[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_,