A Farmer's wife in the west had three pigs, which she loved exceedingly
well, and fed them with good butter-milk and whey; but they would come
running into the house and befoul the rooms: whereupon she resolved
to sell them at the market, because they were better fed than taught,
but afterwards they were stolen away from her; whereupon she supposed
they were driven up to London to learn manners; but said she, they were
too old to learn to turn the spit in Barholomew fair, and therefore
believed some butchers had stole them away.
Her cock had a piece of cloth sewen about him, and was left upon
the perch, but afterwards stolen; whereupon she said, that her cock
was turned scholar in a black gown; and so she went to Oxford to a
conjurer, to know what was become of her pigs and her cock. The scholar
smiled, and told her, the three pigs were blown home, and the cock was
made a batchelor of arts in one of the colleges. I thought so, said the
woman, for sure batchelors of arts are very coxcombs.