Ride a Cock-Horse

[Chicken]

In a book called First Songs that my wife bought the read to the Nugget, amongst some traditional favorites such as Rock-a-Bye, Baby, Yankee Doodle, and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush, one that I've never heard of stuck out...
Ride a Cock-Horse

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.

M-w.com has one entry for a cockhorse (no hyphen), as follows:

Main Entry: cock·horse
Pronunciation: 'käk-"hors
Function: noun
Etymology: perhaps from cock, adjective, (male) + horse
Date: circa 1541


Now, I've never heard this song before, but I find it a bit disturbing. Almost as disturbing as the lyrics of This Old Man which include:

This old man, he played five
He played knick-knack on my hive
Knick-knack paddywhack, give your dog a bone
This old man came rolling home
Something about old men playing knick-knack on a small child's ass just gives me the heebie-jeebies. I've noticed that in current editions of This Old Man that the school has, this verse has been completely changed.

Anywhooo... Cock-Horse??? Anyone every heard this song before?

[JeremyV]

ermm....

no cockhorse here :o:

[Jan]

Yes it is an very old *****ry rhyme.

As for knick knack paddy whack - a hive is an arse? :confused: Since when? :eek:

[suppleSupport]

Originally posted by Chicken:
Anywhooo... Cock-Horse??? Anyone every heard this song before?

Nope :bigeyes:

[zannie]

I would have to say no, I've never heard of it. Although at least when I do a search in google for Cock-Horse, the first thing that comes up is relating to the *****ry rhyme! http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=cock-horse

[Jan]

It is Mother Goose, I am surpised you yankees haven't heard of it :eek:

[Robert]

This reminds me of Andrew Dice Clay: (mods feel free to edit it)

Jack and Jill went up the hill
Both with a buck and a quarter
Jill came down with two-fifty
That freakin Hore.

Littly Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey
Along came a spider,
Sat down beside her, And said, "Hey, what's in the bowl, b**ch?"

[allan]

Yea, its been a loooong while, but I used to sing it *****ry school.

[thebyp2]

yep, both old english songs (explains it now does it :) )

used to sing both of them at primary school.

[thebyp2]

oh and in answer to your question it can be one of two things:

cock horse - very old phrase to describe a rocking horse

cockhorse - strong horse used initially used to provide the backbone of a horse team (i.e. for a wagon), then seen as the horse to ride by the landed gentry as a symbol of power or wealth.

Banbury is a town in oxfordshire in the south of england.

As far as i know, paddy whack is from a very old tradition to 'whack' somebody for each year they have been alive on their birthday. equivilent to giving somebody the bumps.

[Chicken]

Originally posted by Jan:

As for knick knack paddy whack - a hive is an arse? :confused: Since when? :eek:
Maybe I was thinking hide??? Hmmm... well if it isn't about an old man playing paddy whack on a child's ass, why was it removed from the song then? I'm confused in so many, many ways.
:confused:

Originally posted by thebyp2:

yep, both old english songs (explains it now does it :) }
Heh, yes that explains it, though your post above explained it better ;) :D

[Operator]

Originally posted by Robert:

This reminds me of Andrew Dice Clay: (mods feel free to edit it)

Jack and Jill went up the hill
Both with a buck and a quarter
Jill came down with two-fifty
That freakin Hore.

Littly Miss Muffet
Sat on a tuffet
Eating her curds and whey
Along came a spider,
Sat down beside her, And said, "Hey, what's in the bowl, b**ch?"

:eek: