Rhys Thomas - COWS
25 January 2010
I've been trying to post pictures on my blogs but it's not working so this is an experiment just to see if I can.
I found some photos from an old camera phone the other day and I remembered how they came about. It's quite a funny story and so I shall tell it. It involves species of animal trying to kill me. WARNING: it's quite long. Also, it's all true - it actually happened.
It all started with me driving through some lanes one day in 2007. Suddenly, after cresting a hill I caught a glimpse of what seemed to be a castle, nestled away in the folds of the land. I slammed on my brakes and reversed. Sure enough, there in the trees, near the horizon on the far-side of the valley, were the dilapidated ruins of a grey stone castle!
Determined to see it close up I drove down into the valley and up the other side. I parked up and, with trepidation, climbed into a field at the far end of which was a style that I decided to cross. A herd of cows were chewing cud up the gentle hill to my left but they paid me no attention. At this point the castle was out of sight but my skills as an orienteer* assured me that I was on the right track and so I persevered. The second field led to a second style which I crossed, the scent of a herb now in the air, possibly mint. This is really rather pleasant, I remarked. Once in the third field, I saw it. The castle! I clambered over the final style and into a smaller field that led up, past a herd of sheep, to the low stone walls of the outer perimeter. Over this wall I climbed and found myself standing on a patch of well kept grass. To my right was a wooden door, the entrance way, an ominous black slit indicating that it was ajar. The ramparts of the castle were still in tact and the place struck me as being somehow mystical, though in what way I could not articulate.
http://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy297/rhysthomashello/BeaupreManor07.jpg
Taken in by the majesty of the structure, I was unaware that I was not alone. It was only when I made for the wooden door that I realised that in the small, walled space leading up to the castle, was a giant ram! And he was looking straight at me. I stepped cautiously towards the wooden doors, deciding that once inside I would slam them closed behind me.
As I moved, he started moving in towards the door with me, racing me to the entrance. I grew worried. Neither he nor I took our eyes from each other but I reached the doors before him, leaving him a good ten feet behind me. His flat head was enormous, about the size of washing basket, and it became frighteningly clear that he could kill me with ease, should he wish to do so. Naturally I assumed that he was indeed planning my murder in his big sheepy head. But it was too late for him because I was already safe. Or so I thought. I turned towards the darkness of the atrium but the doors were jammed and wouldn't open any further than they already were but I guessed I could just about slip through. I placed a foot through the crack when I was forced to leap backwards. Three white heads emerged from the blackness inside the castle. Three more rams had found their way inside, each as big, if not bigger, than my would-be-killer behind me. Their heads jostled for position in the slit of the doorway and their close proximity revealed their true enormity. Their heads were as high as my chin. Suddenly I heard a voice from above. “You’ll have to get past them.”
Craning my neck I saw two women leaning over the ramparts. Slightly embarrassed, I listened to them tell me that the door was shut at its present angle by the farmer so as to keep the rams apart and that I would have to slide through the crack if I wished to visit. I asked them if they knew about much about this place, trying to act normal, and they told me that they too had discovered it just that morning.
Being slightly more portly than in my younger years, it was going to be an effort to get through the gap in the doors. Coupled with this problem were the three monstrous, bovine devils that had risen up from the blackness to block my way. Their blank eyes regarded me with malicious intent. However, with the two women looking on amusedly, I had no choice. I couldn't just say, "actually, I don;t think I'll bother" as this would clearly reveal that I was being a massive scaredy-pants. I eased slowly in. The rams scrabbled backwards into the dark of the castle. Now out of sight of the women I squeezed up against the cold, dark wall and side-stepped past the rams, who let me go quietly.
I passed through the atrium and out into the courtyard, which, roofless, was bright. Steps led up dark corridors that would no doubt end at the ramparts, where the women were, but I made my way across the courtyard to the far side. Through a dark underpass I went, the shadows inking imaginary spectres before I came to what must have once been a living quarters. An enormous fire-place consumed much of one side of the room, into which I could walk and look up the chimney, which was crooked and black. I returned to the underpass and out into another room. This room was dark and sinister. Black stairwells led up to more black and I decided to no longer tarry here.
I was getting freaked out. The ramparts would have to wait for a future expedition as I didn’t want to talk to the women. I re-entered the courtyard only to find my way blocked by the rams again. I stopped in my tracks as we stared each other down. But I had no choice. I had to leave under the same motivation that I had been forced to enter: to not look weird in front of the women. Two small steps led up to the atrium and as I stepped upon the first, the rams charged! I ducked back quickly and crouched around the corner as they leaped down and into the courtyard. The last one caught its hoof on a stray rock and tumbled down the steps, landing painfully on its shins. But I wasn’t about to tend the vile creature and quickly squeezed into the gap between the doors. And got stuck. I had put my coat on and the extra layer had proved my downfall. I could still move my head both ways and so could see the three rams to my left, rearing around and looking at me with heads down aligned with their shoulders, and the solitary ram on the outisde taking slow steps in my direction.
A metal rod was holding the door in its position and I thought “bugger it” to the farmer's wishes and yanked it out. The door swung open and out I ran, over the wall, in full view of the two women on the ramparts. I didn’t look back and thought it best to keep running until I was out of sight, get the humiliation over with as soon as possible. Which I did.
I made my way across the first of the three fields, over the style, and across the second. But my troubles were not over. As I approached the third and final field, I was spied by the herd of cows. They trundled down to the style and blocked my path. Just cows, I thought. Just fifteen or so cows. I took a few confident steps towards the style, hoping that they would part their Red Sea to my Moses. Alas, no such luck. Rethinking I picked up some rocks and threw them gently at the cows, being sure to miss them as pelting rocks at cows is beyond me. Still nothing. I then played Wake Up by Arcade Fire full volume on my phone's MP3 player but that did nothing as well. I then tried a bluff. I moved uphill, along the line of the fence. Sure enough, the cows followed. As soon as the style was clear, I sprinted back down the hill. And then something happened that I did not expect, and which was quite chilling. The cows ran with me. Their thunderous hooves forewarned violence and it was at this point that I realised I was in trouble. I rushed them, safe on my side of the fence, but rather than run away or pay me no attention, they lowered their heads, as if ready to butt me. I suddenly noticed, with a creep up my back, two stumps of bone, just like the rams. They had horns!
As you can see from the picture below, they were very angry cows.
http://i801.photobucket.com/albums/yy297/rhysthomashello/CowsoutsideCowbridge.jpg
Just as I remarked on the surreal size of rams up close, so too did these cows dwarf me. Their heads were the size of cricket pads. I felt like Sir Thomas More at the Guillotine of Henry VIII – my superior intellect leaving me powerless against these merciless cows. It seemed unfair and undignified that I should be prohibited from passing.
My next move was to move downhill along the fence. There was a river was down this way and I hoped that it would provide a distraction to them. The fence ran all the way to the edge of the water and so running ahead and around was not an option. They followed me down to the riverbank and I could see their hoof marks from where they drank. Indeed, some started lapping from the water as I considered my plan. Whenever I started to run uphill, a couple of the beasts would rear around and threaten to follow. I noted immediately that my pursuers were always the ones with horns.
I started to worry that the women I saw in the castle would come this way and I would suffer a second humiliation. No, that would not do. I had to get back to the car before they saw in the distance that odd man having a tête-à-tête with a herd of dumb cows.
Slowly the awful realisation crept up on me. Theses cows, with their superior size and possibly superior brain power (I now suspected) were surely not going to subject me to this? I looked down at the river. They weren’t going to make me jump in, were they? I looked into the waters. A small cliff was on my side of the fence, a fall of about a foot, and then the water itself, clear, revealed a depth of a further two feet. I questioned whether or not I was actually going to do this, to throw myself into a river to escape a pack of evil cows, and then I jumped. The temperature of the water knocked the wind out of me and, as it took the bottom of jeans it almost knocked me off my feet as well. I just about recovered. I was in to just over my knees and started to make my way upstream. The going was easy enough, the waterflow not overpowering. A tree overhung the water, shielding me from the cows but then I heard it. The noise. The cows were in the water too! These satanic Daisies had followed me in and would cut me off at the pass.
Panicked I plunged into midstream, gasping as my legs disappeared into the water and I found myself waist deep. I clutched at some plants on the far bank and pulled myself up. There was one thing that was for certain; the cows would not be able to clamber up this bank – I was safe. A barbed wire fence prevented me from crossing into the next field but there was enough space, just, to pick my way through the thorny brambles. This may seem ridiculous, but at the time this honestly seemed like a not bad option. So I started my scramble. The thorns tore at my jeans and after just a few strides it became clear that the pass was impenetrable. The cows, I could see, were watching me from the river.
I made a mental decision: there was no going back. I would have a stab at climbing over the barbed wire fence. In the thorns though, I could get no momentum for a leap. I attempted but it was clearly not possible. Another idea came to me; that I could get between the upper two wires. I pulled them apart as far as I could and leaned in. Within seconds I was pinioned to the fence like a badger in a trap. The barbs had sunk into my clothes and slightly into my skin and I was stuck in an exceedingly uncomfortable manner.
Then, coming over the hill, I saw them coming for me. More cows. A different herd. Come on, I thought. This is not possible. But I swear that it is true. Fifteen more cows, these one skinnier than the first herd, came lolloping at speed towards me. I quickly tried to untangle myself and winced as I heard my clothing rip with each desperate movement. Just as they cows got to my prison I pulled the last barb clear and threw myself backwards into the river. I gasped for the second time. With the second herd now all in the water, and after me, I waded through that flow like Neptune and out into my original field.
I sprinted uphill and my first stroke of good luck was upon me. The style was now clear and I had a head start. I vaulted the style and sprinted as fast as I could across that damned hell-field, my feet squelching in my sodden shoes, my jeans slapping against my legs. In seconds I reached the far hedge and was over into the lanes again, panting, torn-clothed and ego-battered. I got my breath back and looked back into the field of cows. I was surprised to see that they had disappeared like phantoms, but then I spied them, down in the corner in the river. And then one of them looked up turned towards me and mooed, and in that moo I’m sure I discerned the words, “I will track you down. One day, I will come to you, and I will murder you.’ At least, that’s what I think he was saying.
* I have no skills as an orienteer. I don't even know what it is really.
1 comment
Written by Jon Unger on 01 February 2010 at 09:58:00
Hilarious! I've always been suspicious of cows, and this supports my theory that they are not as passive as they look :-)