16th century, Europe, France, French, primary source, quotes
The king-fool duopoly seems, according to the reliable Rabelais, to have a celestial underpinning. I trust that ‘king’ is used capaciously to include queens and other rulers … Kings and fools are born under the same horoscope. Un mesme...
20th century, Europe, fictive fool, Germany, Hebrew / Yiddish, primary source, quotes, stories
From a late 20th century novel set in a concentration camp, the story highlights the fearlessness (or recklessness) of court fool types, including in this case, dwarfs. Here a character alludes to the ease with which a dwarf might hide under a table and, in knowing...
16th century, bibliography, book, canon, Europe, fictive fool, Latin, Netherlands, primary source, quotes
Rulers, for all the advantages they enjoy, seem to me in one respect most disadvantaged: they’ve nobody from whom they can hear the truth; in place of friends they’re lumbered with flatterers. p. 45The Moriae Encomium by Erasmus (1469-1536), written in...
19th century, fictive fool, primary source, quotes, Russia, Russian
GAP MAP:Â A gaping hole in our knowledge of jesters, at least in materials available in European languages, concerns examples from Russia. It would do a great service to foolology (fool studies) if a Russian scholar were to dive in and see if they can find more. Â In...
17th century, Europe, fictive fool, primary source, quotes, Spain, Spanish
This website and the book which inspired it both seek to address this complaint, attributed to the perhaps real but probably fictive 17th century Spanish jester, Estebanillo González, who laments that the history books generally remain ‘silent in the face of...
19th century, Europe, fictive fool, Hungarian, Hungary, primary source, quotes, stories
This is from a superb and absorbing trilogy which chronicles the self-induced decline of the Hungarian aristocracy in the years leading to the First World War. The author was describing his own class and its disappearing world, with insight, realism, compassion,...
19th century, fictive fool, primary source, quotes, Russia, Russian, stories
I liked this example of a fool in a Russian household, as described by Tolstoy in War and Peace. I also like the buffoon’s nonsense response to a question that is in some ways unanswerable. See another reference to a female fool in the same novel. ‘Nastasya...
India, primary source, quotes, stories
There is a class of stories featuring jesters requesting favours or gifts from the ruler. Many jesters were dwarfs, and here we have a god disguised as a dwarf couching a request to a king in humble terms.It costs Bali his throne and sees him kicked all the way to...
