Mystery
The Cock and Bull Story
Two rival inns, a lot of very tall tales.
See it clearly
- What's there
- Two historic coaching inns on the High Street
- Legend from
- Folk etymology, likely 20th century
- Tone
- Light-hearted
Stony Stratford: two old inns here, the Cock and the Bull, claim to have given English its name for a tall tale.
Stony Stratford sits on Watling Street, and in the coaching age it was a busy stop between London and the north. Two of its main inns, the Cock and the Bull, still stand on the High Street. Local lore says travellers from rival coaches swapped ever more outrageous tales between the two inns, until any tall tale became a cock and bull story. Word historians are unconvinced: the phrase appears in a play of 1608, French had a similar expression about jumping from cock to donkey, and nothing links the inns to it. The Cock has a second claim, as the inn behind ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross, also doubted.