Cockaigne, Land of

The rivers in Cockaigne are of wine, the pavements of pastry, and the houses of cake, and visitors from the real world are bemused to find roast geese and fowls wandering around requesting that they be eaten, while buttered larks fall from the sky: etc. etc. These and other gastronomic features of the imaginary land vary from culture to culture. Thus in Italy there are mountains of Parmesan, while in Ireland, according to ‘the Vision of MacConglinne’ (thought to date back to the end of the 12th century) there are such strange visions as ‘A loch of pottage fat Under a cream of oozy lard’, and ‘A forest tall of real leeks, Of onions and of carrots’, besides ‘Hedges of butter’. However, despite the numerous variations, the core idea is remarkably consistent in early European literature.