The Old Dog and Duck: The Secret Meanings of Pub Names

About this book

This is a book for everyone who has ever wondered why pubs should be called The Cross Keys The Dew Drop Inn or The Hope and Anchor. Youll be glad to know that there are very good - strange and memorable - reasons behind them all. After much research about (and in) pubs Albert Jack brings together the stories behind pub names to reveal how they offer fascinating and subversive insights on our history customs attitudes and jokes in just the same way that nursery rhymes do. The Royal Oak for instance commemorates the tree that hid Charles II from Cromwells forces after his defeat at Worcester; The Bag of Nails is a corruption of the Bacchanals the crazed followers of Bacchus the god of wine and drunkenness; The Cat and the Fiddle a mangling of Catherine La Fidele and a guarded gesture of support for Henry VIIIs first Catholic wife Catherine of Aragon; plus many many more. Here too are even more facts about everything from ghosts to drinking songs to the rules of cribbage and shove hapenny showing that ultimately the story of pub history is really the story of our own popular history.