The Origins of English Nonsense. Noel Malcolm

its content came from adapting a range of other stock literary devices. These included, most obviously, several types of impossibilia: the reversal of roles by animals (hens seizing hawks), the animation – or, to be more precise, the animal-ization – of inanimate objects (flying millstones being particularly common), and the performance by animals of complex human activities (such as spinning or building).⁶ Two other ways in which animals were treated in these poems seem to have reflected particular literary influences. First, the common imagery of animals playing musical instruments suggests a connection with the form of ecclesiastical-satirical writing in which church music and other functions were performed by animals.⁷ And secondly, the increasingly frequent references to contests and battles between different animals (and/or inanimate objects) reflects the influence of a mock-heroic or burlesque tradition which stemmed from the pseudo-Homeric Batrachomyomachia, the battle of the frogs and the mice. Given the huge popularity of the Roman de Renart, which itself depended on the device of using animals as humorous substitutes for the heroes of epic or romance, it is not surprising that this particular literary-parodic function – the function of burlesque – should have grown in importance in these German nonsense poems. And at the same time more indirect or glancing parodic relationships may have been at work with several of the other forms of beast poetry which were so popular in the Middle Ages, including the most fundamental of them all, the fable.⁸

      The ‘Lügendichtung’ genre of German nonsense poetry enjoyed a long life; but its high point was undoubtedly reached in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.⁹ One very popular example from the fourteenth century was the ‘Wachtelmäre’ or ‘quail-story’ (so called because of a refrain which counts quails in a sack, alluding to a proverbial saying about hunters who tell fibs). A long and elaborate narrative, it tells the story of a vinegar-jug who rides out to joust against the King of Nindertda in the land of Nummerdummernamen, which lies beyond Monday. Heroes of courtly epic such as Hildebrand and Dietrich of Bern also come into the story, which develops into a great battle between a hedgehog and a flying earthworm, a battle which is eventually decided by a swimming millstone.¹⁰ This poem was unusual, however, in having such a unified narrative structure; most of the Lügendichtungen are little more than strings of impossibilia, with images which are built up over a few lines at most:

       Ein schweizer spiss ein helnparten

       Die tanczten in einem hopffengarten

       Eins storchs pein und eins hasenfuss

       Die pfiffen auf zum tancz gar suss …¹¹

       A Swiss lance and a halbard

       Were dancing in a hop-field;

       A stork’s leg and a hare’s foot

       Were playing sweet dance-tunes on the pipe …

      This medieval German nonsense poetry seems to have influenced writers in both England and France. The transmission is easiest to see in the English case (though it has not apparently been noticed there before); the influence on France, which has been suggested by a number of modern writers, remains more shadowy and uncertain.

      In the case of England, just a handful of narrative animal nonsense poems survive from the Middle Ages, written probably in the mid fifteenth century. They all bear a strikingly close resemblance to the German Lügendichtung. One is a brief account of an animal battle:

       The krycket & the greshope wentyn here to fyght,

       With helme and harburyone all redy dyght;

       The flee bare the baner as a dughty knyght,

       The cherubed trumpyt with all hys myghth …¹²

       The cricket and the grasshopper went out to fight,

       Already dressed in helmet and coat of mail;

       The fly carried the banner, as a doughty knight,

       The scarab-beetle trumpeted with all his might …

      Another is a short but more chaotic description of animals and other objects fighting and making music:

       The hare and the harthestone hurtuld to-geydur,

       Whyle the hombul-be hod was hacked al to cloutus

       Ther schalmod the scheldrake and schepe trumpyd,

       [The] hogge with his hornepype hyod hym belyve,

       And dansyd on the downghhyll, whyle all thei day lasted …¹³

       The hare and the hearth-stone collided with each other,

       While the bumblebee’s hood was hacked to shreds;

       The salmon, the sheldrake and the sheep trumpeted,

       The hog came on quickly with his hornpipe

       And danced on the dunghill, so long as the day lasted …

      Another poem is a more ambitious narrative. Beginning with the sort of brief introductory formula which one finds in the German poems of this period, it moves quickly into a dense mass of comic animal impossibilia:

       Herkyn to my tale that I schall to yow schew,

       For of seche mervels have ye hard bot few;

       Yf any of them be ontrue that I schall tell yow aftur,

       Then wax I as pore as tho byschop of Chestur.

       As I rode from Durram to Dowre I fond by tho hee strete

       A fox and a fulmarde had XV fete;

       Tho scate scalldyd tho rydlyng and turnede of hys skyn;

       At the kyrke dore called the codlyng, and badd lett hym yn.

       Tho salmond sang tho hee mas, tho heyrying was hys clarke,

       On tho orgons playde tho porpas, there was a mere warke …

       I toke a peyny of my purse, and offerd to hom all.

       For this offerand was made, tho sothe yf I schall sey,

       When Midsomer evyn fell on Palmes sounnday.

       Fordurmore I went, and moo marvels I founde;

       A norchon by the fyre rostyng a greyhownde.

       There was dyverse meytes, reckyn hom yf I schall;

       Ther was raw bakon, and new sowrde all.

       Tho breme went rownd abowte, and lette hem all blode;

       Tho sow sate on hye benke, and harpyd Robyn-Howde …¹⁴

       Hearken to my tale, which I shall tell you,

       For you have heard few such marvels;

       If any of the ones I shall tell you are untrue,

       Let me become as poor as the Bishop of Chester.

       As I rode from Durham to Dover, I found in the high street

       A fox and a polecat which had fifteen feet;

       The skate scalded the redshank and skinned him;

       The codling called at the church door, and asked to be let in.

       The salmon sang the high mass, the herring was his clerk,

       The porpoise played the organ, there were merry goings-on …

       I took a penny from my purse, and offered it to them all.

       Now, this offering was made, to tell the truth,

       When Midsummer day fell on Palm Sunday.

       I went further, and found more marvels:

       A hedgehog by the fire, roasting a greyhound.

       There were various things to eat, let me tell you what they were:

       There was raw bacon, and new soured ale.

       The bream went round and took blood from them all;