COCKAIGNE (COCKAYNE),

See also:

• LAND

LAND OF (O. Fr. Coquaigne, mod. Fr. cocagne, " abundance," from Ital. Cocagna; " as we say ` Lubberland,' the epicure's or

See also:

• GLUTTON, or WOLVERINE (Gulo luscus)

glutton's

See also:

• HOME
• HOME, DANIEL DUNGLAS (1833-1886)
• HOME, EARLS OF

home, the land of all delights, so taken in mockerie ":

See also:

• FLORIO, GIOVANNI (1553?-1625)

Florio)  , an imaginary country, a medieval Utopia where life was a continual round of luxurious idleness . The origin of the Italian word has been much disputed . It seems safest to connect it, as do Grimm and Littre, ultimately with Lat. coquere, through a word meaning " cake," the literal sense thus being " The Land of Cakes." In Cockaigne the rivers were of wine, the houses were built of cake and barley-sugar, the streets were paved with pastry, and the shops supplied goods for nothing . Roast geese and fowls wandered about inviting folks to eat them, and buttered larks fell from the skies like manna . There is a 13th-century French fabliau, Cocaigne, which was possibly intended to ridicule the fable of the mythical Avalon, " the island of the Blest." The 13th-century English poem, The Land of Cockaygne, is a satire on monastic life . The term has been humorously applied to London, and by Boileau to the Paris of the rich . The word has been frequently confused with Cockney (q.v.) . See D . M . Won, Fabliaux et conies (4 vols., 1808), and F . J . Furnivall, Early English Poems (Berlin, 1862) .