This video features a man reading a Cock Horse menu from the 1940′s – the back of the menu features the restaurant’s history.  (WARNING: snickering about name of restaurant in video – still a good find)  

Cock Horse?

“Cock Horse” can mean a high-spirited horse, and the additional horse to assist pulling a cart or carriage up a hill.  From the mid-sixteenth century it also meant a pretend Hobby horse or an adult’s knee. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————

Historian and Genealogist Lynda Ames remembers her grandmother reciting the old rhyme, Ride a Cock Horse to Banbury Cross

Says Lynda, “You cross your legs and place your small child on your extended foot.  Holding their hands, you lift and lower your foot (in a riding motion) and recite to them”:

Ride a Cockhorse to Banbury Cross
To see a fine lady upon a fine horse
With rings on her fingers and bells on her toes
She shall make music wherever she goes.

———————————————————————————————————————————————

The Village Blacksmith – Longfellow - click to read the PDF!