I have, I discover, had a letter on the kitchen table for many weeks. Its vintage is indicated by the plum juice which somehow found its way on to the lower part. It is from Mrs Olga Danes-Volkov, from Kent, and it is about cusha. Mrs Danes-Volkov has taken to calling to her two heifer calves (which must be grown-up by now) using this word because it is pretty and because she was prompted by a nursery rhyme in a Victorian book:
Cushy cow bonny, let down your milk And I will give you a gown of silk; A gown of silk and a silver key If you will let down your milk for me.
Iona and Peter Opie in their admirable Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes record this rhyme from as early as 1805. The version they give has tee for key, and tee is a ‘cow tie’. I don’t quite know what a cow tie is; Mrs Danes-Volkov will.
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