Wilson's Almanac on the Wise Fools
of Gotham
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The wise fools of Gotham
A tale of clever idiots
By Pip Wilson
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, I must neds laughe in my
selfe,
The wise men of Gotum (Gotham) are risen
againe.
‘Misogonus’ 1560
Three Wise Men of Gotham
Went to sea in a bowl.
If the bowl had been stronger
My tale had been longer.
Anon
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."
Gotham
(pron. ‘goat ham’) is a village in Nottinghamshire, England. On a hill was a
bush known as the ‘Cuckoo Bush’, which was planted as a memorial to the
fabled population of the town.
In
about the year 1540, during
the reign of Henry
VIII (1491 - 1547),
an amusing collection of stories
was published, by the name of Merie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotam
("Imprinted at London, in Flet-Stret, beneath the Conduit, at the signe of S. John Evangelist, by Thomas Colwell, n. d. 12°, black letter"),
by the mysterious ‘A.B. of Phisicke Doctor’ (actually, Pizisicke
Doctour). This 'Doctor A.B.' might have been Andrew Borde, or Boorde, a Carthusian friar before the Reformation, one of the physicians to
King Henry.
The tale has it that King
John of England
(1166 or
1167 - 1216) was
marching towards Nottingham, intending to pass through Gotham meadow.
Believing that any ground traversed by a king became forever after a public
road, the citizens of Gotham decided to try to prevent John from passing.
Angered by them, the
king sent messengers to find out the reason for their rudeness, and perhaps
to impose a fine. Hearing of the messengers’ approach, they quickly
decided to act as stupidly as they could, to avoid punishment. Some were
trying to drown an eel in a pond; some dragging their carts and wagons to
the top of a barn to shield a young tree from the sun's rays; some tumbling
cheeses downhill hoping they would find their way to Nottingham market; some
trying to hedge in a cuckoo which had perched on a old bush.
The sheriff and his men
on this king’s errand stopped their horses, and asked a band of old
‘fools’ what on earth they were doing.
“We are rolling stones
uphill to make the sun rise,” said one of the old timers.
“You oaf!” said the
sheriff. “Don't you know that the sun will rise without any help?”
“Ah! will it?”
replied the old man. “Well, I never thought of that. How wise you are!”
In such manner, having
outwitted the king, the villagers became known as the wise fools of Gotham.
Many tales of folly have
been sheeted home to the Gothamites, one of which is their joining hands
round a thornbush to shut in a cuckoo. When the bird got out, they said that
they should have made the 'fence' higher. Hence the cuckoo bush mentioned
above, and the Cuckoo Bush Inn that still sells drinks in Gotham.
It is said that the
Gothamites say, “We ween there are more fools pass through Gotham than
remain in it.” There is another Gotham, in Sussex, that lays claim to the
tales, but it is generally accepted that Nottinghamshire’s village is the
place that gained the reputation as the ‘town of fools’, an archetypal
concept that is found in other cultures. In
England there are also the people of Coggeshall, Essex, the carles of
Austwick, Yorkshire, the gowks of Gordon, Berwickshire, and for many
centuries the accusation of folly has been made against silly folks of
Suffolk and Norfolk, not to mention the (clever) people of Ireland. In
Germany there are the Schildburgers, in Holland the people of Kampen. Among
the ancient Greeks, Boeotia was the home of fools; among the Thracians,
Abdera; among the ancient Jews, Nazareth. The Germans had their Swabians,
the USA has its Appalachians and Ozarks, and Australia its Tasmania.
Pakistan’s wise fools came from Buneyr, and across
the water, Kadambawa
is Sri Lanka’s Gotham.
Frank E Earp, in an
excellent article, ‘The Wise Men of Gotham’
(in which he writes that at least 45 other English villages can be
identified as fool villages), refers to this and other stories from the good
Phisicke Doctor’s collection. He writes,
“There is ample
evidence to show that the majority of the twenty tales, as well as those
from the oral traditions, are myths that have sprung from actual pre-christian
practices.”
An old poem refers to
the wise fools:
Tell me no more of
Gotham fools,
Or of their eels in little pools,
Which they were told were drowning;
Nor of their carts drawn up on high,
When King John's men were standing by,
To keep a wood from browning.
Nor of their cheese
shoved down the hill,
Nor of a cuckoo sitting still,
While it they hedged round;
Such tales of them have long been told,
By prating boobies, young and old,
In drunken circles crowned.
The fools are those who thither go
To see the cuckoo bush, I trow,
The wood, the barn, and pools;
For such are seen both here and there,
And passed by without a sneer
By all
but errant fools.
More
at Wikipedia
How New York City came to be called Gotham
In 1807 New
York-born writer, Washington
Irving (1783 - 1859), invented the name to New York in the
humor magazine, Salmagundi. By Irving's time, Gotham had long been
associated with stupidity, even though we can see that the original story
was actually about an ironic kind of cleverness. Washington Irving thought
this just the name to give to a city that he believed to be inhabited by
fools. He used the term of his fellow city people because it conveyed the
sense of New Yorkers as know-it-alls and cunning fools – but they had
method in their madness.
Another
version of the Wise Fools tale
April
Fools' Day
at our Scriptorium
April 1 at our
Book of Days
Cuckoo Day in the UK
Some
Gothamite tales
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!"
Once upon 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."
One Good Friday, the
wise men of Gotham put their heads together to see 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 thrown into a pond or pool (the which was in the middle of the town), so that it would be bigger the next year; so every man threw them into the pool. 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 eat like lords the next
Lent." At the beginning of next Lent the men drained the pond, to have their fish, and there was nothing but a huge eel. "Ah," they all said, "a mischief on this eel, for he hath eat up all our fish!" "What shall we do with him?" they asked each other. "Kill him!" said one of the Gothamites. "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 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.
There was a young man of Gotham who wished to go wooing to a fair maid. His mother warned 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."
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."
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.
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.
The absurd notion of the moon being a tine 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 Disciplines 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.
WA Clouston, The Book of Noodles: Stories of Simpletons; Or, Fools and Their
Follies, Ch 2, Gothamite Drolleries, With Variants And Analogues, 1888
Of Buying of Sheep
THERE were two men of Gotham, and one of them was going
to market to Nottingham to buy sheep, and the other came from the market, and
they both met together upon Nottingham bridge.
'Where are you going?' said the one who came from
Nottingham.
'Marry,' said he that was going to Nottingham, 'I am
going to buy sheep.'
'Buy sheep?' said the other. 'And which way will you
bring them home?'
'Marry,' said the other, '1 will bring them over this
bridge.'
'By Robin Hood,' said he that came from Nottingham,
'but thou shalt not.'
'By Maid Marion,' said he that was going thither, 'but
I will.'
'You will not,' said the one.
'I will.'
Then they beat their staves against the ground one
against the other, as if there had been a hundred sheep between them.
'Hold in,' said one; 'beware lest my sheep leap over
the bridge.'
'I care not,' said the other; 'they shall not come this
way.'
'But they shall,' said the other.
Then the other said: 'If that thou make much to do, I
will put my fingers in thy mouth.'
'Will you?' said the other.
Now, as they were at their contention, another man of
Gotham came from the market with a sack of meal upon a horse, and seeing and
hearing his neighbours at strife about sheep, though there were none between
them, said:
'Ah, fools! will you ever learn wisdom? Help me, and
lay my sack upon my shoulders.'
They did so, and he went to the side of the bridge,
unloosened the mouth of the sack, and shook all his meal out into the river.
'Now, neighbours,' he said, 'how much meal is there in
my sack?'
'Marry,' said they, 'there is none at all.'
'Now, by my faith,' said he, 'even as much wit as is in
your two heads to stir up strife about a thing you have not.'
Which was the wisest of these three persons, judge
yourself.
Joseph Jacobs; More English Fairy
Tales, 1894
Of Hedging a Cuckoo
Once upon a time the men of Gotham would have kept the
Cuckoo so that she might sing all the year, and in the midst of their town they
made a hedge round in compass and they got a Cuckoo, and put her into it, and
said, 'Sing there all through the year, or thou shalt have neither meat nor
water.' The Cuckoo, as soon as she perceived herself within the hedge, flew
away. 'A vengeance on her!' said they. 'We did not make our hedge high enough.'
Joseph Jacobs; More English Fairy
Tales, 1894
Of Sending Cheeses
There was a man of Gotham who went to the market at
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 rolled down the hill. 'Ah,
gaffer,' said the fellow, 'can you run to market alone? I will send one after
another after you.' Then he laid down his wallet and took out the cheeses, and
rolled them down the hill. Some went into one bush; and some went into another.
'I charge you all to meet me near the marketplace'; and
when the fellow came to the market to meet his cheeses, he stayed there till the
market was nearly done: Then he went about to inquire of his friends and
neighbours, and other men, if they did see his cheeses come to the market.
'Who should bring them?' said one of the market men.
'Marry, themselves,' said the fellow; 'they know the
way well enough.'
He said, 'A vengeance on them all. I did fear, to see
them run so fast, that they would run beyond the market. I am now fully
persuaded that they must be now almost at York.'
Whereupon he forthwith hired a horse to ride to York,
to seek his cheeses where they were not, but to this day no man can tell him of
his cheeses.
Joseph Jacobs; More English Fairy
Tales, 1894
Of
Drowning Eels
When Good Friday came, the men of Gotham cast their
heads together what to do with their white herrings, their red herrings, their
sprats, and other salt fish. One consulted with the other, and agreed that such
fish should be cast into their pond (which was in the middle of the town), that
they might breed against the next year, and every man that had salt fish left
cast them into the pool.
'I have many white herrings,' said one.
'I have many sprats,' said another.
'I have many red herrings,' said the other.
'I have much salt fish. Let all go into the pond or
pool, and we shall fare like lords next year.'
At the beginning of next year following the men drew
near 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 has eaten up all our fish.'
'What shall we do to him?' said one to the others.
'Kill him,' said one.
'Chop him into pieces,' said another.
'Not so,' said another; 'let us drown him.'
'Be it so,' said all. And they went to another pond,
and cast the eel into the pond. 'Lie there and shift for yourself, for no help
thou shalt have from us'; and they left the eel to drown.
Joseph Jacobs; More English Fairy
Tales, 1894
Of Sending Rent
Once on a time the men of Gotham had forgotten to pay
their landlord. One said to the other, 'Tomorrow is our pay-day, and what shall
we find to send our money to our landlord?'
The one said, 'This day I have caught a hare, and he
shall carry it, for he is light of foot.'
'Be it so,' said all; 'he shall have a letter and a
purse to put our money in, and we shall direct him the right way.' So when the
letters were written and the money put in a purse, they tied it round the hare's
neck, saying, 'First you go to Lancaster, then thou must go to Loughborough, and
Newarke is our landlord, and commend us to him and there is his dues.'
The hare, as soon as he was out of their hands, ran on
along the country way. Some cried, 'Thou must go to Lancaster first.'
'Let the hare alone,' said another; 'he can tell a
nearer way than the best of us all. Let him go.'
Another said, 'It is a subtle hare, let her alone; she
will not keep the highway for fear of dogs.'
Joseph Jacobs; More English Fairy
Tales, 1894
Of Counting
On a certain time there were twelve men of Gotham who
went fishing, and some went into the water and some on dry ground; and, as they
were coming back, one of them said, 'We have ventured much this day wading; I
pray God that none of us that did come from home be drowned.'
'Marry,' said one, 'let us see about that. Twelve of us
came out,' and every man did count eleven, and the twelfth man did never count
himself.
'Alas!' said one to another, 'one of us is drowned.'
They went back to the brook where they had been fishing, and looked up and down
for him that was drowned, and made great lamentation. A courtier came riding by,
and he did ask what they were seeking, and why they were so sorrowful. 'Oh,'
said they, 'this day we came to fish in this brook, and there were twelve of us,
and one is drowned.'
'Why,' said the courtier, 'count me how many of you
there be,' and one counted eleven and did not count himself. 'Well,' said the
courtier, 'what will you give me if I find the twelfth man?'
'Sir,' said they, 'all the money we have.'
'Give me the money,' said the courtier; and he began
with the first, and gave him a whack over the shoulders that he groaned, and
said, 'There is one,' and he served all of them that they groaned; but when he
came to the last he gave him a good blow, saying, 'Here is the twelfth man.'
'God bless you on your heart,' said all the company;
'you have found our neighbour.'
Joseph Jacobs; More English Fairy
Tales, 1894
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Holy
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