Noodle, Nitwit, Numskull

Edith Fowke is a professor emeritus at York University and author of the
recently published Canadian Folklore: Perspectives on Canadian Culture.

Tales of fools, noodles, or numbskulls are told in every country. This
little book is a collection of Yiddish folktales from Poland that
describe various events in the life of a fool called
Schlemiel—(“schlemiel” being a Yiddish word for a fool).

Schlemiel lives in a village where the other inhabitants are as foolish
as he, and each tale provides another example of his foolishness. He
can’t find his clothes in the morning, and finally is unable to find
himself. He dreams of gaining great riches from a hen and her chicks
that wander into his yard, and ends by letting them wander away. He and
his friends stock a pond with salt fish, expecting them to multiply for
the next season. He tries many ways to tell his donkey from his
friend’s, not noticing that his is white and the other is black. He
manages to kill a turkey with his stick, and ever afterward sits on his
doorstep with his stick waiting for another to come along.

The main charm of this book is the delightful silhouette illustrations
that point up each incident in the tales, and convey the atmosphere of a
medieval Polish village.