120 BIRDS AND POETS 



' there were yet fields given up to grass, they found 

 ample pasturage in the woods. Their wide-spread- 

 ing horns gleamed in the duskiness, and their paths 

 and the paths of the cows became the future roads 

 and highways, or even the streets of great cities. 



All the descendants of Odin show a bovine trace, 

 and cherish and cultivate the cow. In Norway she 

 is a great feature. Professor Boyesen describes what 

 he calls the sceter, the spring migration of the dairy 

 and dairy maids, with all the appurtenances of but- 

 ter and cheese making, from the valleys to the dis- 

 tant plains upon the mountains, where the grass 

 keeps fresh and tender till fall. It is the great 

 event of the year in all the rural districts. Nearly 

 the whole family go with the cattle and remain 

 with them. At evening the cows are summoned 

 home with a long horn, called the loor, in the hands 

 of the milkmaid. The whole herd comes winding 

 down the mountain-side toward the sceter in obedi- 

 ence to the mellow blast. 



What were those old Vikings but thick-hided 

 bulls that delighted in nothing so much as goring 

 each other? And has not the charge of beefiness 

 been brought much nearer home to us than that? 

 But about all the northern races there is something 

 that is kindred to cattle in the best sense, — some- 

 thing in their art and literature that is essentially 

 pastoral, sweet-breathed, continent, dispassionate, 

 ruminating, wide-eyed, soft- voiced, — a charm of 

 kine, the virtue of brutes. 



The cow belongs more especially to the northern 



