The first recorded use of the phrase in English was in John Day's 1608 play Law-trickes or Who Would Have Thought It:

What a tale of a cock and a bull he told my father.

The inns on Watling Street

The Cock and the Bull inns in Stony Stratford were staging posts for rival coach lines on Watling Street , the London–Birmingham turnpike road.[lower-alpha 1] It is said that local people, regarding the passengers staying at the inns as a source of news, were told fanciful stories; there was even rivalry between the two inns as to who could tell the most outlandish story.[1][2] These inns are still in existence: the Cock Hotel is documented to have existed [in one form or another] on the current site since at least 1470; the present building dates from 1742.[1] The history of The Bull is less well documented but is certainly older than 1600; the present building is "late eighteenth century".[3]

According to another source, the rival inns were in Fenny Stratford, a nearby town also on Watling Street,[4] but no such hostelries exist there today.

There is no reliable support for the Watling Street etymology of the phrase.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Stony Stratford is a constituent town of Milton Keynes in Buckinghamshire. Watling Street, subsequently called the A5 until the latter was diverted (twice) around the town, is Stony Stratford's High Street.

References

  1. 1 2 Historic England. "The Cock Hotel (1310973)". National Heritage List for England.
  2. ↑ Quinion, Michael. "Cock and bull story". worldwidewords.org. Retrieved 5 March 2021.
  3. ↑ Historic England. "The Bull Hotel (1332253)". National Heritage List for England.
  4. ↑ Rouse, E. Clive (1936). The Old Towns of England. Batsford Books. p. 66.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.