Fool (stock character)

Thus there are the people of Coggeshall, Essex, the "carles" of Austwick, Yorkshire, the "gowks" of Gordon, Berwickshire, and for many centuries the charge of folly has been made against silly Suffolk and Norfolk (Descriptio Norfolciensium about twelfth century, printed in Wright's Early Mysteries and other Latin Poems).

There are also the Swedish Täljetokar from Södertälje and Kälkborgare from Kälkestad, and the Danish tell tales of the foolish inhabitants of the Molboland.

The following saying helps to tell them apart: a schlemiel is a man who spills hot soup on a schlimazl: the first one is clueless, while the second one is luckless.

[5] Numbskull/noodlehead stories are about well-meaning folks who take advice too literally to their own grievance or who find the most complicated solution to the most simple problem.

Some classify jesters into two categories: "natural fools" (people who lacked social awareness and could occasionally utter the truth simply being unaware of social conventions) and "licensed fools" (often picked to be jester for their physical handicap, and telling the truth was simply part of their "job description").

In scenarios of this kind a simpleton, a laughing stock in the end wins big, usually a princess or a kingdom, or wealth, or all the above.