The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #77193   Message #3749973
Posted By: MGM·Lion
11-Nov-15 - 01:15 AM
Thread Name: Folklore: Kissing Walking Corpses
Subject: RE: Folklore: Kissing Walking Corpses
Just to make the point, which nobody appears above to have done, that 'Villikins' is not really relevant, being merely a music-hall travesty of this theme, often attribd to its original singer in 1850s, Sam Cowell, and so not actually a traditional part of it. It was a big hit, known nationwide in all classes. It will be remembered that Lewis Carroll's Alice had a cat called Dinah. In fact, the Liddell family of Christ Church Oxford, where Carroll {Dodgson} was a mathematical fellow and the Rev Dr Liddell, the original Alice's father, was Dean [ie Chaplain & so head of the college - see below], actually had two cats who were called Dinah and Villikins. NB also, in case it had not occurred to you, that 'Villikins' is a C19 cockney pronunciation [with its odd transpositions of v & w -- see Dickens passim, esp the Weller father & son in 'Pickwick Papers'] of the familiar name Wilkins.

Christ Church chapel, BTW, is huge for a college chapel, and actually serves as Oxford's cathedral. "The college is associated with Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, which serves as the college chapel and whose dean is ex officio the college head." Wikipedia

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