Wise Men of Gotham
The Wise Men of Gotham is a traditional English legend originating from the village of Gotham in Nottinghamshire. The name was originally given to the townspeople in reference to a clever ruse they supposedly played to avoid a royal visit.
According to the tale, King John once planned to pass through Gotham. At the time, any road the monarch traveled would be declared a public highway, something the villagers wished to avoid. In response, the people of Gotham pretended to be mad. When the king’s messengers arrived, they found the villagers engaged in ludicrous and nonsensical tasks: one group tried to drown an eel in a pond; another was dragging carts onto a barn roof to provide shade for firewood; some were rolling cheeses down a hill in hopes they would find their own way to market in Nottingham; and yet others were building a hedge around a cuckoo perched on a bush to keep it from escaping. Convinced that the village was full of fools, the messengers advised the king to stay away. The townsfolk, pleased with the success of their deception, famously quipped, “We ween there are more fools pass through Gotham than remain in it.”
The phrase “Wise Men of Gotham” became a proverb for foolishness, although with a wink of cleverness underneath. By the fifteenth century, the phrase “fools of Gotham” appeared in the Towneley Mysteries, and in the sixteenth century, a compilation of tales titled Merrie Tales of the Mad Men of Gotham was published. Though the author is listed as “A.B. of Phisicke Doctour,” the work was often attributed—likely wrongly—to Andrew Borde, a noted wit and physician of the time.
The legend also lives on in a nursery rhyme indexed as Roud Folk Song #19695:
Three wise men of Gotham,
They went to sea in a bowl,
And if the bowl had been stronger,
My song would have been longer.
First printed in Mother Goose's Melody around 1765, the rhyme has since appeared in many children’s collections.
The story’s reach extended far beyond England. In Rights of Man (1791), Thomas Paine referenced the “wise men of Gotham” in a satirical jab at Edmund Burke. In 1807, Washington Irving nicknamed New York City “Gotham” in his Salmagundi Papers, alluding to the original village’s blend of cunning and absurdity.
The name would go on to achieve iconic status in American pop culture. Gotham City, the fictional home of Batman, takes its name from the same English village. In Batman Chronicles #6 (1996), a journal entry explains that the city was named for Gotham, England—“where, according to common belief, all are bereft of their wits.” The rhyme itself is quoted by the Joker in The Batman of Arkham (2000). DC Comics later acknowledged the real Gotham in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #206 (2006) and again in 52 #27 (2007), though the connection between the English village and the American city remains playful rather than official.
In response to this cultural link, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani once remarked that it was "a pleasure to have this opportunity to acknowledge the cultural and historical link" between Gotham, Nottinghamshire and New York City.