Grafton Crested China: Lady on Horseback - "Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross" Nursery rhyme : Banbury crest
Grafton Crested China: Lady on Horseback - "Ride cock horse to Banbury Cross" Nursery Rhyme
Manufacturer: Grafton China
Crest: Banbury
Condition: Superb model in very good condition with no chips, cracks or restoration - see pics.
wikipedia:
"Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross" is an English
language nursery rhyme connected with the English town Banbury in Oxfordshire.
Ride a cock-horse
To Banbury Cross,
To see what Tommy can buy;
A penny white loaf,
A penny white cake,
And a two-penny apple-pie.
A reference in 1725 to 'Now on Cock-horse does he ride' may
allude to this or the more famous rhyme, and is the earliest indication we have
that they existed. The earliest surviving version of the modern rhyme in Gammer
Gurton's Garland or The Nursery Parnassus, printed in London in 1784,
differs significantly from modern versions in that the subject is not a fine
lady but "an old woman". The version printed in Tommy
Thumb's Song Book in America in 1788, which may have been in the
original (c. 1744) edition, has the "fine lady", but the next extant
version, in The Tom Tit's Song Book (printed in London around
1790), had:
A ring on her finger,
A bonnet of straw,
The strangest old woman
That ever you saw.
Interpretations
The instability of the early
recorded lyrics has not prevented considerable speculation about the meaning of
the rhyme.
A medieval date had been argued for the rhyme on the grounds
that the bells worn on the lady's toes refer to the fashion of wearing bells on
the end of shoes in the fifteenth century, but given their absence from so many
early versions, this identification is speculative. Similarly, the main Banbury
Cross was taken down around 1600, but other crosses were present in the
town and, as is often the case, the place may have retained the name, so it is
difficult to argue for the antiquity of the rhyme from this fact.
A "cock horse" can mean a high-spirited horse, and the
additional horse to assist pulling a cart or carriage up a hill. It can also
mean an entire or uncastrated horse. From the mid-sixteenth century it also
meant a pretend hobby horse or an adult's knee. There is also an
expression "a-cock-horse", meaning "astride". The Cock
Hotel, Stony Stratford of 'Cock and Bull' fame might also have been the
supplier of the horse for the leg of the journey to Banbury.
Despite not being present or significantly different in many
early versions, the fine lady has been associated with Queen
Elizabeth I, Lady Godiva, and Celia Fiennes, whose brother was
William Fiennes, 3rd Viscount Saye and Sele (c. 1641–1698) of Broughton
Castle, Banbury, on the grounds that the line should be 'To see a Fiennes
lady'. There is no corroborative evidence to support any of these cases.
Check out my other crested china pieces on eBay this week. I
will combine postage if more than one item bought.