Origin: Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 02:41 PM

The two-wheel, no-pedal bicycle propelled by the "rider's" legs was also called a dandy horse.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: GUEST,Ian
Date: 31 Mar 00 - 02:54 PM

A cock horse is simply a stallion - why all this erudite conversation? For any unconvinced doubters, go to Tupsley on the outskirts of Hereford for a pint at "The Cock at Tupsley" where there is a splendid sign showing a Shire stallion - NOT a cockerel, rooster or COCK BIRD!

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: GUEST,David Miller
Date: 02 Jan 06 - 06:37 AM

The woman in question was Lady Katherine Banbury, wife of Lord Jonathan Banbury. Miss Amy Banbury, sub matron of Auckland hospital, New Zealand (my grandfather's cousin) recalled after World War I her grandfather, Squire of Burford near Banbury in Oxfordshire, telling her that he distinctly recalled the white horse on which the "fine lady" used to ride. Among Lady Banbury's jewels were many very beautiful rings of which she was very fond. The bells were the tiny bells often used in those days to trim the edges of a lady's velvet saddle cloth. Miss Amy Banbury had a copy of the music written for the rhyme by a well known musician of the day, along with fine oak furniture from Banbury Castle.

These matters were reported in the New Zealand Herald some years after the end of World War I (undated) - I have a copy of the article.

David Miller
Korokoro
Lower Hutt
New Zealand

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Viracocha
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 01:35 PM

TO David Miller: As another possible origin, I've heard a few people state it was "to see FINNES lady" (not 'a fine' lady), and checking on google gave me a page saying: "Who she [the 'fine lady'] really was is a matter of controversy. Some say she was Queen Elizabeth I herself, others she was Lady Godiva. Another probable theory claims that she belonged to the Finnes (pronounced as 'fains') family, the lords of the nearby Broughton Castle."

Interestingly, another page on the same site gave:
"One of the possible interpretations of the poem identifies the 'fine lady' as Queen Elizabeth I, who travelled all the way to Banbury to see the newly erected enormous stone cross.

"While the rings obviously refer to the jewelry a queen would wear, the bells probably refer to the fashion of wearing pointed shoes with bells attached favoured by the nobility of the time.

"As Banbury was situated at the top of a steep hill, a white cock horse (a large stallion) was provided by the town's council to help carriages up the steep slope. When the queen's carriage was going up the hill, one of the wheels broke. So the Queen mounted the horse and made the rest of the journey on horseback. The people of Banbury had decorated the horse with ribbons and bells and provided minstrels to accompany her, hence the 'music wherever she goes'."

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Rumncoke
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 03:41 PM

And I always thought that an equine cock horse was simply one which lifted its front feet high when trotting, so bringing its leg horisontal, a Human cock horse was just the thigh for a baby to be jounced on - and that in days past the request to 'cock up' meant to put your foot up against a wall or on a suport of some kind so that your mate could climb up on your thigh in order, for instance, to reach the apples or other fruit dangling temptingly overhead.

My mother's mother had a large collection of old books, from visiting auction houses to furnish her large old house between the wars, and most of them predated the motor car, so the hours spent reading there did rather antiquate my vocabulary.

I have also heard the term cock horse for the extra horse used to help get vehicles up hills, but as Hackneys are high trotting and also used to pull carriages I though that was the connection.

My Grandad used the term 'cock(ed) up' for 'prick(ed) up' - as in what a dog does with its ears.

I suspect that it is simply an alteration in the naughtiness of words.

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 04:18 PM

COCK-HORSE
Earliest quotations in print, from Oxford English Dictionary.
Definition and comments: "It is not clear whether 'cock-horse' was originally the name of a plaything, as it appears to have been by 1577, or whether the phrase 'on (a)cock-horse merely meant in a position (as e. g. on the knee) which was likened to that of being on horseback."

"A. sb. 1. orig. Apparently a nursery term, applied to anything a child rides astride on, as a stick with a horse's head, a hobby-horse, any one's leg or knee."
1540-1 Elyot, "Image Gov." The dotying pleasure to see my littell soonne ride on a cokhorse.
1577 Harrison "England" iii... We oft exchange our finest cloth, corne, tin and woolies for halfe penis* cockhorses for children." *half-penny
1621 Burton "Anat. Mel." Sometimes he would ride a cockhorse with his children.
...2. mounted (as on a horse), astride.
1564-78 Bulleyn "Dial. agst. Pest." (1888) The Drake with all the water foules did stoupe lowe and receive their carriage, and when they were all a cockehorse together they wente into the water.
1584 R. Scot "Discov. Witcher...." They passe...so far in so little a space on cock-horse (on broomsticks).

In "The Oxford Nursery Rhyme Book," Iona and Peter Opie, section on Knee Rides, p. 13: (No. CCV in Halliwell, 1846)

Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To buy little Johnny a galloping horse;
It trots behind and it ambles before,
And Johnny shall ride till he can ride no more

p. 40: A version given previously:
Ride ..., To see a fine lady upon a white horse; Rings on her fingers ...

S. Baring-Gould, 1895, "A Book of Nursery Songs and Rhymes," Nursery Jingle XXXIII:
Ride a cock horse
To Banbury Cross,
To see an old woman
Upon a grey horse,
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall make music wherever she goes.

Jingle XXXIV: (CCIV in Halliwell, 1846)
Ride a cock horse
To Banbury Cross,
To see what Tommy can buy.
A white penny loaf,
A white penny cake,
And a twopenny apple pie.

In a 1901 Mother Goose:
To see an old lady upon a white horse ...
Also in Halliwell, 1853, "Nursery Rhymes and Nursery Tales of England."

To see a Fyne lady ride on a white horse ...

The first appearance was in Gammer Garton's Garland, 1784. I haven't checked the original, but it seems to be:
Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross,
To see a fine lady upon a white horse;
Rings on her fingers and bells on her toes,
And she shall have music wherever she goes.
(not in 1810 Garland)

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Gurney
Date: 28 Jul 07 - 09:10 PM

When I learned it, in Nuneaton, ten miles from Banbury, it was hoss, not horse.
Only the poshest of Englishmen would rhyme 'horse' with 'cross.' So if you pronounce it that way, how can it be a 'Folk' rhyme? Heh heh.

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Darowyn
Date: 29 Jul 07 - 03:52 AM

Viracocha,
I bought a motorbike from Banbury earlier this year, and I promise you , the nearest steep hill is the Cotswolds, over five miles away from the market square.
While we were there, we has lunch in the Fine Lady restaurant, attached to the Banbury Cross pub.
The Bike, by wonderful coincidence, has the reg letters LDY. - and is called Lady, of course.
I do recall a radio broadcast which insists that the rhyme should refer to Coventry Cross, and is about Lady Godiva- which is the presumed excuse for the pictures of naked fine ladies on view in Banbury,
Cheers
Dave

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Jul 07 - 12:04 PM

All the stories are interesting, but are sheer speculation.

Subject: RE: Info req: ride a cock horse
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 29 Jul 07 - 02:48 PM

ODNR refers to most of them, but should not be taken as necessarily endorsing any. Note that, of the 'Fiennes' lady story, they mention that 'the 19th Baron Saye and Sele' [Fiennes] '... suspected that his father, a noted wit (author of an autobiography Hear Saye) himself invented the Fiennes version.' The Opies suspected that the 'Coventry Cross' version was comparatively recent, and also point out that in Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784) and most other early examples, the lady is 'an old woman'.

Many of the quotes from (unidentified) websites in this discussion are (unacknowledged) quotations from ODNR, though in some cases altered to exaggerate their significance. The Opies don't refer, of course, to the inevitable 'pagan origins' stories, which are merely romantic fantasy.

Joe stated earlier (7 years ago; this is an old thread recently revived) that the Opies 'guess the song comes from the 15th century'; they don't actually say that. What they do say is 'Again, though it would seem unlikely that the rhyme originated very long after the cross was destroyed, there were, in fact, other, inferior crosses at Banbury, and the memory of the big cross always lingered.' Bear in mind that 'the turn of the 16th century' means the end of that century, not the beginning: the High Cross at Banbury was demolished in 1600, as has already been mentioned.

David Miller's story is new to me, though. Whether or not it can be considered a possibility as it stands would depend on whether or not Amy Banbury's grandfather was old enough to have been alive in the second half of the 18th century, when we know that the rhyme was current.

There are other problems, of course. It seems that none of the 18th century earls of Banbury was called Jonathan. The title apparently lapsed in 1813; the hereditary peerage Baron Banbury of Southam being a later creation (1924) and not related to the original, being named for the surname Banbury, not the place. Banbury Castle, also mentioned, was demolished in the aftermath of the Civil War.

On the whole I'd think that particular 'explanation' to be just one of those interesting pieces of folklore that arise in families and which turn out, if looked into a bit, to have very little foundation in fact.

For more on the rather vexed history of the earldom of Banbury, see (for example):

The House of Knollys

Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton