When that Good Friday was come, the men of Gotham did cast their heads together what to do with their white herring, their red herring, their sprats, and salt fish.  One consulted with the other, and agreed that such fish should be cast into a pond or pool (the which was in the middle of the town), that it might increase the next year; and every man did cast them into the pool.  The one said, “I have thus many white herrings;” another said, “I have thus many sprats;” another said, “I have thus many salt fishes; let us all go together into the pool, and we shall fare like lords the next Lent.”  At the beginning of next Lent the men did draw the pond, to have their fish, and there was nothing but a great eel.  “Ah,” said they all, “a mischief on this eel, for he hath eat up all our fish!” “What shall we do with him?” said the one to the other.  “Kill him!” said one of them.  “Chop him all to pieces!” said another.  “Nay, not so,” said the other; “let us drown him.”  “Be it so,” said all.  They went to another pool, and did cast the eel into the water.  “Lie there,” said they, “and shift for thyself, for no help thou shalt have of us;” and there they left the eel to be drowned.

Campbell’s Gaelic story differs so little from the above that we must suppose it to have been derived directly from the English chap-book.  Oral tradition always produces local variations from a written story, of which we have an example in a Gaelic version of this choice exploit: 

There was a man of Gotham who went to the market of Nottingham to sell cheese; and as he was going down the hill to Nottingham Bridge, one of his cheeses fell out of his wallet and ran down the hill.  “Ah,” said the fellow, “can you run to the market alone?  I will now send one after the other;” then laying down the wallet and taking out the cheeses, he tumbled them down the hill one after the other; and some ran into one bush, and some into another; so at last he said, “I do charge you to meet me in the market-place.”  And when the man came into the market to meet the cheeses, he stayed until the market was almost done, then went and inquired of his neighbours and other men if they did see his cheeses come to market.  “Why, who should bring them?” said one of the neighbours.  “Marry, themselves,” said the fellow; “they knew the way well enough,” said he:  “a vengeance on them!  For I was afraid to see my cheeses run so fast, that they would run beyond the market.  I am persuaded that they are at this time almost as far as York.”  So he immediately takes a horse and rides after them to York; but to this day no man has ever heard of the cheeses.

In one Gaelic variant a woman is going to Inverness with a basket filled with balls of worsted of her own spinning, and going down a hill, one of the balls tumbles out and rolls along briskly, upon which she sends the others after it, holding the ends of each in her hand; and when she reaches the town, she finds a “ravelled hank” instead of her neat balls of worsted.  In another version a man goes to market with two bags of cheese, and sends them downhill, like the Gothamite.  After waiting at the market all day in vain, he returns home, and tells his wife of his misfortune.  She goes to the foot of the hill and finds all the cheese.