That Cock-A-Doodle-Doo!

Those familiar stirrings in my loins woke me up. Now, don’t start getting ideas! I needed to pee. It was still dark outside and I was very cozily blanketed under a quilt and a warm shawl on top of it. I was in no mood to set foot on the cold floor and walk down to the bathroom to take a leak. Yet, I had to; I was not a baby who can happily pee in the bed or in the diaper. I was an adult of 53 with all her limbs and senses intact! And so, grudgingly, I got up from the bed and walked towards the bathroom, all the while trying not to use all my senses optimally as I was certainly intent on going back to bed and sneak under the cozy quilt.

 I didn’t want to be fully awakened by this brief trip to the bathroom and so I didn’t open my eyes fully as the light in the bathroom would do just that! As I sat with my eyes closed on the ice-cold toilet seat, which was threatening to jerk me into a fully awakened state in the quiet of the night, that cock-a-doodle doo crowing assaulted my ears. Immediately, my mind started reminding me that it was time to wake up. Shucks! This is all I need now, I thought to myself. I still sat on the ice-cold toilet seat seriously wondering, “Is the cock-a-doodle-doo” really meant to wake us humans to welcome the dawn? Who started this in the first place? Wasn’t there a better, more sweet and subtle way of gently waking us humans and reminding us that we need to get up and begin the day on a cheerful note? This got me “thinking”–the act that I so desperately wanted to avoid, as that would not allow me to go back to sleep; damn!!

Yet, I was not willing to just let a cock-a-doodle doo ruin my efforts to slip into the sleep state; No way! I got into my bed under the still warm quilt and closed my eyes but now my mind was already wide awake. Restful sleep is a distant dream to most of us, spare the blessed few, who go into that blissful state every night and wake up feeling refreshed and ready for the day, while the rest go in and out of sleep, tossing and turning in bed and grudgingly wake up to get on with the day’s agenda.

Since there was no way I could go back to sleep with a now fully awakened mind, I decided to research on the cock a doodle do thing. I reached out for my mobile and switched it on in the dark room allowing its bright light to visibly assault my vision and shock my groggy eyes. I opened Google and sleepily typed out the word “Cock-a-doodle doo” and hit search. There were multiple hits and I clicked on one and there it was. The origin of “cock-a-doodle-doo” dated back to 1606 to an English murder pamphlet. Now wait… murder pamphlet! I don’t get it. Now, my curiosity got the better of me and I researched further forgetting the fact that all I wanted to find out was the relationship between the rooster’s crowing and us waking up to it.

As per the Wikipedia, the first two lines were used in a murder pamphlet in England in 1606, which seemed to suggest that children sang those lines, or very similar ones, to mock the cockerel's (rooster in US) "crow"; the first full version recorded was in Mother Goose's Melody, published in London around 1765, by the mid-nineteenth century, when it was collected by James Orchard Halliwell. As per the data on the Internet, during the 17th and 18th century, murder pamphlets were used by preachers to illustrate how God's Providence confounded the enemies of Heaven and earth. The pamphlets took the form of the last words or confession of a person who has been sentenced to death. Typically, a local printer would put together a pamphlet that claimed to be a true account of a murder, consisting of a narrative, trial transcript, and/or written confession of the murderer before his or her execution.

That’s all fine, but I could not get the actual document relating to the connection between the rhyme and the murder pamphlets. So much for researching; that too in the early dawn! Hmmm….Yet, I was not willing to give up and continued searching and came across a hit where it stated that this practice has existed since the Indus Valley days. As per the scientific study by Japanese scientists, the rooster’s body clock is the answer, as they observed through the study that the rooster crows approximately 2 hours before the onset of sunlight. The scientists also found that the roosters crowed for various other reasons too and at other times of the day too. Despite all the research and the findings, it is still a common practice, at least in the villages all over the world to wake up and start the day as per the rooster’s crowing.

I looked out the window and realized that it was indeed time to get on with the day, as the sun had already risen and was looking resplendent, but I was ruing my mind for its overactive tendencies in successfully ruining my sleep. Well….that’s an altogether different and more interesting topic to delve upon; maybe, sometime soon.