Ray's Thought for the Day - Oxen
As has been noted previously on one or two occasions, I, Ray am interested in the subtopic, oxen. I have always liked the spell, strong as an ox. Sometimes I use it in reference to myself, but in any context, when I use that phrase, I am exaggerating, maybe.
It is interesting that humans hit upon the idea to defer eating young bulls of the genus Bos for sufficent time to train up the young bulls as beasts of burden. This training takes about four years, but at the end of four years the young ox is able to pull along at a steady pace, in unison with his mates and follow directions, perhaps. This is assuming the humans have not changed their minds and eaten him.
The young bull calfs are usually castrated if they are destined to a life of pulling carts or wagons or whatever. Castration serves to reduce the range of distractions the young ox is tempted to and allows him to focus more of his attention on following directions. In addition to following directions, the oxen must learn not to gallop or frisk about in yoke and to keep pace with the human marching along beside them and keeping them in order. Sometimes the oxen are so well trained that they can pull a cart along without having a human out in front keeping pace with the lead ox. However, in the mythology of the North American west, one does not encounter references to stage coaches pulled by oxen or to the oxen express. This is because the ox, no matter what, can never rival the breakneck pace of a horse or a mule.
Oxen, like donkeys, figure prominently in the human myths. Both, of course, have, abstractly, been worshipped as divinities. In Druidry, prior to a series of reformations, young bulls, if they appeared fractious and uncooperative and apparently unsuited to a life of cart-pulling or were deemed unsuitable as breeding bulls, were sacrificed for the purpose of divination. But more importantly, Druidically spelling, the sexually intact ones, have been used to satirize the king's relationship to the land and the WG, as in Tain Bo Cuailnge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, which deals with the king's inability to keep his stock from getting rustled.
One almost universally shared belief is that the ox keeps time.
It is interesting that humans hit upon the idea to defer eating young bulls of the genus Bos for sufficent time to train up the young bulls as beasts of burden. This training takes about four years, but at the end of four years the young ox is able to pull along at a steady pace, in unison with his mates and follow directions, perhaps. This is assuming the humans have not changed their minds and eaten him.
The young bull calfs are usually castrated if they are destined to a life of pulling carts or wagons or whatever. Castration serves to reduce the range of distractions the young ox is tempted to and allows him to focus more of his attention on following directions. In addition to following directions, the oxen must learn not to gallop or frisk about in yoke and to keep pace with the human marching along beside them and keeping them in order. Sometimes the oxen are so well trained that they can pull a cart along without having a human out in front keeping pace with the lead ox. However, in the mythology of the North American west, one does not encounter references to stage coaches pulled by oxen or to the oxen express. This is because the ox, no matter what, can never rival the breakneck pace of a horse or a mule.
Oxen, like donkeys, figure prominently in the human myths. Both, of course, have, abstractly, been worshipped as divinities. In Druidry, prior to a series of reformations, young bulls, if they appeared fractious and uncooperative and apparently unsuited to a life of cart-pulling or were deemed unsuitable as breeding bulls, were sacrificed for the purpose of divination. But more importantly, Druidically spelling, the sexually intact ones, have been used to satirize the king's relationship to the land and the WG, as in Tain Bo Cuailnge, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, which deals with the king's inability to keep his stock from getting rustled.
One almost universally shared belief is that the ox keeps time.
posted by ray pistrum at Sunday, November 20, 2005
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