Cockabendy

DESCRIPTION: "Cockabendy's lyin' sick Guess ye what'll mend him?" Twenty kisses. "Dinna gi'e the lasses drink, Dinna gi'e them brandy": give them cinammon sticks and lumps of sugar. Cockabendy had a wife who did strange things.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1850 (Bulloch 1907)
KEYWORDS: courting sex bawdy humorous nonballad
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Greig/Duncan8 1721, "Cockabendy" (3 texts, 2 tunes)
Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 30, "Uncle John(I)"; Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 30, p. 160, "(Cockie Bendie's lyin' sick)"; Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 31, "Uncle John(II)" (5 texts, although many of them are "Uncle John is Sick Abed")
ADDITIONAL: John Bulloch, editor,Scottish Notes and Queries (Aberdeen, 1905 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. VI, 2nd Series, No. 8, February 1905, p. 125, "[Query ]538. The Words of 'Cockabendy'"
John Bulloch, editor,Scottish Notes and Queries_ (Aberdeen, 1907 ("Digitized by Google")), Vol. VIII, 2nd Series, No. 11, May 1907, pp. 173-174, "[Query ]538. The Words of 'Cockabendy'"
Roud #13080
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Cawdor Fair [Four and Twenty Blackbirds]" (tune, per Greig/Duncan8)
cf. "Uncle John Is Sick Abed" (lyrics)
NOTES [215 words]: Bulloch 1905 has the "Cockabendy's lying sick" verse with a request for more words. Bulloch 1907 has the "Dinna gi'e the lasses drink" verse and a cleaned up chorus (specifically, "He cock, hi cock, Hi cockabendy, Crack . . . . . . For a gill o' brandy"; Greig/Duncan8 has, for the omitted words, "a loose on Jeannie's wame").
The ("Cockabendy's lying sick") verse is very close to the first verse of the game song "Uncle John Is Sick Abed." There are no other shared lines. (See Opie/Opie-TheSingingGame 30, "Uncle John" (I)).
"When Richard Townshend died, 1783, his son succeeded to a troubled inheritance. He had already entered public life, and sat as a member for the family borough of Dingle from 1781 to 1795. The first event in 1783 was the visit of a body of cavalry to Castle Townshend 'in quest of some insurgents, said to be meditating mischief against the inhabitants of that neighborhood. After scouring the country they apprehended Denis Conel, alias Cockabendy, who was charged with sounding a horn to assemble a mob.'[Tuckey's Cork Remembrancer]" (source: Richard and Dorothea Townshend, An Officer of the Long Parliament and his Descendants (London, 1892 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 161-162.)
See "The Belfast Cockabendy" [for a historical character of this name]. - BS
Last updated in version 2.6
File: GrD81721

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography