Chapter Goosey Goderich to Gottlieb of G by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Gotham (Merry Tales of the Men of), supposed to have been compiled in the reign of Henry VIII. by Andrew Borde. The legend is that king John, on his way to Lynn Regis, intended to pass through Gotham, in Nottinghamshire, with his army, and sent heralds to prepare his way. The men of Gotham were resolved, if possible, to prevent this expense and depredation, so they resolved to play the fool. Some raked the moon out of the pond, some made a ring to hedge in a bird, some did other equally foolish things, and the heralds told the king that the Gothamites were utter fools, and advised the king to go another way. So the king and his heralds were befooled, and the men of Gotham saved their bacon. But “wise as the men of Gotham” grew into a proverb to indicate a fool.

The tale about the Gothamites trying to hedge in a cuckoo by joining hands in a circle is told of several places. We are told that the inhabitants of Towednack, in Cornwall, raised a hedge round a cuckoo, which escaped, just clearing the top of the enclosure, when one of the labourers exclaimed, “What a pity we did not raise it a little higher!” Similar tales are told of the people of Coggeshall, in Essex. In fact, nearly every county has its Gotham, whose inhabitants are credited with actions equally wise. (See Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, p. 541.)

Goths (The last of the), Roderick, the thirty-fourth of the Visigothic line of kings in Spain. He was the son of Cordova, who had his eyes put out by Vitiza the king of the Visigoths, whereupon Roderick rose against Vitiza and dethroned him; but the sons and adherents of Vitiza applied to the Moors, who sent over Tarik with 90,000 men, and Roderick was slain at the battle of Xerres, a.d. 711.

Southey has an historic poem called Roderick, the Last of the Goths. He makes “Rusilla” to be the mother of Roderick.

Gothland or Gottland, an island called “The eye of the Baltic.” Geoffrey of Monmouth says that when king Arthur had added Ireland to his dominions, he sailed to Iceland, which he subdued, and then both “Doldavius king of Gothland and Gunfasius king of the Orkneys voluntarily became his tributaries.”—British History, ix. 10 (1142).

To Gothland how again this conqueror maketh forth …
Where Iceland first he won, and Orkney after got.
   —Drayton: Polyolbion, iv. (1612).

Gottlieb [Got-leeb], a cottage farmer, with whom prince Henry of Hoheneck went to live after he was struck with leprosy. The cottager’s daughter Elsie volunteered to sacrifice her life for the cure of the prince, and was ultimately married to him.—Hartmann von der Aue: Poor Henry (twelfth century). (See Longfellow’s Golden Legend.)