The explanation of the title comes from a reference to one or other collection in William Shakespeare's play Much Ado About Nothing in which the character Beatrice has been accused 'that I had my good wit out of the 100 Merry Tales' (II.sc.1).
[3] The stories in the 1526 Hundred Merry Tales are largely set in England, mostly in London or the surrounding area, and contain the stock figures of stupid clergymen, unfaithful wives, and Welshmen, the butt of many jokes at the time.
The book's Victorian editors identified a few Italian and French sources from earlier centuries but it was mainly a depository for popular lore that was to figure in more focussed collections published later.
Among its contents are to be found two of Aesop's Fables dealing with human subjects, Of Thales the astronomer that fell in a ditch (25) and 'Of the olde woman that had sore eies (89), and two popular tales that were credited to Aesop in later collections: Of hym that sought his wyfe, that was drowned agaynst the streme (55) and Of the olde man and his sonne that brought his asse to the towne to sylle (59).
One scholar comments that the work is 'mostly drawn from Erasmus and Poggio Bracciolini, but acknowledges little of its inheritance beyond ascribing a handful of its jests to Plutarch'.