Cockaigne

For the genealogist George Edward Cokayne or his work see Cokayne's Complete Peerage.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder's The Land of Cockaigne, painted in 1567. Oil on panel. Currently in the collection of the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany.

Cockaigne was a medieval land, a mythical land of plenty, where all the harshness of medieval peasant life did not exist.

Contents

1 Etymology of ''Cockaigne''
2 Descriptions
3 Traditions
4 ''Cockaigne'' in the arts
5 See also
6 Notes
7 External links and references

Etymology of Cockaigne

The word Cockaigne derives from Middle English cokaygne, traced to Middle French (païs de) cocaigneThe modern French is cocagne, a dolt. "(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, where cucaña is the cognate word for "fool", an equivalent place of Cockaigne is named Jauja, after a rich mining region of the Andes.

In the 1820s, the name Cockaigne came to be applied jocularly to LondonOED notes a first usage in 1824., as the land of Cockneys"Cockney" from a "cock's egg", an implausible creature., 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 village Kockengen was 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 one Columbia University Press reference,

... 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, Cockaigne was a

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

Traditions

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, men try to climb the pole to get the prize. The crowd laughs at the often failed attempts to hold to the pole.

Cockaigne in the arts

Cockaigne was depicted by Pieter Bruegel the Elder in The Land of Cockaigne (1567, above).
The book, Dreaming of Cockaigne, by Herman Pleij (Columbia University Press, 2001) offers the most complete modern collection of information on the topic.
The musical play, The Golden Dream, by Joe Syiek [link] tells the story of oppressed peasants who yearn for, attain and ultimately lose their ideal of Cockaigne.
The album Land of Cockayne by Soft Machine, 1981.
Cockaigne is the name of the kingdom which Princess Narda in the comic strip Mandrake the Magician comes from.
Ego sum abbas Cucaniensis (I am the Abbot of Cockaigne) is a movement in Carl Orff's secular cantata, Carmina Burana.
[Full Text of Art Historian T. J. Clark's, "II. Bruegel in the Land of Cockaigne" (beginning on page 24) from "Painting at Ground Level" 2002 Tanner Lectures on Human Values]

Notes

External links and references

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