Brewer's: Davy's Sow

Drunk as Davy's sow. Grose says: One David Lloyd, a Welshman, who kept an ale-house at Hereford, had a sow with six legs, which was an object of great curiosity. One day David's wife, having indulged too freely, lay down in the sty to sleep, and a company coming to see the sow, David led them to the sty, saying, as usual, “There is a sow for you! Did you ever see the like?” One of the visitors replied, “Well, it is the drunkenest sow I ever beheld.” Whence the woman was ever after called “Davy's sow.” (Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue. )

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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