Dadging

John Jordan, a (now widely discredited) 18th century biographer of Shakespeare, relayed a story in which Shakespeare, in a bid (with other Stratfordians) to outdrink a "drinking club" in the nearby village of Bidford, passed out under a tree. In the morning, when his friends tried to convince him to rejoin the contest, he declined, saying

I have drunk with

Piping Pebworth, Dancing Marston,

Haunted Hillborough, and Hungry Grafton,

With Dadging Exhall, Papist Wixford,

Beggarly Broom, and Drunken Bidford,

And so, presumably, I will drink no more.

Exhall, like the other names here, is the name of a village near Stratford; however, the meaning of the adjective dadging has remained controversial. Some scholars have speculated that it is a corruption of "dudgeon" or the dialectical word "dagged" (dirty); however, most modern scholars assume that it is a variation of dodging and frequently render it as such in transcription of the verse above.