Among the numerous stories of the Gothamites preserved orally, but not found in the collection of "A.B., of Phisicke Doctour," is the following, which seems to be of Indian extraction:
One day some men of Gotham were walking by the riverside, and came to a place where the contrary currents caused the water to boil as in a whirlpool. "See how the water boils!" says one. "If we had plenty of oatmeal," says another, "we might make enough porridge to serve all the village for a month." So it was resolved that part of them should go to the village and fetch their oatmeal, which was soon brought and thrown into the river. But there presently arose the question of how they were to know when the porridge was ready. This difficulty was overcome by the offer of one of the company to jump in, and it was agreed that if he found it ready for use, he should signify the same to his companions. The man jumped in, and found the water deeper than he expected. Thrice he rose to the surface, but said nothing. The others, impatient at his remaining so long silent, and seeing him smack his lips, took this for an avowal that the porridge was good, and so they all jumped in after him and were drowned.
Another traditional Gothamite story is related of a villager coming home at a late hour and, seeing the reflection of the moon in a horse-pond, believed it to be a green cheese, and roused all his neighbours to help him to draw it out. They raked and raked away until a passing cloud sank the cheese, when they returned to their homes grievously disappointed.[10]—This is also related of the villagers near the Marlborough Downs, in Wiltshire, and the sobriquet of "moon-rakers," applied to Wiltshire folk in general, is said to have had its origin in the incident; but they assert that it was a keg of smuggled brandy, which had been sunk in a pond, that the villagers were attempting to fish up, when the exciseman coming suddenly upon the scene, they made him believe they were raking the reflection of the moon, thinking it a green cheese, an explanation which is on a par with the apocryphal tale of the Gothamites and the messengers of King John.
The absurd notion of the moon being a fine cheese is of very respectable antiquity, and occurs in the noodle-stories of many countries. It is referred to by Rabelais, and was doubtless the subject of a popular French tale in his time. In the twenty-second story of the Disciplina Clericalis of Peter Alfonsus, a Spanish Jew, who was baptised in 1106, a fox leaves a wolf in a well, looking after a supposed cheese, made by the image of the moon in the water; and the same fable had been told by the Talmudists in the fifth century.[11] The well-known "Joe Miller" of the party of Irishmen who endeavoured to reach a "green cheese" in the river by hanging one by another's legs finds its parallel in a Mecklenburg story, in which some men by the same contrivance tried to get a stone from the bottom of a well, and the incident is thus related in the old English jest-book entitled The Sacke Full of Newes:
There were three young men going to Lambeth along by the waterside, and one played with the other, and they cast each other's caps into the water in such sort as they could not get their caps again. But over the place where their caps were did grow a great old tree, the which did cover a great deal of the water. One of them said to the rest, "Sirs, I have found a notable way to come by them. First I will make myself fast by the middle with one of your girdles unto the tree, and he that is with you shall hang fast upon my girdle, and he that is last shall take hold on him that holds fast on my girdle, and so with one of his hands he may take up all our caps, and cast them on the sand." And so they did; but when they thought that they had been most secure and fast, he that was above felt his girdle slack, and said, "Soft, sirs! My girdle slacketh." "Make it fast quickly," said they. But as he was untying it to make it faster they fell all three into the water, and were well washed for their pains.
Closely allied to these tales is the Russian story of the old man who planted a cabbage-head in the cellar, under the floor of his cottage, and, strange to say, it grew right up to the sky. He climbs up the cabbage-stalk till he reaches the sky. There he sees a mill, which gives a turn, and out come a pie and a cake, with a pot of stewed grain on the top. The old man eats his fill and drinks his fill; then he lies down to sleep. By-and-bye he awakes, and slides down to earth again.