Welsh rarebit when St Peter saw they were all outside, he went in and locked the gates, which is why there are no Welshmen in heaven. The 1526 compiler says he found this story 'Wryten amonge olde gestys'. A legend mentioned in "Betty Crocker's Cookbook" claims that Welsh peasants were not allowed to eat rabbits caught in hunts on the estates of the nobility, so they used melted cheese as a substitute. The author also claims that Ben Jonson and Charles Dickens ate Welsh rarebit at Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese, a pub in London. There is no good evidence for any of
Dream of the Rarebit Fiend McCay signed a contract to collaborate on it with music by Max Hirschfeld and lyrics by George Henry Payne and Robert Gilbert Welch. Film pioneer Edwin S. Porter produced a seven-minute live-action film adaptation called "The Dream of a Rarebit Fiend" in 1906 for the Edison Company. The Fiend was played by John P. Brawn, who is tormented by imps in his bed, which flies through the air and leaves him hanging from a steeple—a scene similar to that of an early strips that ran on January 28, 1905. McCay produced four hand-drawn animated films based upon his "Rarebit Fiend"