What? A swallow carrying a coconut?

December 13, 2017 3:04 PM

Coconuts in mediaeval England weren't as rare as you'd think, no matter what Monty Python would have you believe. They were a common item in wills, fashioned into elaborate drinking cups.
posted by Helga-woo (14 comments total)

So what you’re saying is, coconuts do migrate.
posted by LeLiLo at 3:12 PM on December 13, 2017 [11 favorites]

I really really love this. that falcon cup. NEED.
posted by supermedusa at 3:23 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

That Dutch cup linked to in the first article and the falcon in the third are not what immediately came to mind when I read ‘coconut cup.’ Outstanding.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 3:24 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I really really love this. that falcon cup. NEED.
Surely someone is setting up an Etsy shop as we speak.
posted by Naberius at 5:39 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

I'll certainly never look at the cheap carved coconuts at the beach the same after this.
posted by TedW at 5:59 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

That is an impressive coconut falcon. Although on second thought, I'm not sure what other coconut falcons one would compare it to...
posted by -1 at 6:21 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

The joke of people in a film or TV programme pretend-riding and making their own horse-clopping noises with coconuts doesn't originate with Python; it dates back at least as far as A Show Called Fred, a BBC collaboration between Spike Milligan and Peter Sellars in 1956.
posted by Hogshead at 7:23 PM on December 13, 2017 [2 favorites]

And A Show Called Fred would be nothing without The Goon Show.
posted by elsietheeel at 7:49 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

It's just one of those serendipitous moments in great art: The Pythons really wanted horses, but they just couldn't afford them, and were forced to improvise.

After all of that, Jabberwocky was Terry Gilliam's chance to stage a really authentic medaeval experience. It had all of the dim dull grit of a real castle throne room, too.
posted by ovvl at 7:55 PM on December 13, 2017 [3 favorites]

Uncommon items are written about enthusiastically. Just because there's no hovering "RARE! LEGENDARY!" videogame style over the various coconuts does not mean that it is neither rare nor legendary in the context of the time. A particularly delicious apple would receive no notice apart from a nod from a grateful courtesan to the fruit-seller or slave I mean serf. A coconut... look at that! Get the monk in here who does the drawings!
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:57 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

Python members had connections with Milligan and the Goon Show, so it's not surprising they borrowed an idea.
posted by Chrysostom at 9:35 PM on December 13, 2017 [1 favorite]

I recently took a trip to Reykjavik, and one of the more surprising items amongst the Church finery in their national history museum was a coconut chalice, much like the third image in the "drinking cups" link. I'd never seen anything like it before, so it's fascinating to read a bit of background here. Thanks!
posted by metaBugs at 4:13 AM on December 14, 2017 [3 favorites]

I'm going to be hot footing it to the V&A asap to see that falcon cup. It looks amazing.
posted by Helga-woo at 4:32 AM on December 14, 2017 [1 favorite]

Shame, I missed this when I was making the post. Kathleen Kennedy, author of the first link, has written a recent blog post for Medieval Globe on how museums categorise medieval coconuts as curios, and medieval Europe as isolated from the rest of the world, rather than telling the story of the cultural complexity of medieval Europe.
posted by Helga-woo at 3:42 PM on December 14, 2017 [2 favorites]