Lincolnshire Bagpipes

The croaking of frogs in the Lincolnshire fens. We have Cambridgeshire nightingales, meaning frogs; fen nightingales, the Liège nightingale. In a somewhat similar way asses are called “Arcadian nightingales.”

“Melancholy as … the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.”—Shakespeare: 1 Hen. IV., i. 2.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.