The Courtship, Marriage, and Pic Nic Dinner of Cock Robin. To Which is Added, Alas! The Doleful Death of the Bridegroom is the first outdoor meal named a picnic in our modern sense.
When John Harris retold the old story of Sparrow’s fateful murder of Cock Robin, and named the birds’ outdoor wedding party a “pic nic dinner.” It must have seemed logical to him the birds would prefer an outdoor setting.
John Harris, 1806
Until Harris included such a “pic nic,” if you dined in the French style, faire á pique-nique, contributed a share of food, or paid part of the bill. The custom was almost unknown among the English except those knowledgeable of French dining customs, such as the Pic Nics, a London social club named after the French dining style. Their dinners were always indoors.
In 1803 the Pic-Nics dissolved in scandal, but the word picnic remained sub rosa. When Harris named the “pic-nic dinner” because he knew that at a piquenique, guests would each contribute to the party. His logic was that if Jenny Wren and Cock Robin were married outdoors, dinner must be outdoors. The crude illustration for 1806 shows the birds gathered about a picnic cloth where the guests “sat or stood, / To eat and drink.” The 1814 edition is unambiguous—the cloth is outdoors under an oak.
Harris borrowed the attributes such as sharing but moved the location outdoors. After they are married, Jenny Wren and Cock Robin’s “pic-nic dinner is set beneath shady oak.
According to custom, explained in The Pic Nic magazine, each guest arrives with a contribution. Harris’s birds bring a diverse menu. Robin brings currant wine and cherry pie (center), and dear sweet Jenny Wren brings her beauty; Raven brings a basket of walnuts; Dog brings meat on a bone; Owl brings a sack of wheat; Pigeon brings tares (greens), Squirrel gets a bag of nuts; and Magpie, who bring a piece of cheese. Sheep, being practical, brings wool for bird’s nest. Little Mary, a girl (accompanied by her mother), brings cheese, apples, bacon, and plums. Mary’s presence is usually ignored as an intrusion in an otherwise exclusively animal tale.
Featured Image: “Pic-nic Dinner.” in an 1814 edition by an unknown illustrator.
See Peter Opie and Iona J. Opie. The Oxford Dictionary Of Nursery Rhymes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; F. J. Harvey Darton. Children’s Books In England: Five Centuries Of Social Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982.; Joyce Irene Whalley. Cobwebs To Catch Flies: Illustrated Books For The Nursery And Schoolroom, 1700-1900: London: Elek,1974 and S. Roscoe. John Newbery And His Successors, 1740-1814: A Bibliography. Wormley, Five Owls Press, 1973
*For Mary Elliott’s 1809 indoor dinner party, see The Mice and Their Pic-nic (1809) posted elsewhere on PicnicWit.