English folk story: The smart guy from Silly Village

there's a small village called gordan in nottingham, england.

the inhabitants of the village are said to be the biggest fools who have done nothing.

around 1540, the godans ' stupidity was recorded and printed in a book called " the smart man in gordan " , in which more than 20 folk stories were recorded.

when these little stories came to the united states, the american writer washington owen gave new york a nickname in his article, “the city of the gordans”, which continues to this day.

later, these folk stories became more and more popular, and in the united states there was even a phrase saying “smart like the gordan”, meaning someone as stupid as the gordan.

as these stories spread, the village of godan became more famous, and today at least 45 small villages in the united kingdom claim that they are the source of the godan story.

however, the main source of these little stories should be nottingham county, where nottingham was mentioned many times.

moreover, although these little stories were written around 1540, some of them existed long before the british religious reform.

why would the gordans be so stupid to make godan a "wit"? there are many accounts of this.

it was said that king john of england wanted the godans to fight for him, and they didn't want to be soldiers, and they started acting crazy.

it was said that king john wanted to build a pedestrian palace in the village of godan, and that the gordans, who did not want to be exploited by the king, began to pretend to be mad at the messengers who had come to visit.

when the messenger told the king that all the gordans had gone mad, he gave up his intentions.

so the godans say, "we know that there are more fools passing through the godan than there are here." it was also said that king john wanted to build a road to nottingham, which had to tear down the village of godan.

so, when the king's emissary arrived, the godans began to act crazy.

fearing that he would become infected with this madness, the king had to order a change of course and to fix the road elsewhere.

anyway, regardless of whether the gordians are acting crazy or crazy, their stories are interesting, not only because they make people laugh, but because they give you something to laugh about.

otherwise, how could they have spread for hundreds of years, and to this day they have enjoyed it? unfortunately, although these stories are well known and have been raised by chinese writers on several occasions, no one seems to have translated them.

here, i've been able to translate more than a dozen gordians' little stories to dear readers.

please note that, because “godan” is the alias of “wit”, i translated the story of “godan village” into “wit village”.

one day, the smart guy from the stupid village wanted to write a letter to the sheriff of yorkshire.

however, there is no railway or post office in the village of the fool, and to get this letter to the sheriff, a personal visit must be made.

“who would like to send a letter?” to that end, the smart guy from silent village had a meeting to discuss the issue.

no one wants to go that far.

"i..and today i caught a rabbit," and finally, a wise man said, "you all know that rabbits have very good legs.

why don't you send it to the mail?" "let's write a letter and then tell the rabbit what to do.

it'll get us somewhere." as a result, the smart people of silent village were rushing to write letters and then sealed and hung around the rabbit's neck.

"you go first to nottingham county," they said to rabbits, "go there, jump down the street and jump to york county soon." remember, we wrote this letter to the county elders.

he's living at york cathedral.

you'll know when you get a call.

and when you give him the letter, don't forget how beautiful it is for us." they just dropped their hands, and the rabbit rushed out, left the road and went into the fields.

"hey! stop! you've got to go to nottingham first." a couple of smart guys screaming behind rabbits.

"you leave the rabbit alone," said a wise man.

"it must be taking the shortcut.

just let it go on." "it's right," another wise man said, "the rabbit is a very smart animal.

let it continue, and i am sure it will not be too long on the road because the road to yorkshire is full of bad dogs.” the day after the cheese escape, a smart guy from a stupid village carrying a bag of cheese was going to go to the market in nottingham.

he walked across the nottingham bridge and came to a hillside, feeling very tired, and put his pocket on the ground and sat down to rest.

as he planned to continue his drive, a cheese fell out of his pocket and rolled down the hillside towards the market.

"ah! mr.

cheese," he said, "you can run to the market yourself, right? i knew you had it in you.

why would i bother so much? i think if you can go to the market yourself, the rest of the cheese can be done.

now i'll let them go with you." so he lifted his pocket and poured out all the cheese, so that they would roll down the slopes one by one.

when the last cheese got out, he started shouting, "i command you to meet me at the fair!" some of the cheese rolls into the bush, some of the cheese rolls into the grass, but the smart man doesn't notice anything but to go to the fair happy, hoping that all the cheese will meet him there.

as a result, he searched the market for most of the day, finding no cheese in the evening.

at that time, he was in a bit of a hurry and started asking his friends and passers-by whether they had seen his cheese on the market.

"who brought them?" asked a vendor.

“no one,” the wise man replied, “they came by themselves because they knew how to go.” "why haven't you come yet?" the vendor says.

"big trouble!" this smart guy is bigcall.

“i was a little worried at the time, because they went so fast.

i think they may not be able to keep up, but they've already run through the market, many kilometres away, and maybe they're going to yorkshire.” after that, the smart man immediately hired a horse to go to yorkshire to find his cheese.

the smart people of silent village and the watch one day, a group of smart people from silent village walked on the road outside the village and found a missing watch for some passerby.

these wise men have never seen anything so weird before, and have stopped and watched the watch with curiosity.

then a smart man picks up his watch, picks it up in his ear and hears a strange sound.

"did you hear?" the wise man said, "it's terrible! this must be something made by the devil." after that, he threw his watch on the floor in fear.

the rest of the smarts are scared, and nobody dares to touch that watch.

after a while, one of the oldest and most daring smarts moved up a big rock and hit his watch hard until it was completely smashed.

then this brave wise man kneels next to his watch and puts his ears on it.

of course, he'll never hear anything again.

“ah,” the brave wise man proudly said to his partner, “i have taught him how to keep quiet, and this is all thanks to that big stone!” the wise men returned to the village with joy and left behind what the devil had built.

who's the smartest, john and thomas are neighbors, but their relationship is so bad that nobody looks at each other as friends.

one day, thomas went home from the nottingham fair and went to the nottingham bridge and met john.

"hey, where are you going, you guy?" thomas shouted.

"what do you care?" john replied, "why should i tell you i'm going to nottingham's market to buy sheep?" "buy sheep!" thomas said, "how do you plan to bring sheep home?" "that's a good thing," john said, "i'm gonna get the sheep off the nottingham bridge." "don't you think," thomas says, "i'm gonna stay on the bridge and not let your sheep pass." "stop this!" john shouts, "i would never have given you good fruit." "i'm not afraid of you!" thomas shouts, "i repeat, i won't let your sheep through the bridge." "i won't!" thomas shouted.

they fight and wave their staff in the air.

"if you scare my sheep, john says, "they might jump off the bridge and drown in the water." "die or die," thomas said, "i don't care! if you're scared, you can take them around." "no, no!" john said, "i'm going to let them walk through the nottingham bridge." "if you do this, i'll..knock your head off with your cane!" thomas said.

they're fighting so hard, another smart guy from the stupid village came over from nottingham.

he had a horse with a bag of corn on his back.

the new smart guy stopped on the bridge for half a day and didn't understand.

"what's going on?" he wondered.

"why do you two say no sheep cross the bridge? is there a sheep on the bridge? why haven't i seen one?" "of course not," john explained, "i haven't gone to buy it yet." "ah, what a fool!" the new smart guy said, "why don't you have a brain?" you fools, like...

hey, i don't know! so take this pocket off the horse's back and put it on my shoulder, and i'll tell you what i think of you." john and thomas obeyed his command.

then the new smart guy went to the bridge, unzipped his pocket and poured all the corn in it into the river.

"tell me," he said, "how much corn noodles are left in my pocket?" "all gone," they said, "none left behind." "perhaps!" the new smart guy says, "you two have a brain like this pocket, and there's nothing in it, no wisdom, because you've been arguing about something that doesn't exist." and then the smart people of the three stupid villages broke up with joy.

which of these three is smarter? the smart man from silent village and the smart man from silicon village agree that among all birds, boogicon is the best singer.

"the only place i don't like boogiebirds," a wise man says, "it's just that they don't come to our village every season to sing.

they only live a few months a year, and they fly away after summer." "no, another wise man says, "why don't we catch a boogeybird and let it stay with us forever?" there was unanimous support for that proposal.

“yeah, let's catch a cuckoo and put a nest on it in the village, and then we'll hear it every day.” they said that they were dry, and soon they built a strong wooden fence on the field, at a height of more than six feet, and that the gaps in the middle of the planks were filled with shrubs and willows which were not covered by the wind.

"now, no bird will fly out of the fence!" finally, they said with satisfaction.

then they caught a cuckoo, and they said to it, "sing in the fence from now on.

you have to sing for a year, or we won't give you meat or water." however, as soon as they had put them in the fence, the birds were flying away.

"alas, that's a shame!" they yelled.

"let's build the fence a little higher." the smart people of silent village are very fond of salted fishsalted fish, because it was hard for them to buy fresh meat.

so they spend a lot of money every winter.

one winter, smart people from silent village came together to discuss how to spend less and eat more fish.

"there's a big pond in our village," a smart guy said, "why don't we feed our own fish?" "that's good.

that's a nice pond." and another smart guy said, "but where are we going to get a fish seed?" "it's a good thing," the first smart guy answered.

"the seedlings are also made of fish, of course you know that.

isn't there a lot of salty fish we haven't eaten? put them in the pond and let them breed by themselves.

aren't there fish next year? from now on, we don't have to go to nottingham's market to buy salted fish, and if we want to, we can go to the pond and catch as many as we want." "let's throw the rest of the salty fish in the pond!" "there are lots of white and blue fish in my house," said a wise man.

"there are a lot of herring in my house," another smart man said.

"i have a lot of red and blue fish," said the third smart man.

then they started to tell each other, "come on, come on! throw the rest of the fish in the pond and next year we'll live like nobles." listen, without hesitation, all the salt fish left in the house were thrown into the pond.

in the spring of the following year, the smart people of silent village believed that the fish must now be growing a lot, and that they should go and get some fish to eat.

so they went to the pond together and spread a net.

when you put the net up, it was empty.

they didn't give up, they spilled several nets, and finally they pulled up a fat, fat eel.

"aah," they said, "the mob! our fish must have been eaten by this eel." "how should i punish it?" says a wise man.

"kill it!" another smart man answered.

"crush it into pieces! cut it into mud!" said the third wise man.

"it's too cheap," says the fourth smart guy, "it's better to drown it." "well, drown it!" it was said that the boat was drawn to the middle of the pond and the eel was lifted up and thrown into the water.

as soon as the eels reached the surface, they swung down.

"do you see?" a wise man said, "it's scared by our punishment! look, it's shaking all over." “of course it's going to squirt,” another wise man said, “because it's going to die in pain, unless it can find a way to live”.

“whatever it is,” everyone says, “it's no use to us either.” after that, they left and drowned the eel in the pond.

the cranes in the wheat field, when the wheat is tall and strong a summer, always fly to the wheat fields of the stupid village, feeding frogs.

you're a foolit's very painful.

"look, it's grown too big," a smart man said, "look at his long legs, our wheat is broken." "we have to get this crane out of here, or we'll lose it in the fall," says the second smart guy.

the third smart guy said, "this has to be done as quickly as possible.

let's hire a shepherd.

he walks around every day.

so they hired a shepherd to drive away the crane from the field.

however, when the shepherd entered the wheat field, the wise man of the fool village found that the shepherd's feet were wider than the crane's feet, and, although he had scared the crane away, he trampled more wheat.

"this is not going to work," a smart guy says, "we have to think of a better way." you've been thinking about it for half a day.

finally, a smart guy said, "just do it! let's go out and get the shepherd in the field so he doesn't trample the wheat.” "good, wonderful!" the other smart guys yelled, "it's a good idea! that's weird.

why didn't we think of that?" then they shall remove from their chains a firm gate, and let the shepherd sit on it.

eight wise men stood up to the door with their shoulders and walked into the wheat field and asked the shepherd to catch the crane.

"now the shepherd's big feet will never hurt our wheat again!" the wise people who stood by were happy to say.

and one day, a smart guy from a stupid village was going to go to nottingham's fair, and his wife said, "honey, you go buy a new pot and our pot is leaking." the husband noded and walked out the house.

in the evening, he left the market in nottingham, carrying a new pot and starting to go home.

the pot was so heavy that when he got to the nottingham bridge, he was so tired he had to put it down and sit on the bridge.

it was then that he found three legs in the pot.

"i'm so stupid i didn't find those legs!" smart guy shouts.

"you have three legs, i have two legs, and you let me walk behind your back.

how is that possible? it's fair for you to carry me! okay, from now on, you're going behind my back." then he sat in the pot and he said, "i'm ready to go!" the pot was still standing there with three legs, and he said, "aah! i guess you want to keep carrying you, don't you? no way, i won't.

i'm going to tell you the rest of the way and go home.

he then told the pot where he lived and where the rest of the road was to go and went home.

when she came home, she asked him where the pot was.

"oh, it'll be home soon," the husband replied.

what does that mean? "it's simple," the husband said, "i bought a pot with three legs, one more than me! i left nottingham's market behind it until i got home.

and theni told him to finish the rest of the road, because i was not going to carry it any longer.” "where did you put it?" the wife asked.

don't worry, the husband replied.

"i've told him where we are, and it'll come back in a minute, just like i said." "where did you put it?" the wife asked.

"on the nottingham bridge." the husband replied.

the wife was in a hurry to find her because she did not trust her husband ' s judgement.

when she took the pot home, her husband said, "fine, you're back together.

i was a little worried when you left, because it was a very stubborn pot.

i'm afraid he'd rather go back to nottingham's market than go home with you."

9 lost legs of a few smart people in a stupid village sitting at the village entrance.

they sit on the ground in a circle, and they sit close to each other.

when they wanted to stand up, they found each other's thighs all mixed up, and they could not tell who their legs were.

“ah!” they said, “it is unfortunate that we have to sit and stand and walk forever.” so they sat silently on the earth, and every soul appeared in its faces a desperate look.

soon, a passerby came over.

they called this passer-by and asked him if he could get their legs back.

the passers-by raised the staff, pointing to the legs of each individual.

now, he said, "you all know where your legs are, just stand up with them." his explanation, however, has made these wise people more confused.

"well, it doesn't work," they said, "well, anyway, we have to thank you because you're being kind." the passer-by said, "well, i'll do it another way." the passer-by then raised his cane and hit him in the thighs of a wise man.

the smart guy jumped in pain and immediately recovered his own leg.

so he rushed back to the village.

the passers-by helped every smart man find his leg in the same way.

finally, they all rushed out of the crowd and returned to the village.

"it's amazing!" back in silent village, a smart guy said, "it was good to hit with a stick.

if we sit there and think about it, even if we've spent a hundred years thinking about it, i'm afraid we won't get our legs back." the four wise men of silent village have decided to sit there and stare at a lighted candle for a week without talking.

on the first day of the evening, the candle was wiped out by a wind.

the first smart guy said, "oh, the candle went out." the second wise man said, "didn't you agree that no one should talk?" the third smart guy said, "why are you two breaking the rules?" the fourth smart guy smiled and said, "ha! i'm the only one not talking." hide the big bellOne day, the smart guy from Silent Village heard that the enemy was coming to rob the village.

They then decided to hide all the valuables in the village.

In their view, the most precious thing in the village was the church bell, so they took it off and were ready to hide it in the most secret place.

"Where can I hide?" asked a wise man.

"Throw it to the bottom of the pond." Another smart man answered.

"Agree!" They said lift the clock to the shore and load it on the boat.

Then they took the boat to the middle of the pond and threw the clock into the water.

“The clock is now safe,” said a wise man, “How do we find it when the enemy leaves?” A smart guy says, "Isn't it simple? Let's make a mark where the clock falls." After that, he grabbed the knife from his pocket and carved a dent in the boat gang.

"This is where the big bell fell," he said.

So these smart people were happy to leave the pond。