Otherworld Cattle

[Goswin_van_Eyck]

Otherworld Cattle

Hilda Ellis Davidson

Few folklorists and or those interested in early religion pay much
serious attention to the cow. This is a pity, since the symbol of
cattle and of the milk they provide has been enormously important in
the past, particularly in the cults of goddesses. In Ancient Egypt the
first sacred cows were the wild ones in the Delta marshes, a symbol of
abundant life and regarded as creatures of the Otherworld. Later the
sky itself was depicted as a great cow, her belly speckled with stars,
identified with the goddess Hathor, who each dawn gave birth to the
sun, the young bull-calf. By the eleventh dynasty cows with a special
patterned hide were regarded as incarnations of Hathor, and at Memphis
there was a special white cow which represented her. The milk of the
cows kept in Hathor's temple was a link between the Pharaohs and the
gods, for royal babies were fed on it, and it was Hathor `s milk which
was said to restore the dead Pharaoh to new life in the Otherworld.
Again in Mesopotamia the powerful goddess Nimhursag presided over a
temple dairy, providing milk for royal children. Among the Greeks
there were evidently cattle sacred to Hyperion, the sun-god, since in
Homer we find Odysseus warning his men against slaughtering any beast
from his seven herds for food, and they paid dearly for their
disobedience. These are Otherworld cattle, said in Book XII of the
Odyssey not to be subject to natural death. Thus the idea of special
cattle, associated with the Otherworld, was a familiar one. They might
be singled out by unusual colouring, or because they were larger and
finer than normal animals, or they might belong to a special herd. In
India today goddesses are often described as cows, and milk and milk
products offered to the gods.

Similar ideas, though of a less exalted nature, can be traced in
northern Europe, and were apparently familiar to the Indo-Europeans.
They have left traces in our popular traditions and folklore,
particularly in the British Isles and Scandinavia, where dairy-farming
and the making of butter and other milk products has for centuries
played a major part in people's lives; they provided an essential part
of the diet as well as rich food for pleasurable eating. The position
was different in southern Europe; in areas around the Mediterranean
there was little good grazing land, and the warmer climate made it
difficult to transport fresh milk to the towns, while olive oil was
available to replace butter. The Romans regarded milk as fit only for
infants and invalids, although cheese was made on the farms and was
regularly supplied to the army. Consequently the Roman fertility
goddesses took little interest in milk, and are not associated with
the dairy. In northern Europe, however,this was closely linked with
the goddesses, although this has tended to go unrecognized. There is a
striking carving of the goddess Rosmerta, for instance, on an altar
found at Housesteads on the Roman Wall, where she seems undoubtedly to
be working with her plunger turning milk into butter. The object
beside her is very similar to the wooden churn with iron hoops still
used on farms in northern England at the beginning of this century. We
need to realize the tremendous importance of milk and butter in
earlier times and the way in which it influenced customs and legends.
There was good grazing land in the Midlands, and memories of
Otherworld cattle certainly exist there if we take the trouble to look
for them. Nowadays milk comes in the bottle or the carton all the year
round, and we have no idea of the excitement and eagerness with which
people greeted the coming of summer, after the austerities of winter
and Lent. By May the calves, who had taken all the milk, were at last
separated from their mothers, and milk and cream were available again.
In Tudor times the young people paired off in the surrounding woods on
the evening before May Day, a custom regarded as scandalous by the
Puritans, although in fact it often resulted in respectable betrothals
and was not disapproved of by their families. We know from some
Elizabethan plays that on May morning it was customary for the couples
to visit nearby farms and feast on such delicacies as milk laced with
rum, syllabubs (for which the cow was milked directly into wine, port
or sherry), sour milk and curds with cream and sugar, junkets, and
cream cakes.

In areas where the cattle were moved up to summer pastures at the end
of April, as happened in Scandinavia and parts of the British Isles,
this too marked the beginning of summer and was something to look
forward to with excitement. A number of the farm workers moved out
with the cattle, and were away all summer, working hard to provide
supplies of butter for the winter ahead, and making their own
amusements and pastimes in their spare time. A Norwegian folklorist,
Svale Solheim, has produced a fascinating book on the rich traditions
and legends associated with the move to the saetter, the place where
the summer months would be spent. He has many stories collected from
individuals whose families regularly took part in these migrations,
including tales of Otherworld cattle belonging to the `underearth'
people, who are not unlike our fairy folk.

Part of the rich lore associated with work in the dairy was due to
another factor which we now tend to forget: the extreme difficulty of
obtaining butter in the old upright plunger churn. The workers did not
always keep their dairy equipment scrupulously clean, and it was all
too easy for things to go wrong, so that there are countless tales of
witchcraft practised by some malicious neighbour which prevented the
butter from coming. The folklore archives in Dublin have many tales of
the dangers of May Day, the time when the cream might be stolen by
witchcraft. Various methods were practised, such as taking the froth
from a river at the point where two or three streams met, uttering
such words as `All for myself and nothing for the rest of them',
crossing the boundary of a neighbour's farm to gather the dew and
sweeping it up with the spancel used to secure the cow's legs while
milking, or taking the first water of the day from a well on a
neighbour's farm. There is no doubt that such practices were actually
tried out, and people who were seen on May morning going about their
lawful occasions might well be accused of such crimes. There are many
legends too of women taking on the shape of hares in order to steal
milk or prevent the production of batter.

If we can think ourselves back into such a background, remembering
that passions might run high when the prosperity and perhaps the very
survival of a family depended on the successful production of butter
and cream, then the legends of Otherworld cows become more
understandable. Solheim's exhaustive study from Norway includes
numbers of rituals, spells, prayers, and `lucky' practices to obtain
milk and butter. These went on from the time when they fixed a good
day for the move to the mountains, and made the journey with the cows,
overjoyed to be released from their dark sheds after the long winter,
and continued until they returned to the home farm. The spells and
practices which they used are a mixture of Christian and pre-Christian
beliefs, some of them undoubtedly very old. In the woods and mountain
pastures where the men and children looked after the cattle during the
day, while the women worked in the dairy, they were very conscious of
the supernatural folk who might sometimes be encountered, and felt it
was essential to keep on good terms with them as far as possible. For
example, they might stop by a great stone which they passed on their
route to the pastures and greet the dweller there by name, perhaps
making small offerings like a little milk from the leading cow
released on to the ground, or buttermilk poured on to small knolls or
into holes in the earth. They encouraged insects and small creatures
such as mice or harmless snakes because they were good omens for the
welfare of the cattle, while they cut crosses or what seem to be
ancient sun symbols on the vessels in which the milk was collected, or
put yellow flowers such as buttercups or marigolds into them to
increase the yield of butter.

Tales have been recorded from women who had heard them from some older
member of the family such as mother or grandmother, indicating a
widespread belief in Otherworld cattle. For instance, a dairymaid
might be approached by a strange woman and asked whether she would do
the milking for her that evening, to enable her to attend a funeral,
or perhaps go to a feast. The girl asks where the herd can be found,
and is told that they are close at hand, and that vessels will be put
out ready for the milking. The cows, she discovers, are very fine
animals, the kind every farmer would long to possess, and as a reward
for her help, the dairymaid may be offered one of them, which becomes
a family treasure. If she is foolish enough to refuse, because she is
afraid of dealings with `underearth' people, the woman will call it
back, and it disappears with the rest.

Such animals might also be seen wandering in the forest, but if any
attempt were made to take possession of them or milk them, they would
vanish. However one method of obtaining them was to throw steel over
them. There is a Swedish tale of a girl who saw a strange cow in her
herd, and flung her sewing at it to drive it back home. Her steel
needle was in the sewing, however, and the supernatural woman who
owned the cow then appeared, lamenting that now she could not take the
animal back, and asking if the girl would give her a lamb or a good
neckcloth in return. Both Norwegian and Swedish women claimed to have
heard the supernatural owners of the cattle calling their beasts home
in the evening, and quoted their calling songs in which they summoned
their cows by name.

The colour of these Otherworld cattle is often described, but this
varies in different districts, and Solheim thought this might be due
to new unfamiliar strains being introduced which seemed exotic to
those who encountered them. Occasionally bulls from the Otherworld
herds were thought to mate with ordinary cows, and the resulting
calves would usually be fine animals, although there were some cases
reported of misshapen or tailless beasts as the offspring of such
unions. Fairy cows may also be found in Irish tradition. One such cow
nourished St Brigid as an infant, the legendary Abbess of Kildare, who
seems to have inherited pre-Christian traditions of the goddess
Brigit. The saint was closely associated with cattle and milk. Her
mother worked as a dairymaid, and her daughter was said to be born as
she stepped across the threshold on her way back from the dairy,
carrying a vessel of milk. The baby could not thrive on ordinary cow's
milk, so her foster-father, skilled in magical lore, procured an
Otherworld cow, a white animal with red ears, for her. Brigid may be
seen pictured in churches with her cow, said to accompany her on her
visits to farms on the eve of her festival, when a sheaf of hay might
be left out for it. White cattle with red ears were also possessed by
that impressive figure the Hag of Beware, thought to have once been a
powerful local divinity.

Cattle of this type certainly existed in England from Roman times, and
one herd of such beasts, kept isolated for centuries, still survives
at Chillingham in Northumberland. Whitehead, who made a special study
of them, is disposed to accept the theory that they are descended from
white cattle brought in by the Romans for processions and sacrificial
ceremonies, since the native British cattle were mostly black; this
might account for their association with the supernatural world. In
Wales supernatural cattle are said to come from a fairy realm beneath
the water of certain lakes. The best known tale is that of the fairy
bride who makes a marriage with a farmer, but returns to the lake when
certain conditions are broken - often unwittingly - by her husband.
She brings her herd of wonderful cattle out of the lake with her, and
calls them back into the water when she leaves for good. The lady of
Llyn y Fan Fach in Dyfed is said to have left descendants who were
famous physicians. The tale was not recorded in print until 1861, but
it was known to a number of informants, and included a calling song
like those from Norway and Sweden, when the mistress of the
supernatural cattle summoned each in turn by name.

Such calling songs must have been used in England, and I should be
most grateful to anyone who can give me information about them. The
nineteenth century poet Jean Ingelow brought a romanticized version of
such a song into her poem `The High Tide on the Coast of Lincolnshire':

From the clovers lift your head;
Come uppe Whitefoot, come uppe Lightfoot,
Come uppe Jetty, rise and follow
Jetty, to the milking shed.

However I have been unable to find any songs of her own time which
might have inspired the verses.

In England we find a widespread tradition in the midlands and the
north of bountiful cows of special beauty, yielding large quantities
of milk, who come from the Otherworld and allow people to milk them
until the greed or cruelty of certain individuals drives them away.
The most famous example is that of Mitchell's Fold in south
Shropshire, which was carefully recorded by Charlotte Burne, who found
that in the 1880s many people in the neighbourhood were familiar with
the legend. It was said that in a time of famine a beautiful white cow
appeared, and anyone might come and milk her, providing only one
vessel was brought; this would be filled, whatever its size and shape.
All went well until a mean old witch brought along a sieve, and milked
the cow dry. Various versions of this tale are found in many areas in
Shropshire and further north, and in some places large bones have been
produced as proof of the story. Sometimes the cow died, sometimes she
vanished after stamping her foot in rage and leaving a mark on a rock.
In Warwickshire she was said to turn into a destructive animal, the
Dun Cow, finally slain by Guy of Warwick. There is also a variant of
this legend from Wales, telling how a white cow travelled widely,
leaving calves in many places from which later cows were said to be
descended, until at last people in the Vale of Towy wanted to kill
her, and she vanished. The site at Mitchell's Fold where the cow was
said to have appeared is some distance from any habitation, marked by
a ring of standing stones, now incomplete, and there are other stone
circles recorded not far away. There is an impressive view of hills on
every side,and the place would form a suitable centre for people from
surrounding villages.

The concept of an Otherworld cow who brings benefits is found in
India, where Gabrielle Ferro-Luzzi collected over 400 legends about
the self-milking cow, The basic tale was about a mysterious cow which
emptied its udder regularly over an anthill or cairn, beneath which
was afterwards discovered a sacred lingam or the image of a god,
whereupon the local rajah built a temple to hold the divine symbol.
The writer's main interest was in the different ways in which a
tradition might develop, but her material also shows how the cow can
be a symbol of divine bounty. A parallel from England can be found in
a strange legend of St Kenelm told in a fourteenth century poem from
the collection in the Southern English Legendary. Here Kenelm was a
boy-king murdered by his wicked sister. His body was not found until
at last a white cow belonging to a widow was observed to spend the
whole day in a certain valley, away from the rest of the herd. The cow
took no food, but remained `fair and round', while its yield of milk
was greater than all the others. As result of this, together with a
letter in English miraculously delivered to the Pope, the body of the
child martyr was discovered. There are other legends of cows or oxen
which reveal where a saint shall be buried or a church built, by
refusing to stop except on one particular site. The attractive Norfolk
saint, St Wistan, said to be a king's son who worked as a farm
labourer, was drawn to Bawburgh after death by two bullocks which he
had reared. They miraculously crossed a river, and created two healing
wells where they stopped to piss on the way. Walston is shown on a
roodscreen in the church at Barnham Broom with the two animals at his
feet. Several northern divinities also possessed oxen, used for
ploughing. The Celtic goddess Brigit had two, who gave her warning of
cattle-stealing anywhere in Ireland, while the Danish goddess Gefion,
a powerful character, used oxen to plough round a tract of land in
Sweden which became the island of Zealand. In Wales the Lady of Llyn y
Fan Fach called her oxen back into the lake with the cows, and the
marks of the plough they had been drawing were said to be visible for
six miles. Indeed in Norse mythology there is one account of the
creation of the world beginning from a primeval cow, whose name
Audhumla is thought to mean `Rich, hornless cow'. She existed before
the gods along with the giant Ymir, whom she nourished, and she licked
the primeval ice-blocks until a being called Buri emerged, from whom
the gods were descended. Some think that this is an Indo-European
origin myth, and whether this is so or not, it reminds us once again
of the great and holy significance of the cow for our ancestors in the
North. It is sad to think that this is something now wholly lost, with
robot milking, commercialism of dairy farming on a huge scale, and the
tendency to regard the cow as nothing more than a machine to yield
milk, condemned to a short and not particularly happy life. I set out
to find out more about Otherworld cattle because of the importance
milk possessed in the cults of the northern goddesses, but soon found
they were worthy of investigation in their own right. I commend the
study of cattle legends to readers of At the Edge as a part of their
own heritage, and I shall be very glad to hear of any relevant local
traditions.

Further reading:
C. Phythian-Adams: `Milk and Soot' in The Pursuit of Urban History, D.
Fraser and A. Sutcliffe (eds.), London 1983.
P. Lysaght: `Beltaine' in Boundaries and Thresholds, H.R.E. Davidson
(ed.), Stroud 1992.
K.D. Whitehead: The Ancient White Cattle of Britain, London 1953.
J. Wood: `The Fairy Bride Legend in Wales' Folklore Vol.103, pp55-72,
1992.
G.E. Ferro-Luzzi: The Self-Milking Cow and the Bleeding Lingam,
Wiesbaden, 1987.


Originally published in At the Edge No.1 1996.

http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/