A town of fools is the base of a number of

joke cycle A joke is a display of humour in which words are used within a specific and well-defined narrative structure to make people laughter, laugh and is usually not meant to be interpreted literally. It usually takes the form of a story, often with ...

s found in various cultures. Jokes of these cycles poke fun at the stupidity of the inhabitants of a real or fictional populated place (village, town, region, etc.). In

English folklore English folklore consists of the myths and legends of England, including the region's Legendary creature, mythical creatures, traditional recipes, urban legends, proverbs, superstitions, Folk dance, dance, balladry, and Folklore, folktales tha ...

the best known butt of jokes of this type are the

Wise Men of Gotham Wise Men of Gotham is the early name given to the people of the village of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, in allusion to an incident where they supposedly feigned idiocy to avoid a Royal visit. Legend The story goes that John of England, King John int ...

. A number of works of

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

are set in a town of fools. The ''

Motif-Index of Folk-Literature The ''Motif-Index of Folk-Literature'' is a six volume catalogue of motifs, granular elements of folklore, composed by American folklorist Stith Thompson (1932–1936, revised and expanded 1955–1958). Often referred to as Thompson's motif-index ...

'' includes the motif J1703: "Town (country) of fools".

Archetypal fools by place of residence

hail from the village of

Gotham, Nottinghamshire Gotham ( ) is a village and civil parish in Nottinghamshire, England, measured at 1,563 in the 2011 census, and marginally increasing to 1,567 at the 2021 census. It is in the borough of Rushcliffe, and has a parish council. The name Goth ...

*German

Schildbürger The ''Schildbürger'' ("residents of Schilda") are residents of Schilda, a fictional (not the actual Schilda) German town of fools, a butt of jokes in German ''Volksbuch'' (chapbook) tradition corresponding to the Wise Men of Gotham in English-l ...

are residents of the fictional town of Schilda (as opposed to the actual

Schilda Schilda () is a municipality in the Elbe-Elster district, in Lower Lusatia, Brandenburg, Germany. It is also the source of inspiration for Bach's Brandenburg concerto. History From 1815 to 1947, Schilda was part of the Prussian Province of Brande ...

municipality). Stories about them originated from a 1597 book ''Das Lalebuch'' about the residents of a fictional town of Laleburg *Greek residents of Abdera. The ''

Philogelos ''Philogelos'' (), also titled or subtitled ''The Jests of Hierocles and Philagrius'', is a Greek-language book published in late antiquity that is the oldest known surviving collection of jokes. Context Although the ''Philogelos'' is the ol ...

'', a Greek-language joke book compiled in the 4th century AD, has a chapter dedicated to jokes about dumb Abderans. **Example: An Abderan sees a

eunuch A eunuch ( , ) is a male who has been castration, castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2 ...

talking to a woman and asks whether she is his wife. The eunuch replies that he is not able to have a wife. The man persists: "Perhaps she is your daughter?" *Finnish residents of the fictional town of

Hymylä In Finnish folklore, Hymylä (variants: Himola, Huikkola, Hyvölä, Hytölä, Hämälä, Hölmölä) is a mysterious place for the banishment of a child who failed in a children's game, usually, the game of riddles. With a chant, e.g., "Hyys, hyys ...

*Swedish minority of Finland traditionally put the numskulls in the village of . *

Polish Jewish The history of the Jews in Poland dates back at least 1,000 years. For centuries, Poland was home to the largest and most significant Jews, Jewish community in the world. Poland was a principal center of Jewish culture, because of the long pe ...

Wise Men of Chelm The Wise Men of Chelm () are foolish Jewish residents of the Polish city of Chełm, a butt of Jewish humor, similar to other towns of fools: the English Wise Men of Gotham, German Schildbürger, Greek residents of Abdera, or Finnish residents of ...

Edward Portnoy
Wise Men of Chelm
''

The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe ''The YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe'' is a two-volume, English-language reference work on the history and culture of Eastern Europe Jewry in this region, prepared by the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research and published by Yale Univ ...

'' *Danish Molbos (residents of

Mols Mols is a small Danish gathering of hilly peninsulas in the southern part of the larger peninsula of Djursland on the east coast of Jutland. The largest peninsulas of Mols comprise Skødshoved to the west, and Helgenæs to the east. Mols' ...

) famed for Molbo stories * Kocourkov, a fictional Czech village of fools *''Fünsinger'' from the

Fünsing Fünsing is a fictional German " village of fools". The 19th-century ''Deutsches Wörterbuch'' by the Brothers Grimm defines the word Fünsinger as a silly person, a simpleton whose actions provoke laughter; Latin: ''baburnus'', '' stultus'', and c ...

village of fools, known, e.g., from ''Schwanks'' by the 16-th century German poet and playwright

Hans Sachs Hans Sachs (5 November 1494 – 19 January 1576) was a German ''Meistersinger'' ("mastersinger"), poetry, poet, playwright, and shoemaking, shoemaker. Biography Hans Sachs was born in Nuremberg (). As a child he attended a singing school that w ...

*Moidekars, the residents of the village of Moira in Goa, India. *The wisdom of the residents of the Dutch city of

Kampen, Overijssel Kampen () is a List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of Overijssel, Netherlands. A member of the former Hanseatic League, it is ...

gave rise to the term "Kamper onion" (Kamper ui, plural: Kamper uien) for town-of-fools type stories.

Towns of fools in satire

*In

Isaac Mayer Dick Isaac Mayer DickAlso: ''Eisik Meir Dick'', ''Eisik Meier Dick'', ''Isaak Meir Dick'', ''Ayzik-Meyer Dik'', ''Isaak Mayer Dick'', etc (1807 – 24 January 1893) was a Russian Hebraist, Yiddishist, and novelist. Life Dick was born in Vilnius. Hi ...

's 1872 novel ''Di orkhim in Duratshesok/Duratshtshok'' (''Visitors in Durachok'') the "fool's town" is a fictional Russian town of Durachok, where the Russian word дурачок means "little fool". For some reason Dick decided to place Jewish simpletons in a Russian location.Ruth von Bernuth, ''How the Wise Men Got to Chelm: The Life and Times of a Yiddish Folk Tradition'' In the book Dick draws a comparison of Duratshesok with Chelm saying that Helm has a reputation of ''vilde harishkeyn'' (wild foolishness) and gives the examples thereof, which turn out to be retellings of Schildbürger stories and their imitations. *

Mendele Mocher Sforim Mendele Mocher Sforim (, ; lit. "Mendele the book peddler"; January 2, 1836, Kapyl – December 8, 1917 .S. Odessa), born Sholem Yankev Abramovich (, ) or S. J. Abramowitch, was a Jewish author and one of the founders of modern Yiddish and Heb ...

set some of his stories in a fictional town of Glupsk ("Foolstown", from Russian, ' глупец' for "fool").

Dan Miron Dan Miron (; born 1934) is an Israeli-born American literary critic and author. An expert on modern Hebrew and Yiddish literature, Miron is a Professor emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is currently the Leonard Kaye Professor of ...

suggestsMikhail Krutiko
BERDICHEV IN RUSSIAN-JEWISH LITERACY IMAGINATION:From Israel Aksenfeld to Friedrich Gorenshteyn
/ref> that its prototype may be found in a fictional town Ksalon, a Biblical name כְּסָלוֹן, Kesalon/Ksalon may allude to the Hebrew word ''kesil/ksil'' (כסיל), "fool", David G. Roskies, ''Against the Apocalypse. Responses to Catastrophe in Modern Jewish Culture'', 1999
p. 66
/ref> from his story ''Beseter ra'am'' (), a satirical description of life in a ''

shtetl or ( ; , ; Grammatical number#Overview, pl. ''shtetelekh'') is a Yiddish term for small towns with predominantly Ashkenazi Jews, Ashkenazi Jewish populations which Eastern European Jewry, existed in Eastern Europe before the Holocaust. The t ...

'' in Russian Empire.

Hillel Halkin Hillel Halkin (; born 1939) is an American-born Israeli translator, biographer, literary critic, and novelist who has lived in Israel since 1970. Biography Hillel Halkin was born in New York City two months before the outbreak of World War II. ...

gave his reasons why during his translation of ''Beseter ra'am'' he used the untranslated Hebrew name Ksalon instead of the "low hanging fruit" choice of "Foolsville".

, "Adventures in Translating Mendele" , *

Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov-Shchedrin ( rus, Михаи́л Евгра́фович Салтыко́в-Щедри́н, p=mʲɪxɐˈil jɪvˈɡrafəvʲɪtɕ səltɨˈkof ɕːɪˈdrʲin; – ), born Mikhail Yevgrafovich Saltykov and known during ...

set a series of is satirical

feuilleton A ''feuilleton'' (; a diminutive of , the leaf of a book) was originally a kind of supplement attached to the political portion of French newspapers, consisting chiefly of non-political news and gossip, literature and art criticism, a chronicle ...

s in a fictional town of ("Foolstown", from Russian, ' глупец' for "fool"), culminated in his novel ''

The History of a Town ''The History of a Town'' (; ), also translated as ''Foolsburg: The History of a Town'', is a 1870 novel by Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin. The plot presents the history of the town of Glupov, which may be translated as the " town of fools", a grotesq ...

''.

Notes

References

{{reflist Joke cycles *

Archetypal fools by place of residence

Towns of fools in satire

See also

Notes

References