Country Life WHEN I was a child I used to
wonder what word Mary used when she went to call the cattle home across the sands of Dee. Our own cows were encouraged to come up out of the pasture by shouting—as far as I could make out—" Harley, barley, barley." It may have been something else, perhaps a corruption of some Gaelic word used by my grandfather or great-grandfather, but to me it was " harley." No one ever tried any other calf. I am sure they would have felt self-conscious and foolish using any other word. I stood the other evening listening to a Welsh farmer calling his cows. The word I heard was " Ho ! Ho ! Ho " but usually such short words are hard to make out, He may have been using an abbreviation of a Welsh phrase. Whatever the facts are, whether anyone knows, exactly how to call a cow home or not, it happens every evening all over the country while cows are out to grass. I am always amused to think that a different call is used for pigs, perhaps because a man preparing for milking must be careful not 'to be falling over fat sows at every step. " Ho ! Ho I Ho ! " bawled the little man standing at the gate, and, while I watched, his three or four cows came in line out of the hollow. I had half a mind to try it myself in the next field, but was that word really " Ho "? Could I shout it with confidence ? I wasn't at all,sure.
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