killed that +hypothetical infant. The parents' grief appears to Lutonya so uncalled +for that he leaves the house, declaring he will not return until he has +met with people more foolish than they. He travels long and far, and +sees several foolish doings. In one place a horse is being inserted into +its collar by sheer force; in another, a woman is fetching milk from the +cellar a spoonful at a time; and in a third place some carpenters are +attempting to stretch a beam which is not long enough, and Lutonya earns +their gratitude by showing them how to join a piece to it.[3] + +A well-known English version is to this effect: There was a young man +who courted a farmer's daughter, and one evening when he came to the +house she was sent to the cellar for beer. Seeing an axe stuck in a beam +above her head, she thought to herself, "Suppose I were married and had +a son, and he were to grow up, and be sent to this cellar for beer, and +this axe were to fall and kill him--oh dear! oh dear!" and there she sat +crying and crying, while the beer flowed all over the cellar-floor, +until her old father and mother come in succession and blubber along +with her about the hypothetical death of her imaginary grown-up son. The +young man goes off in quest of three bigger fools, and sees a woman +hoisting a cow on to the roof of her cottage to eat the grass that grew +among the thatch, and to keep the animal from falling off, she ties a +rope round its neck, then goes into the kitchen, secures at her waist +the rope, which she had dropped down the chimney, and presently the cow +stumbles over the roof, and the woman is pulled up the flue till she +sticks half-way. In an inn he sees a man attempting to jump into his +trousers--a favourite incident in this class of stories; and farther +along he meets with a party raking the moon out of a pond. + +Another English variant relates that a young girl having been left alone +in the house, her mother finds her in tears when she comes home, and +asks the cause of her distress. "Oh," says the girl, "while you were +away, a brick fell down the chimney, and I thought, if it had fallen on +me I might have been killed!" The only novel adventure which the girl's +betrothed meets with, in his quest of three bigger fools, is an old +woman trying to drag an oven with a rope to the table where the dough +lay. + +Several versions are current in Italy and Sicily, which present a close +analogy to those of other European countries. The following is a +translation of one in Bernoni's Venetian collection: + +Once upon a time there were a husband and a wife who had a son. This son +grew up, and said one day to his mother, "Do you know, mother, I would +like to marry?" "Very well, marry! Whom do you want to take?" He +answered, "I want the gardener's daughter." "She is a good girl--take +her; I am willing." So he went, and asked for the girl, and her parents +gave her to him. They were married, and when they were in the midst of +their dinner, the wine gave out. The husband said, "There is no more +wine!" The bride, to show that she was a good housekeeper, said, "I will +go and get some." She took the bottles and went to the cellar, turned +the cock, and began to think, "Suppose I should have a son, and we +should call him Bastianelo, and he should die! Oh, how grieved I should +be! oh, how grieved I should be!" And thereupon she began to weep and +weep; and meanwhile the wine was running all over the cellar. + +When they saw that the bride did not return, the mother said, "I will go +and see what the matter is." So she went into the cellar, and saw the +bride, with the bottle in her hand, and weeping. "What is the matter +with you that you are weeping?" "Ah, my mother, I was thinking that if I +had a son, and should name him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I +should grieve! oh, how I should grieve!" The mother, too, began to weep, +and weep, and weep; and meanwhile the wine was running over the cellar. + +When the people at the table saw that no one brought the wine, the +groom's father said, "I will go and see what is the matter. Certainly +something wrong has happened to the bride." He went and saw the whole +cellar full of wine, and the mother and bride weeping. "What is the +matter?" he said; "has anything wrong happened to you?" + +"No," said the bride; "but I was thinking that if I had a son, and +should call him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I should grieve! +oh, how I should grieve!" Then he, too, began to weep, and all three +wept; and meanwhile the wine was running over the cellar. + +When the groom saw that neither the bride, nor the mother, nor the +father came back, he said, "Now I will go and see what the matter is +that no one returns." He went into the cellar and saw all the wine +running over the cellar. He hastened and stopped the cask, and then +asked, "What is the matter that you are all weeping, and have let the +wine run all over the cellar?" Then the bride said, "I was thinking that +if I had a son and called him Bastianelo, and he should die, oh, how I +should grieve! oh, how I should grieve!" Then the groom said, "You +stupid fools! Are you weeping at this and letting all the wine run into +the cellar? Have you nothing else to think of? It shall never be said +that I remained with you. I will roam about the world, and until I find +three fools greater than you, I will not return home." + +He had a bread-cake made, took a bottle of wine, a sausage, and some +linen, and made a bundle, which he put on a stick and carried over his +shoulder. He journeyed and journeyed, but found no fool. At last he +said, worn out, "I must turn back, for I see I cannot find a greater +fool than my wife." He did not know what to do, whether to go on or turn +back. "Oh," said he, "it is better to try and go a little farther." So +he went on, and shortly saw a man in his shirt-sleeves at a well, all +wet with perspiration, and water. "What are you doing, sir, that you are +so covered with water and in such a sweat?" "Oh, let me alone," the man +answered; "for I have been here a long time drawing water to fill this +pail, and I cannot fill it." "What are you drawing the water in?" he +asked him. "In this sieve," he said. "What are you thinking about, to +draw water in that sieve? Just wait!" He went to a house near by and +borrowed a bucket, with which he returned to the well and filled the +pail. "Thank you, good man. God knows how long I should have had to +remain here!"--"Here," thought he, "is one who is a greater fool than my +wife." + +He continued his journey, and after a time he saw at a distance a man in +his shirt, who was jumping down from a tree. He drew near, and saw a +woman under the same tree, holding a pair of breeches. He asked them +what they were doing, and they said that they had been there a long +time, and that the man was trying on those breeches and did not know how +to get into them. "I have jumped and jumped," said the man, "until I am +tired out, and I cannot imagine how to get into those breeches." "Oh," +said the traveller, "you might stay here as long as you wished, for you +would never get into them this way. Come down and lean against the +tree." Then he took his legs and put them in the breeches, and after he +had put them on, he said, "Is that right?" "Very good; bless you; for if +it had not been for you, God knows how long I should have had to jump." +Then the traveller said to himself, "I have seen two greater fools than +my wife." + +Then he went his way, and as he approached a city, he heard a great +noise. When he drew near he asked what it was, and was told it was a +marriage, and that it was the custom in that city for the brides to +enter the city gate on horseback, and that there was a great discussion +on this occasion between the groom and the owner of the horse, for the +bride was tall and the horse high, and they could not get through the +gate; so that they must either cut off the bride's head or the horse's +legs. The groom did not wish his bride's head cut off, and the owner of +the horse did not wish his horse's legs cut off, and hence this +disturbance. Then the traveller said, "Just wait," and came up to the +bride and gave her a slap that made her lower her head, and then he gave +the horse a kick, and so they passed through the gate and entered the +city. The groom and the owner of the horse asked the traveller what he +wanted, for he had saved the groom his bride and the owner of the horse +his horse. He answered that he did not wish anything, and said to +himself, "Two and one make three! that is enough. Now I will go home." +He did so, and said to his wife, "Here I am, my wife; I have seen three +greater fools than you;--now let us remain in peace, and think of +nothing else." They renewed the wedding, and always remained in peace. +After a time the wife had a son, whom they named Bastianelo, and +Bastianelo did not die, but still lives with his father and mother.[4] + +There is (Professor Crane remarks) a Sicilian version in Pitré's +collection, called "The Peasant of Larcàra," in which the bride's mother +imagines that her daughter has a son who falls into the cistern. The +groom--they are not yet married--is disgusted, and sets out on his +travels with no fixed purpose of returning if he finds some fools +greater than his mother-in-law, as in the Venetian tale. The first fool +he meets is a mother, whose child, in playing the game called +_nocciole_.[5] tries to get his hand out of the hole whilst his +fist is full of stones. He cannot, of course, and the mother thinks they +will have to cut off his hand. The traveller tells the child to drop the +stones, and then he draws out his hand easily enough. Next he finds a +bride who cannot enter the church because she is very tall and wears a +high comb. The difficulty is settled as in the former story. After a +while he comes to a woman who is spinning and drops her spindle. She +calls out to the pig, whose name is Tony, to pick it up for her. The pig +does nothing but grunt, and the woman in anger cries, "Well, you won't +pick it up? May your mother die!" The traveller, who had overheard all +this, takes a piece of paper, which he folds up like a letter, and then +knocks at the door. "Who is there?" "Open the door, for I have a letter +for you from Tony's mother, who is ill and wishes to see her son before +she dies." The woman wonders that her imprecation has taken effect so +soon, and readily consents to Tony's visit. Not only this, but she loads +a mule with everything necessary for the comfort of the body and soul of +the dying pig. The traveller leads away the mule with Tony, and returns +home so pleased with having found that the outside world contains so +many fools that he marries as he had first intended.[6] + +In other Italian versions, a man is trying to jump into his stockings; +another endeavours to put walnuts into a sack with a fork; and a woman +dips a knotted rope into a deep well, and then having drawn it up, +squeezes the water out of the knots into a pail. The final adventure of +the traveller in quest of the greatest noodles is thus related in Miss +Busk's _Folk-lore of Rome_: + +Towards nightfall he arrived at a lone cottage, where he knocked, and +asked for a night's lodging. "I can't give you that," said a voice from +the inside; "for I am a lone widow. I can't take a man in to sleep +here." "But I am a pilgrim," replied he; "let me in at least to cook a +bit of supper." + +"That I don't mind doing," said the good wife, and she opened the door. +"Thanks, good friend," said the pilgrim, as he sat down by the stove. +"Now add to your charity a couple of eggs in a pan." So she gave him a +pan and two eggs, and a bit of butter to cook them in; but he took the +six eggs out of his staff and broke them into the pan too. Presently, +when the good wife turned her head his way again, and saw eight eggs +swimming in the pan instead of two, she said, "Lack-a-day! you must +surely be some strange being from the other world. Do you know +So-and-so?" naming her husband. "Oh yes," said he, enjoying the joke; "I +know him very well: he lives just next to me." "Only to think of that!" +replied the poor woman. "And, do tell me, how do you get on in the other +world? What sort of a life is it?" "Oh, not so very bad; it depends what +sort of a place you get. The part where we are is pretty good, except +that we get very little to eat. Your husband, for instance, is nearly +starved." "No, really?" cried the good wife, clasping her hands. "Only +fancy, my good husband starving out there, so fond as he was of a good +dinner, too!" Then she added, coaxingly, "As you know him so well, +perhaps you wouldn't mind doing him the charity of taking him a little +somewhat, to give him a treat. There are such lots of things I could +easily send him." "Oh dear, no, not at all. I'll do so with pleasure," +answered he. "But I'm not going back till to-morrow, and if I don't +sleep here I must go on farther, and then I shan't come by this way." +"That's true," replied the widow. "Ah, well, I mustn't mind what the +folks say; for such an opportunity as this may never occur again. You +must sleep in my bed, and I must sleep on the hearth; and in the morning +I'll load a donkey with provisions for my poor husband." "Oh, no," +replied the pilgrim, "you shan't be disturbed in your bed. Only let me +sleep on the hearth--that will do for me; and as I am an early riser, I +can be gone before any one's astir, so folks won't have anything to +say." + +So it was done, and an hour before sunrise the woman was up, loading the +donkey with the best of her stores--ham, macaroni, flour, cheese, and +wine. All this she committed to the pilgrim, saying, "You'll send the +donkey back, won't you?" "Of course I would send him back," he replied; +"he'd be of no use to me out there. But I shan't get out again myself +for another hundred years or so, and I fear he won't find his way back +alone, for it's no easy way to find." "To be sure not; I ought to have +thought of that," replied the widow. "Ah, well, so as my poor husband +gets a good meal, never mind the donkey." So the pretended pilgrim from +the other world went his way. He hadn't gone a hundred yards before the +widow called him back. "Ah, she's beginning to think better of it," said +he to himself, and he continued his way, pretending not to hear. "Good +pilgrim," shouted the widow, "I forgot one thing: would money be of any +use to my poor husband?" "Oh dear, yes," said he, "all the use in the +world. You can always get anything for money anywhere." "Oh, do come +back, then, and I'll trouble you with a hundred scudi for him." He went +back, willingly, for the hundred scudi, which the widow counted out to +him. "There's no help for it," said he to himself as he went his way: "I +must go back to those at home." + +From sunny Italy to bleak Norway is certainly a "far cry," yet the +adventure of the "Pilgrim from Paradise" is also known to the Norse +peasants, in connection with the quest of the greatest noodles: A goody +goes to market, with a cow and a hen for sale. She wants five shillings +for the cow and ten pounds for the hen. A butcher buys the cow, but +doesn't want the hen. As she cannot find a buyer for the hen, she goes +back to the butcher, who treats her to so much brandy that she gets +dead-drunk, and in this condition the butcher tars and feathers her. +When she awakes, she fancies that she must be some strange bird, and +cries out, "Is this me, or is it not me? I'll go home, and if our dog +barks, then it is not me." Thus far we have a variant of our favourite +nursery rhyme: + + There was an old woman, as I've heard tell, + She went to market her eggs for to sell; + She went to market, all on a market-day, + And she fell asleep on the king's highway. + + There came a pedlar, whose name was Stout, + He cut her petticoats all round about; + He cut her petticoats up to the knees, + Which made the old woman to shiver and freeze. + + When the little woman first did wake, + She began to shiver and she began to shake; + She began to wonder, and she began to cry, + "Lauk-a-mercy on me, this is none of I!" + + "But if this be I, as I do hope it be, + I've a little dog at home, and he'll know me; + If it be I, he'll wag his little tail, + And if it be not I, he loudly bark and wail." + + Home went the little woman all in the dark, + Up got the little dog, and began to bark; + He began to bark, and she began to cry, + "Lauk-a-mercy on me, this can't be I!" + +To return to the Norse tale. As in our nursery rhyme, when the goody +reaches home, the dog barks at her; then she goes to the calves' house, +but the calves, having sniffed the tar with which she was smeared, turn +away from her in disgust. She is now fully convinced that she has been +transformed into some outlandish bird, so she climbs on to the roof of a +shed, and begins to flap her arms as if she were about to fly, when out +comes her goodman, and seeing a suspicious-looking creature on the roof +of the shed, he fetches his gun and is going to shoot at his goody, when +he recognises her voice. Amazed at such a piece of folly, he resolves to +leave her and not come back till he has found three goodies as silly. He +meets with a female descendant of the Schildburgers, evidently, carrying +into her cottage sunshine in a sieve, there being no window in the +house: he cuts out a window for her and is well paid for his trouble. He +next comes to a house where an old woman is thumping her goodman on the +head with a beetle, in order to force over him a shirt without a slit +for the neck, which she had drawn over his head: he cuts a slit in the +shirt with a pair of scissors, and is amply rewarded for his ingenuity. +His third adventure is similar to that of the "pilgrim" in the Italian +version: + +At another house he informs the goody that he came from Paradise Place-- +which was the name of his own farm--and she asks him if he knew her +second husband in paradise. (She had been married twice before she took +her present husband, who was an old curmudgeon, and she liked her second +husband best--she was sure he had gone to heaven.) He replies that he +knew him very intimately, but, poor man, he was far from well off, +having to go about begging from house to house. The goody gives him a +cart-load of clothes and a box of shining dollars, for her dear second +husband; for why should he go about begging in paradise when there was +so much of everything in their house? So the stranger, jumps into the +cart and drives off, as fast as possible. But Peter, the goody's third +husband, sees him on the road, and recognising his own horse and cart, +hastens home to his wife, and asks why a stranger has gone off with his +property. She explains the whole affair, upon which he mounts a horse +and gallops away after the rogue who had thus taken advantage of his +wife's simplicity. The stranger, perceiving him approach, hides the +horse and cart behind a high hedge, takes part of the horse's tail and +hangs it on the branches of a birch-tree, and then lays himself down on +his back and gazes up into the sky. When Peter comes up to him, he +exclaims, still looking at the sky, "What a wonder! there is a man going +straight to heaven on a black horse!" Peter can see no such thing. "Can +you not?" says the stranger. "See, there is his tail, still on the +birch-tree. You must lie down in this very spot, and look straight up, +and don't for a moment take your eyes off the sky, and then you'll see-- +what you'll see." So Peter lies down and gazes up at the sky very +intently, looking for the man going straight to heaven on a black horse. +Meanwhile the traveller escapes, with the cart-load of clothes and the +box of shining dollars, and the second horse besides. Peter, when he +reaches home, tells his wife that he had given the man from paradise the +other horse for her second husband to ride about on, for he was ashamed +to confess that he had been cheated as well as herself.[7] As to our +traveller, having found three goodies as great fools as his own, he +returned home, and saw that all his fields had been ploughed and sown; +so he asked his wife where she had got the seed from. "Oh," says she, "I +have always heard that what a man sows he shall also reap, so I sowed +the salt that our friends the north-countrymen laid up with us, and if +we only have rain, I fancy it will come up nicely."[8] "Silly you are," +said her husband, "and silly you will be as long as you live. But that +is all one now, for the rest are not a bit wiser than you;--_there is +not a pin to choose between you_!"[9] + +Now, if it be "a far cry" from Italy to Norway, it is still farther from +Norway to India; and yet it is in the southern provinces of our great +Asiatic empire that a story is current among the people, which, strange +as it may seem, is almost the exact counterpart of the Norse version of +the pretended pilgrim from paradise, of which the above is an abstract. +It is found in Pandit S.M. Natésa Sástrí's _Folk-lore in Southern +India_, now in course of publication at Bombay; a work which, when +completed, will be of very great value, to students of comparative +folk-tales, as well as prove an entertaining story-book for general +readers. After condensation in some parts, this story--which the Pandit +entitles "The Good Wife and the Bad Husband"--runs thus: + +In a secluded village there lived a rich man, who was very miserly, and +his wife, who was very kind-hearted and charitable, but a stupid little +woman that believed everything she heard. And there lived in the same +village a clever rogue, who had for some time watched for an opportunity +for getting something from this simple woman during her husband's +absence. So one day, when he had seen the old miser ride out to inspect +his lands, this rogue of the first water came to the house, and fell +down at the threshold as if overcome by fatigue. The woman ran up to him +at once and inquired whence he came. "I am come from Kailása,"[10] said +he; "having been sent down by an old couple living there, for news of +their son and his wife." "Who are those fortunate dwellers in Siva's +mountain?" she asked. And the rogue gave the names of her husband's +deceased parents, which he had taken good care, of course, to learn from +the neighbours. "Do you really come from them?" said the simple woman. +"Are they doing well there? Dear old people! How glad my husband would +be to see you, were he here! Sit down, please, and rest until he +returns. How do they live there? Have they enough to eat and dress +themselves withal?" These and a hundred other questions she put to the +rogue, who, for his part, wished to get away as soon as possible, +knowing full well how he would be treated if the miser should return +while he was there. So he replied, "Mother, language has no words to +describe the miseries they are undergoing in the other world. They have +not a rag of clothing, and for the last six days they have eaten +nothing, and have lived on water only. It would break your heart to see +them." The rogue's pathetic words deceived the good woman, who firmly +believed that he had come down from Kailása, a messenger from the old +couple to herself. "Why should they so suffer," said she, "when their +son has plenty to eat and clothe himself withal, and when their +daughter-in-law wears all sorts of costly garments?" So saying, she went +into the house, and soon came out again with two boxes containing all +her own and her husband's clothes, which she handed to the rogue, +desiring him to deliver them to the poor old couple in Kailása. She also +gave him her jewel-box, to be presented to her mother-in-law. "But dress +and jewels will not fill their hungry stomachs," said the rogue. "Very +true; I had forgot: wait a moment," said the simple woman, going into +the house once more. Presently returning with her husband's cash chest, +she emptied its glittering contents into the rogue's skirt, who now took +his leave in haste, promising to give everything to the good old couple +in Kailása; and having secured all the booty in his upper garment, he +made off at the top of his speed as soon as the silly woman had gone +indoors. + +Shortly after this the husband returned home, and his wife's pleasure at +what she had done was so great that she ran to meet him at the door, and +told him all about the arrival of the messenger from Kailása, how his +parents were without clothes and food, and how she had sent them clothes +and jewels and store of money. On hearing this, the anger of the husband +was great; but he checked himself, and inquired which road the messenger +from Kailása had taken, saying that he wished to follow him with a +further message for his parents. So she very readily pointed out the +direction in which the rogue had gone. With rage in his heart at the +trick played upon his stupid wife, he rode off in hot haste, and after +having proceeded a considerable distance, he caught sight of the flying +rogue, who, finding escape hopeless, climbed up into a _pipal_ +tree. + +The husband soon reached the foot of the tree, when he shouted to the +rogue to come down. "No, I cannot," said he; "this is the way to +Kailása," and then climbed to the very top of the tree. Seeing there was +no chance of the rogue coming down, and there being no one near to whom +he could call for help, the old miser tied his horse to a neighbouring +tree, and began to climb up the _pípal_ himself. When the rogue +observed this, he thanked all his gods most fervently, and having waited +until his enemy had climbed nearly up to him, he threw down his bundle +of booty, and then leapt nimbly from branch to branch till he reached +the ground in safety, when he mounted the miser's horse and with his +bundle rode into a thick forest, where he was not likely to be +discovered. Being thus balked the miser came down the _pípal_ tree +slowly cursing his own stupidity in having risked his horse to recover +the things which his wife had given the rogue, and returned home at +leisure. His wife, who was waiting his return, welcomed him with a +joyous countenance, and cried, "I thought as much: you have sent away +your horse to Kailása, to be used by your old father." Vexed at his +wife's words, as he was, he replied in the affirmative, to conceal his +own folly. + +Through the Tamils it is probable this story reached Ceylon, where it +exists in a slightly different form: A young girl, named Kaluhámi, had +lately died, when a beggar came to the parents' house, and on being +asked by the mother where he had come from, he said that he had just +come from the other world to this world, meaning that he had only just +recovered from severe illness. "Then," said the woman, "since you have +come from the other world, you must have seen my daughter Kaluhámi +there, who died but a few days ago. Pray tell me how she is." The +beggar, seeing how simple she was, replied, "She is my wife, and lives +with me at present, and she has sent me to you for her dowry." The woman +at once gave him all the money and jewels that were in the house, and +sent him away delighted with his unexpected good luck. Soon after, the +woman's husband returned, and learning how silly she had been, mounted +his horse and rode after the beggar. The rest of the story corresponds +to the Tamil version, as above, with the exception that when the husband +saw the beggar slide down the tree, get on his horse, and ride off, he +cried out to him, "Hey, son-in-law, you may tell Kaluhámi that the money +and jewels are from her mother, and that the horse is from me;" which is +altogether inconsistent, since he is represented as the reverse of a +simpleton in pursuing the beggar, on hearing what his wife had done. It +is curious, also, to observe that in the Tamil version the man goes to +the house with the deliberate purpose of deceiving the simple woman, +while in the Sinhalese the beggar is evidently tempted by her mistaking +the meaning of his words. But both present very close points of +resemblance to the Norwegian story of the pretended pilgrim from +paradise. There are indeed few instances of a story having travelled so +far and lost so little of its original details, allowing for the +inevitable local colouring. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, vol. ii., pp. +373-381. In a note to these adventures Campbell gives a story of some +women who, as judges, doomed a horse to be hanged: the thief who stole +the horse got off, because it was his first offence; the horse went back +to the house of the thief, because he was the better master, and was +condemned for stealing himself! + +[2]: Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, vol. ii., +pp. 385--387. + +In a Northumberland popular tale a child in bed sees a little fairy come +down the chimney, and the child tells the creature that his name is +My-ainsel. They play together, and the little fairy is burnt with a +cinder, and on its mother appearing when it cries, and asking it who had +hurt it, the imp answers, "It was My-ainsel."--There is a somewhat +similar story current in Finland: A man is moulding lead buttons, when +the Devil appears, and asks him what he is doing. "Making eyes." "Could +you make me new ones?" "Yes." So he ties the Devil to a bench, and, in +reply to the fiend, tells him that his name is Myself _(Issi)_, and +then pours lead into his eyes. The Devil starts up with the bench on his +back, and runs off howling. Some people working in a field ask him who +did it. Quoth the fiend, "Myself did it" (_Issi teggi_). + +Cf. the _Odyssey_, Book ix., where Ulysses informs the Cyclops that +his name is No-man, and when the monster, after having had his eye put +out in his sleep, awakes in agony, he roars to his comrades for help: + + "Friends, No-man kills me, No-man, in the hour + Of sleep, oppresses me with fraudful power!" + "If no man hurt thee, but the hand divine + Inflict disease, it fits thee to resign;-- + To Jove, or to thy father, Neptune, pray," + The brethren cried, and instant strode away. + +[3] Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales_. + +[4] Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 279--282. + +[5] A game played with peach-pits, which are thrown into holes made in +the ground, and to which certain numbers are attached. + +[6] Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, pp. 282-3. + +[7] The same story is told in Brittany, with no important variations. + +[8] Quite as literally did the rustic understand the priest's assurance, +that whatsoever one gave in charity, for the love of God, should be +repaid him twofold: next day he takes his cow to the priest, who accepts +it as sent by Heaven--and the poor man did _not_ get two cows in +return. The story is known in various forms all over Europe; it was a +special favourite in mediæval times. See Le Grand's _Fabliaux_, +tome iii., 376: "La Vache du Curé," by the trouvère Jean de Boves; +Wright's _Latin Stories; Icelandic Legends_, etc. + +[9] Dasent's _Popular Tales from the Norse_. + +[10] "See note, p. 49" in original. This is Chapter II, Footnote 13 in +this e-text. + + + +APPENDIX. + + +The idea of the old English jest-book, _Jacke of Dover His Quest of +Inquirie, or His Privy Search for the Veriest Foole in England_ +(London: 1604), may perhaps have been suggested by such popular tales as +those of the man going about in quest of three greater fools than his +wife, father-in-law, and mother-in-law. It is, however, simply a +collection of humorous anecdotes, not specially examples of folly or +stupidity, most of which are found in earlier jest-books. The +introduction is rather curious: + +"When merry Jacke of Dover had made his privy search for the Foole of +all Fooles, and making his inquirie in most of the principal places in +England, at his return home he was adjudged to be the fool himself; but +now wearied with the motley coxcombe, he hath undertaken in some place +or other to find a verier foole than himself. But first of all, coming +to London, he went into Paul's Church, where walking very melancholy in +the middle aisle with Captain Thingut and his fellowes, he was invited +to dine at Duke Humphry's ordinary,[1] where, amongst other good +stomachs that repaired to his bountiful feast, there came a whole jury +of penniless poets, who being fellows of a merry disposition (but as +necessary in a commonwealth as a candle in a straw bed), he accepted of +their company, and as from poets cometh all kind of folly, so he hoped +by their good directions to find out his Foole of Fooles, so long looked +for. So, thinking to pass away the dinner-hour with some pleasant chat +(lest, being overcloyed with too many dishes, they should surfeit), he +discovered to them his merry meaning, who, being glad of so good an +occasion of mirth, instead of a cup of sack and sugar for digestion, +these men of little wit began to make inquiry and to search for the +aforesaid fool, thinking it a deed of charity to ease him of so great a +burden as his motley coxcomb was, and because such weak brains as are +now resident almost in every place, might take benefit hereat. In this +manner began the inquiry: + +_The Foole of Hereford._ + +"'Upon a time (quoth one of the jury) it was my chance to be in the city +of Hereford, when, lodging at an inn, I was told of a certain +silly-witted gentleman there dwelling, that would assuredly believe all +things that he heard for a truth; to whose house I went upon a +sleeveless errand, and finding occasion to be acquainted with him, I was +well entertained, and for three days' space had my bed and board in his +house; where, amongst many other fooleries, I, being a traveller, made +him believe that the steeple of Brentwood, in Essex, sailed in one night +as far as Calais, in France, and afterwards returned again to its proper +place. Another time I made him believe that in the forest of Sherwood, +in Nottinghamshire, were seen five hundred of the King of Spain's +galleys, which went to besiege Robin Hood's Well, and that forty +thousand scholars with elder squirts performed such a piece of service +as they were all in a manner taken and overthrown in the forest. Another +time I made him believe that Westminster Hall, for suspicion of treason, +was banished for ten years into Staffordshire. And last of all, I made +him believe that a tinker should be baited to death at Canterbury for +getting two and twenty children in a year; whereupon, to prove me a +liar, he took his horse and rode thither, and I, to verify him a fool, +took my horse and rode hither.' + +"'Well,' quoth Jacke of Dover, 'this in my mind was pretty foolery, but +yet the Foole of all Fooles is not here found that I looked for.' + +_The Fool of Huntington._ + +"'And it was my chance (quoth another of the jury) upon a time to be at +Huntington, where I heard tell of a simple shoemaker there dwelling, who +having two little boys whom he made a vaunt to bring up to learning, the +better to maintain themselves when they were men; and having kept them a +year or two at school, he examined them saying, "My good boy," quoth he +to one of them, "what dost thou learn and where is thy lesson?" "O +father," said the boy, "I am past grace." "And where art thou?" quoth he +to the other boy, who likewise answered that he was at the devil and all +his works. "Now Lord bless us," quoth the shoemaker, "whither are my +children learning? The one is already past grace and the other at the +devil and all his works!" Whereupon he took them both from school and +set them to his own occupation.[2]'" + +A number of others of the jury of penniless poets having related their +stories, at last it is agreed that if the Foole of all Fooles cannot be +found among those before named, one of themselves must be the fool, for +there cannot be a verier fool than a poet, "for poets have good wits, +but cannot use them, great store of money, but cannot keep it," etc. + + * * * * * + +It is doubtful what the name "Jack of Dover" imports, as that of the +imaginary inquirer after fools. The author of the Cook's Tale of +Gamelyn--which is generally considered as a spurious "Canterbury" tale-- +represents, in the prologue, mine host of the Tabard as saying to Roger +the Cook: + + "Full many a pastie hast thou lettin blode; + And many a jack of Dovyr hast thou sold, + That hath ben twicè hot and twicè cold." + +Dr. Brewer says--apparently on the strength of these lines--that a "Jack +of Dover" is a fish that has been cooked a second time. But it may have +been a name of a particular kind of fish caught in the waters off Dover. +If, however, a "Jack of Dover" is a twice-cooked fish, the title of the +jest-book is not inappropriate, since all the stories it comprises are +at least "twice-told." + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] To "dine with Duke Humphry" meant not to dine at all. See Brewer's +_Dictionary of Phrase and Fable_ for the origin of the expression. + +[2] The jest is thus told in some parts of Scotland: An old gentleman, +walking in the country, met three small boys on their way home from +school, and asked them how they progressed in their learning. The +youngest--referring, of course, to the _Shorter Catechism_--replied +that he was "in a state of sin and misery;" the second, that he was past +"redemption;" and the eldest, that he was "in the pains of hell for +ever." + + + + +INDEX. + + * * * * * + +Abdera, Man of, 6. + +Alewife and her Hens, 73. + +Alfonsus, Peter, 45. + +Arab and his Cow, 70. + +Arab Schoolmaster, 83. + +Arabian Idiot, 133. + +_Arabian Nights_, 81, 83, 133, 146. + +Arabian Noodles, 70,75,107, 147. + +Armstrong's, Archie, _Banquet of Jests_, 74. + +Ashton, John, xiv. + +Ass and the Two Sharpers, 81. + +Austwick, Carles of, 17,53,54. + +_Avadánas_, 53. + + +Babrius, 53. + +Bakki, Brothers of, 32, 64. + +Bang-eater and his Wife, 147. + +Bang-eaters and the Dogs, 109. + +Barrett, F.T., 9. + +_Barrin' o' the Door_, 107. + +Belmont, Fools of, 55. + +_Beryn, Tale of_, 40. + +Beschi, Father, 29. + +_Bharataka Dwatrinsati_, 158. + +_Bizarrures of the Sieur Gaulard_, 8, 12, 20, 76. + +Bidpaï's Fables, 53. + +Birth-Stories--_see_ Játakas. + +Boccaccio's _Decameron_, 39. + +"Boiling" River, 30, 43. + +Bond, The Lord's, 17. + +Borde, Andrew, 23. + +Bráhmans, Four Simple, 171. + +Bromyard, John, 167. + +Buddha's Five Precepts, 69. + +Bull and the Gate, 54. + +Bull of Siva, 48. + +Burton's _Arabian Nights_, 83. + +Busk's _Folk-Lore of Rome_, 204. + +Butter eaten by a Dog, 18. + +Buzzard, The Gothamite's, 38. + + +Cabbage-Tree, 47. + +Caftan on Tree, 90. + +Calf's Head in a Pot, 89. + +Campbell's _Popular Tales of the West Highlands_, 32, 33, 34, 35, +36, 154, 193. + +Cat and old Woman, 65. + +Cat, Men of Schilda's, 61. + +Cazotte's _New Arabian Nights_, 133. + +Ceylon--_see_ Sinhalese Noodles. + +Chamberlain, B.H., 130. + +Cheese, The Gothamite's, 34. + +Cheese on the Highway, 40. + +Cheese, The Stolen, 91. + +Chinese Noodles, 93, 94. + +Coelho's _Contes Portuguezes_, 120. + +Colombo, Michele, 81. + +Countryman and Dog, 79. + +Cozens, F.W., 9. + +Council-House, Dark, 57. + +Crane's _Italian Popular Tales_, 117, 128, 139, 202, 204. + +Cuckoo, Hedging in the, 26. + +Cumeans and the bath, 4; + and the father's corpse,15; + and the fig-tree, 10; + and the pot of honey, 19; + and the stolen clothes, 4. + +Dark Council-House, 57. + +Dasent's _Norse Tales_, 126, 212. + +Dekker's _Gul's Horn Book_, 26. + +Devil in the Meadow, 42. + +_Disciplina Clericalis_, 45. + +Doctor and Patients, 5. + +Doctor's Apprentice, 168. + +Dog that ate Honey, 18. + +Door, Taking Care of the, 97, 98. + +Dreams, The Good, 92, 93. + +Dubois, Abbé, 171. + + +Ear, Biting one's own, 86. + +Eberhard's _Hieraclis_, 3. + +Eel, Drowning the, 33. + +_El Conde Lucanor_, 162. + +English typical booby, 139. + + +_Fabliaux_, Le Grand's, 39,163. + +Family, Best of the, 165. + +Farmer and his Pigs, 54. + +Fisher, Indian Silly Son as, 163. + +Fishers, Gothamite, 28. + +Fleas, Bit by, 14. + +_Folk-Lore in Southern India_, 212. + +Fool and the aloes-wood, 98; + and the birch-tree, 151; + and the cotton, 99; + and the cup lost in the sea, 99; + and the elephant-driver, 51; + and his porridge, 119; + and the _Ramayana_, 70; + and the sack of meal, 19, 25, 68; + and the shopkeeper, 100; + at his fireside, 119; + kicked by his mule, 119; + of Hereford, 221; + of Huntingdon, 222. + +Fools and the buffalo, 101; + and the Bull of Siva, 48; + and their inheritance, 118; + and the mosquitoes, 95; + and the palm-trees, 96; + and the trunks, 96. + +Fortini's Italian Novels, 162. + +Fuller, Thomas, on the Gothamites, 20. + +Fumivall, F.J., 23. + + +Gaulard, The Sieur, 8, 12, 20, 76. + +Geese and Tortoise, 52. + +_Gesta Romanorum_, 117,163. + +Gibb's _Forty. Vazírs_, 109, 166, 167. + +Giufà, the Sicilian Booby, 97, 130, 165. + +Goat and Old Woman, 66. + +_Gooroo Paramartan_, 29, 37, 157. + +Gossips and their late Husbands, 74. + +Gossips at the Alehouse, 43. + +_Gotham, Tales of the Mad Men of_, xiii., 20, 24-44. + +Grazzini's Florentine Fool, 161. + +Grecian Noodles, 1-15. + + +Halliwell-Phillipps, J.O., xiii., 13, 22, 27, 53. + +Hama and Hums, Men of, 75. + +Hazlitt, W.C., xiii., 12. + +Heaven, Sorry he has gone to, 74. + +Herdsman, The Foolish, 106. + +Herodotus, Stephens' _Apology_ for, 119. + +Hierokles, Jests of, 2. + +_Hitopadesa_, 162. + +Honey, Pot of, 6, 18. + +Hunter's Dream of a Boar, 4. + + +Icelandic Noodles, 32, 64, 163. + +Indian Noodles, 29, 37, 44, 48, 51, 70, 96, 97-106, 111, +1l8, 158, l6l, 163, 170, 212. + +Italian Noodles, 115, 127, 143, 160, 197, 202, 204. + +Irish Labourer and Farmer, 8. + +Irishman and his ass, 119. + +Irishman and his hens, 120. + +Irishman and lost shovel, 99. + +Irishmen and mosquitoes, 14. + +Irishman's Dream, 92. + + +Jack of Dover's Quest, 219. + +Japanese Noodle, 130. + +Jatakas (Buddhist Birth-Stories), 52, 65, 95, 164. + +_Jests of Scogin_, 162. + +Joe Miller's Jest-Book, 1, 2. + +Judge and Thieves, 87. + + +Kabaïl Tales, 37, 154. + +Kashmírí Tales, 65, 89, 111. + +_Katha Manjari_, 11, 70, 100, 163. + +_Katha Sarit Sagara_, 48, 53, 120, 164. + +Kerchief, The, 90. + +Khoja Nasr-ed-Din, 89. + +King's Stupid Son, The, 167. + +Knite, 'The Gothamites', 53. + +Knowles, J.H., 66, 113. + + +_Laird of Logan_, 13. + +Leger's _Contes Populaires Slaves_, 128, 154. + + +Marie de France, 46. + +_Mery Tales and Quicke Answeres_, 161. + +Miller's Jest-Book, 1, 2. + +Millstone of the Schildburgers, 59. + +Minstrel and Pupil, 166. + +Monk Transformed, 81. + +Moon a green cheese, 44. + +Moon in the well, 92. + +Moon swallowed by an ass, 46. + +"Mortuus Loquens," 160. + +Mummy, The, 15. + + +Nasr-ed-Din Khoja, 89. + +Natesa Sastri Pandit, 212. + +Needham's _Hieroclis_, 3. + +Noodles, The Three Great, 191. + +Norfolk Noodles, 17. + +Norse Noodles, 123, 207. + +Notts Bridge, 24. + + +_Orientalist, The_, 69, 87, 114, 143, 160. + + +_Pancha Tantra_, 67, 171. + +Paradise, Man who came from, 204, 210, 212, 217. + +Pedant, bald man, and barber, 6; + and the lost book, 13; + and his dream, 5,6; + and the jar of feathers, 5; + and his jar of wine, 9; + and the mirror, 9; + and the two slave-boys, 4; + and his slave who died, 8; + and the sparrows, 5; + and the twin-brothers, 12; + and his tomb, 8. + +Persian Noodle, 7. + +Persian Tales, 7, 66, 79. + +_Philotimus_, 27. + +Poet and the Dogs, 79. + +Poggius' _Facetiæ_ 160, 162. + +Priest of Gotham, 42. + +Princess caused to grow, 102. + +Pupil, The Attentive, 165. + + +Ralston's _Russian Folk-Tales,_ 48, 153. + +Relic-hunter, 95. + +Rents of Gothamites, 27. + +Right Hand or Left, 91. + +River, "Boiling," 30, 43. + +Riviere's _Contes Populaires de la Kabylie du Djurdjura_, +37, 154. + +Russian Noodles, 47, 128, 151, 154, 195 + +Rustic and the Dog, 79. + + +_Sacke Full of Newes_, 46, 97. + +Sa'dí's _Gulistán_, xi, 79. + +Schilda, The Men of, 56. + +Schoolmaster's Lady-love, 83. + +Sesame, Roasted, 120. + +Sheep's Eyes, Casting, 41, 126, 127. + +Sicilian Boobies, 97, 116, 139, 165. + +Silent Noodles, 107-117. + +Silly Matt, 123. + +Silly Son, The, 121. + +Simple Simon, 121, 122. + +Simpleton and Sharpers, 81. + +_Sindibád Náma_, 66. + +Sinhalese Noodles, 67-69, 87, 89, 113, 141, 165, 179, 217. + +Smith, Alexander, 9. + +Spade, The Stolen, 94. + +Spinning-Wheel, The, 36. + +Stephens, Henry, Tales by, 119. + +Stokes' _Indian Fairy Tales_, 154. + +_Summa Praædicantium_, The, 167. + + +Tabourot, Etienne, 8. + +_Tales and Quicke Answeres_, 161. + +Tawney, C.H., 48. + +Taylor's _Wit and Mirth_, 9, 10, 74, 78. + +Thief on a Tree, 11. + +Thoms, W.J., xii., 56. + +Thoroton's _History of Nottinghamshire_, 21. + +Three Greatest Noodles, 191. + +Treasure Trove, 144, 151, 154. + +Trivet, The Gothamite's, 36. + +Turkish Noodles, 11, 86, 90, 93, 109, 166, 167. + +Twelve Fishers, The, 28. + +Twin Brothers, 12. + + +Vives, Ludovicus, 46. + + +Warton's _History of English Poetry_, 22. + +Washerman and his young Ass, 103. + +Wasp's Nest, 40. + +"Whittle to the Tree," 53. + +Widows, The Two, 74. + +Wiltshire Noodles, 17, 54. + +Wither's _Abuses Whipt and Stript_, 26. + +Wolf's Tail, The, 91. + +Wood, Anthony, on the Gotham Tales, 23. + +Worsted Balls, The, 35. + +Wrestler and the Wag, 7. + +Wrong Man wakened, 6, 7. + + + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Book of Noodles, by W. A. Clouston + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13032 *** |