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The Land of Cockaygne is one of the so-called Kildare-poems, named after a manuscript, Ms Harley 913, compiled in the second half of the 13th century near the Abbey of Kildare, Ireland. In 93 octosyllabic couplets the poet depicts a utopian land of abundant delights of sloth, food, drink, and sexual freedom. This Cloud-Cuckoo-Land is a comic parody of both the Earthly and the Heavenly Paradise of the Christian tradition. The poem has a strong satirical impact, especially in its second half, when the monks amuse themselves with the nuns of the neighbouring nunnery.

Edwin Well's summary gives a good impression of this very humorous tale (Wells, Manual, pp.228-9):

'Bi weste Spaygne' is the Land of Cockaygne, compared with which Paradise is naught. There is every joy, free from strife and all ill. The rivers are oil and milk and wine and honey. There are a fine abbey of white monks and gray, and a cloister and a church, whose walls and roofs are flesh and pastry and pudding. In the cloister a tree bears all kinds of pleasant spices. There are wells of balm and wine. Birds sing sweetly. Geese fly roasted to the abbey, crying, 'Geese all hot! all hot!', and the larks fly down to one's mouth all ready to be eaten. The glass windows turn to crystal when more light is needed for the Mass. The monks here and in the neighbouring abbey have fine doings with the nuns that dwell with them. Who would come to that land must perform the penance of wading for seven years in swine's ordure.