L is for Luilekkerland

         (My #AtoZChallenge theme this year is Mythical and Imaginary Places.)

        Luilekkerland is the Flemish/Belgian/Dutch name for a place also called Schlaraffenland in German.  Its most common name, however is Cockaigne.  Whatever you call it, it’s a land of glorious excess.  Click through to find out more (and see more pictures) in 

the post about Cockaigne.

        Luilekkerland translates as “lazy delicious land,” and that pretty well covers the main activities here: not working, and eating.  It leaves out sex, but maybe that’s too much work!  However, artists and writers who don’t want to leave out anything have created maps of Cockaigne, with different areas of indulgence and excess laid out in loving (or satirical) detail.  This Italian map from 1575-90 is entitled “Description of the Great Land of Cockaigne Where He Who Sleeps the Most Earns the Most.”  It includes a Sea of Good Greek Wine, a countryside where marzipan and every sort of confection grows, and a great mountain of grated cheese, topped by a caldera of macaroni.  The bridges are made of melon slices, the trees grow pancakes beneath clouds that rain honey, people are arrested for working, and oddest of all, there are owls that lay fur coats if you beat them with sticks!  However, there is also a Fountain of Evil.

        The second map includes hundreds and hundreds of labelled places.  You could pore over it for hours - especially as it’s in a mix of Latin and German.  However, I can make out The Foolish Sea and The Drunken Lake, The Empire of Great Stomachs, Tipplers’ Kingdom, an island of tobacco, and more.  This mapmaker also sounds a warning, though, with the Hellish Realm to the south.

        The MORAL of Luilekkerland/Cockaigne: Imagine a land where everyone could do whatever they wanted… no masks, no gun control, no environmental regulations… What could possibly go wrong?

              OR:  Beware of what you wish for.  But ALSO: If they don’t have a mountain of dark chocolate, I’m not going.

        So, what would you demand the Land of Cockaigne provide, before you’d really consider it perfect?  And where do you see the intersection between free will and self-control?

[Pictures: A selection of fanciful scenes describing the land, sites, and customs of Cockaigne, etching, Italy, 1575-1590 (Image from The British Museum);

Accurate Utopian Map of the Newly Discovered Fool’s World, the Often Mentioned but Never Discovered Land of Cockaigne, engraving by an Anonymous Author, c 1730-40 (Image from Wikimedia Commons).]