Another fool owned a house together with some other folk, and he said one day, “I want to sell the half of it which is my share and buy the other half, so that the whole building may be mine.”
From earliest times the stupid or blundering fellow has been the butt of his comrades’ shafts of wit or sarcasm.
The feeling of superiority, so delightful to the human mind, found easy expression in jeering at the discomfiture of the noodle.
More often than not, noodle stories are told of residents of some particular locality or district, whose people are looked upon as simpletons. Doubtless this originally meant merely country people, who were provincial or outlandish compared to the city bred.
But as the Greeks chose Bœotia for their noodle colony and the Persians guyed the people of Emessa, so each country has had a location or a community for its laughing stock down to the Gothamites of the English.
As a rule the same noodle stories are found in many languages, and only an exhaustive study of comparative folk lore can adequately consider the various tales.
As an instance, there is the story, of Eastern origin, that may be found in the booby tales of all nations. It has come down in late years in the form of a play, called in a German version, “Der Tisch Ist Gedeckt” and in an English form, “The Obstinate Family.”
In the Arabian tale,