Where did the saying “and Pigs might fly” come from?
IF A PIG HAD WINGS, IT COULD FLY – What you say is just wishful thinking; it can never happen. The saying has been traced back to ‘Proverbs of Scotland’ (1862). The Walrus in ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ (1865) by Lewis Carroll questioned ‘whether pigs had wings.’ First attested in the United States in ‘Green Thicket World’ (1934) by H. Vines. The adage is found in varying forms: If a pig (pigs) had wings, one could fly; If that happens, then pigs can fly; When pigs fly, that’s when, etc. It may be reversed: Pigs could fly if they had wings. As a rejoinder to the suggestion that something impossible may happen, it is usually abbreviated to ‘when pigs fly’ or ‘if bunny rabbits grow wings.’.” From the “Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings” by Gregory Y. Titelman (Random House, New York, 1996).
The origin is disputed: “pigs might fly – never, a sardonic reference to the highly unlikely – whilst there’s no generally acknowledged origin, this expression probably owes its popular acceptance to Lewis Carroll’s 1872 ‘Through The Looking Glass’, when the ridiculous notion of a flying pig was established in the literary mainstream: ‘The time has come’ the walrus said, To talk of many things: Of shoes – and ships – and sealing wax, Of cabbages – and kings – And why the sea is boiling hot – And whether pigs have wings..’ Significantly, Brewer’s 1870s dictionary doesn’t mention the ‘pigs might fly’ expression although other pig-related expressions are mentioned, suggesting that the expression had not developed into a well-known one by 1870, ie., before Carroll’s ‘Alice’.
