An Origin Story for The Fool
The Pedlar of Swaffham
Hundreds of years ago in Swaffham in Norfolk, England, there lived a poor pedlar by the name of John Chapman. He worked hard to sell his wares and was always about with a pack on his back and his dog at his heels. One night he had the most peculiar dream. In the dream he stood beside London Bridge and a voice said that if he did this he would hear good news. He ignored the dream as nothing but a passing fancy. But when the dream repeated the next night and the next night after that, he resolved to make the trip to London town.
He found London Bridge easy enough as well as the place he had been standing in his dream. He took up the station with his dog ever-so-faithfully beside him. But by the end of that first day, though he had heard many things from the passers-by, nothing sounded like the good news prophesied by his dream. And the second day was much the same. Now, on the third day, just as he was contemplating his journey home, a shopkeeper came over to speak with the pedlar. “Good fellow, though I am not sure you aren’t a fool, I’ve watched you from my hat shop for three days. You sell nothing, you beg for nothing. What are you doing here?”
“To tell you the truth, I have come here because of a dream in which I stood by London Bridge and heard good news,” the pedlar explained.
“Then you are, indeed, the fool I took you for. Why I had a dream three nights running, in which I stood in an orchard behind the house of a pedlar who lives in Swaffham, a place, I daresay, I’ve never heard of and probably doesn’t exist. In my dream I stood beside an old oak tree and thought that if I digged I should find a treasure. Anyone can dream of treasure. And fancy me travelling to a place I’ve never heard of for a dream of a treasure beneath a tree? What a fool I would be! And I would deserve it if I should lose my hat shop. Take my advice and be off with you, go home, mind your own business.”
The pedlar thanked the shopkeeper for his advice and made his way home. He digged beneath the old oak tree and found a large box with an inscription carved into the lid that he could not read. The box was filled with treasure. He placed the lid with its inscription in his window and after some time some school children came by who could read Latin and they said, “look, that writing says,
Under me doth lie
Another much richer than I”
The pedlar, hearing this, dug more deeply beneath his old oak tree and found a treasure much greater than the first. Thus made rich, he hired men to repair Swaffham church. And today in Swaffham you can see statues and images in windows and on signs of the pedlar and his faithful dog.
The Rector of Swaffham between 1435 and 1474 made an inventory of building and repair work done to the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul. And this tome is now known as the’Swaffham Black Book’, and in it we discover that in the mid-15th century the North Aisle of the church was rebuilt. And what is more, this renovation work was paid for by a fellow named John Chapman. And as part of this building work, new pews were installed and two of them are of particular interest for us: for their carved ends show a pedlar and his dog.
Similar legends can be found throughout Europe and the Middle East.
The earliest version of this tale is one of the poems of the Mathanawi titled "In Baghdad, Dreaming of Cairo: In Cairo, Dreaming of Baghdad", by 13th-century Persian poet Jalal al-Din Rumi.
“The treasure that we are looking for is hidden in our own house”
(i.e. what you are looking for is to be found in yourself)