Origins of cattle calling words used across Great Britain and beyond, (like "How up", "Howww up"!)

grahamg

grahamg

Old codger
Location
South of Manchester, UK
I was at Frome Cattle market in Somerset, UK again yesterday and when the sale was over I heard a guy calling out words, or booming phrases to encourage the livestock to move, and it took me back to the way my own father used to shout when calling in or moving his cattle etc.

"How Up", "Howww up", is one, and "Cwooa bid", Cwooa bid" being another, (excuse spellings as they're only guesses as I dont think I've ever seen these calls written down anywhere, and what drew my attention was the fact we were two hundred miles away from where my father farmed all his life, and I'd half expected the calls to be different somehow but they seemed absolutely identical.

Of course I felt I had to demonstrate that I could use the same calls, and although the chap moving the cattle probably didn't hear me, or think anything of it, another drover did and we had a nice chat about it all, (and life in general on a lovely sunny afternoon!).

Here is all I can come up with on a quick search relating to Europe, but would guess there has been much more research on this topic than you might imagine, and my prediction is these calls go back many generations, even to Saxon times in Britain a thousand years ago.

 

Last edited:
More research from the same site relating to Scandinavia:

"The haunting song-like call for summoning livestock like cows and goats was used “from antiquity up until the 1950s,” according to some.

Kulning is quite loud, reaching up to 125 decibels, and can reportedly be heard by a cow that’s 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) away. First heard by the author during a school field trip to a museum when she was twelve years old.

Pronounced "coolning" kulning is a contraction of the words ‘Kuh’ (cow) and ‘lock’ (to call or coax). It has other names in neighboring countries, including kauking in parts of Norway."
 
More fun to be had here:
https://www.rabbies.com/en/blog/highland-cow-more-just-hairy-face




Highland Cattle
"They’re commonly found in the Highlands and ‘coo’ means ‘cow’ in the old Scots language. Scots is a variety of English that’s been spoken in the Highlands for hundreds of years. But it’s not the same as Gaelic. In Gaelic, you’d call a Highland cow a ‘ Bò Ghàidhealach’. Now, try saying that with a mouth full of haggis!"

 
jujube said:
I read about a farmer whose cows all have pagers on their collars. When it's time to call them in, he just dials the pager with his cellphone and in they come.
Click to expand...
Many a true word spoken in jest,...., do pagers just beep or play Swedish calls? :giggle:
,......,(if you're not joking can we have some evidence of this! :unsure: )!
 
grahamg said:
Many a true word spoken in jest,...., do pagers just beep or play Swedish calls? :giggle:
,......,(if you're not joking can we have some evidence of this! :unsure: )!
Click to expand...
No joking. It's from an old article in the Greensboro News & Record (North Carolina) about a Japanese rancher named Atsuo Minari at the Shimane Prefectural Animal Husbandry Experiment Station who uses pagers to alert the cows to stop grazing and head for their feeding stations. The article states that after a week of "Pavlov-inspired" training, the cows learn to heed the beepers.

I have it on my cell phone, but can't copy and paste the info on it and I'm having absolutely no luck finding the page when I'm on my laptop and able to copy and paste. I'm totally useless on computers. The article was titled "Cows come home to beepers' sound" and it's in Greensboro.com.

Really, I supposed all you'd need to do is put a pager on the "lead cow" and when she started moving, the others would follow her. My great-grandfather's cows always followed the lead cow wherever she went. She'd get up and amble off and the other ones would grumble a bit and drop in line behind her. I don't know what it takes to become "lead cow" but she must have had natural leadership abilities or was such a mean old bi*ch that they were all afraid to cross her.
 
Here is something else from Switzerland:
https://www.anthonyganzer.com/radio-samples/human-interest/the-cows-are-calling/

"The Basel Tattoo will end tomorrow. The music festival has featured international bands and artists all week in Basel’s historic center. The Tattoo has also showcased local Swiss acts, including one based on hundreds of years of alpine tradition. Le Ranz des Vaches

Bells ring and hang from embroidered leather harnesses around the necks of 14 alpine cows. Men dressed in blue jeans and blue shirts hold intricately carved walking sticks—guiding the cows into an arena.

The men are known as Les armaillis and their families have tended to alpine cattle in Gruyere, Switzerland for hundreds of years. These are milk cows, kept in the mountains until milking time. Then, and only then, Les armaillis sing a haunting melody passed down through oral tradition, and call the cows home."

swiss cows.3.jpg

swiss cows.2.jpg
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top