4 
THE OX AND ITS KINDRED 
''After this he straightway slew a Bison and an Elk, 
Of the strong Uri four, and a single fierce Schelk." 
The passage refers to a great hunt held in the 
Forest of Worms, the identity of the animal alluded 
to as ScJielch being unknown, although it has been 
suggested that it indicates the great extinct Irish 
deer commonly miscalled the Irish elk. 
But the use of the term itr to denote the wild oxj's 
of much earlier date than the " Niebelungenlied," 
as it must have been current in the time of Julius 
Caesar, by whom it was Latinised into ufus^ and em- 
ployed as the name of the present species, as distinct 
from the bison, which is also mentioned in the narrative 
of the great conqueror. It would seem, indeed, as 
though ur, in the sense of " the wild (animal)," was 
the original and earlier name, and that the affix ox or 
ocJis was added later, this idea being confirmed if ox, 
as mentioned above, really means " the drawing beast." 
We have an apparently analogous case in the German 
substantive " wild," for deer, which is evidently a 
derivative from the similar adjectival term. 
This, however, is not all, for tm% or thu}\ the Polish 
name for the wild ox, is considered to be identical 
with ur\ and the same word apparently recurs in tur, 
the name applied in the Caucasus to certain peculiar 
species of wild goats. Then, again, there appear to 
be considerable grounds for the belief that the afore- 
said " Ur of the Chaldees " (Genesis ii. chap. 28, ver. 
31) is connected with Uru, the moon-god ;i and if 
this be so, there is an obvious connection between the 
crescent moon and the horns of the ur or urus. There 
is also the Chaldi word sor, meaning cattle, and this, 
too, may be a derivative from the same root. 
^ See Murray's Bible Dictionary^ p. 194. 
