Part 2 (2/2)

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 cla.s.s is perhaps found in the _Jatakas_, 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 Banares, 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 _Katha Sarit Sagara_; in the several versions of the Fables of Bidpa; and in the _Avadanas_, 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, 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, wis.h.i.+ng to get a bull out of a field--how the animal got into it, the story does not inform us--procured the a.s.sistance 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 Wilts.h.i.+re 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!”

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 reve; _alias_, Les Cheveux Coupes” (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 a.n.a.logous 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 a.s.s before its fellows for upsetting a jar of olive oil, but what is that compared with the story of the a.s.s that drank up the moon? According to Ludovicus Vives, a learned Spanish writer, certain townspeople imprisoned an a.s.s for drinking up the moon, whose reflection, appearing in the water, was covered with a cloud while the a.s.s 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 a.s.s 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 _Katha Sarit Sagara_, 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. Trubner 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 Kailasa, in the Himalyas, north of Manasa.

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