Cockaigne 

For other uses, see Cockayne (disambiguation).
Pieter Bruegel the Elder's "Luilekkerland" ("The Land of Cockaigne"), painted in 1567. Oil on panel. Currently in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.

Cockaigne or Cockayne (pronounced /kɒˈkeɪn/) is a mythical medieval land of plenty, an imaginary place of extreme luxury and ease where physical comforts and pleasures are always immediately at hand and where the harshness of medieval peasant life does not exist. Specifically, in poems like The Land of Cockaigne, Cockaigne is a land of contraries, where all the restrictions of society are defied (abbots beaten by their monks), sexual liberty is open (nuns flipped over to show their bottoms), and food is plentiful (skies that rain cheeses). Writing about Cockaigne was a commonplace of Goliard verse. It represented both wish fulfillment and resentment at the strictures of asceticism and dearth.

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Etymology of Cockaigne

The word Cockaigne derives from Middle English cokaygne, traced to Middle French (pays de) cocaigne1 "(land of) plenty," ultimately adapted or derived from a word for a small sweet cake sold to children at a fair (OED). The Dutch equivalent is Luilekkerland ("lazy luscious land"), and the German equivalent is Schlaraffenland (also known as "land of milk and honey"). In Spain an equivalent place is named Jauja, after a rich mining region of the Andes, and the word "cucaña" may also mean such a place. From Swedish dialect lubber (fat lazy fellow) comes Lubberland,2 popularized in the ballad An Invitation to Lubberland.

In the 1820s, the name Cockaigne came to be applied jocularly to London3, as the land of Cockneys4, and thus "Cockaigne", though the two aren't linguistically connected otherwise. The composer Elgar used the title "Cockaigne" for his overture (1901) and suite evoking the people of London.

The Dutch villages of Kockengen and Koekange were named after Cockaigne.

Descriptions

Like Atlantis and El Dorado, the land of Cockaigne was a fictional utopia, a place where, in a parody of paradise, idleness and gluttony were the principal occupations. In Specimens of Early English Poets (1790), George Ellis printed a 13th century French poem called "The Land of Cockaigne" where

the houses were made of barley sugar and cakes, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing.

According to Columbia University Press' reference to Herman Pleij's Dreaming of Cockaigne (2001) [3],

roasted pigs wander about with knives in their backs to make carving easy, where grilled geese fly directly into one's mouth, where cooked fish jump out of the water and land at one's feet. The weather is always mild, the wine flows freely, sex is readily available, and all people enjoy eternal youth.

According to the New York Public Library (ref.), Cockaigne was a

medieval peasant’s dream, offering relief from backbreaking labor and the daily struggle for meager food.

The Brothers Grimm collected and retold the fairy tale in The Tale About the Land of Cockaigne (Das Märchen vom Schlaraffenland).

Traditions

Greasing the pole during the Tomatina festival of Buñol, Spain.

A Neapolitan tradition, extended to other Latin-culture countries, is the Cockaigne pole, a horizontal or vertical pole with a prize (like a ham) at one end. The pole is covered with grease or soap and planted during a festival. Then, daring people try to climb the slippery pole to get the prize. The crowd laughs at the often failed attempts to hold to the pole.

Cockaigne in the arts

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The modern French is cocagne, a dolt.
  2. ^ Today's wwftd is... Worthless words for the day, by Michael A. Fischer.
  3. ^ OED notes a first usage in 1824.
  4. ^ "Cockney" from a "cock's egg", an implausible creature (see also basilisk).
  5. ^ See articles in Cincinnati Enquirer, October 25, 2006,[1] and on CBS News website, November 1, 2006.[2]

External links and references