Scottish Highland Cattle with large horns and long, shaggy fur, despite their wild appearance, are docile and loving. Recently at the 2005 Kilgore Texas Celtic Heritage festival, young children petted their thick, warm, tufted, red pelts, smiled at the cows’ sweet square faces, and took turns riding on their furry backs.

For centuries, Highland Cattle grazed freely on the mist shrouded hills and moors of Scotland. Their nostrils filled with the scent of purple heather as they munched on the juicy shoots of weeds. Highland cattle required little shelter or grains to stay hardy and hale. During hot droughts they rested under the shade of trees while the sun was high then fed under the moonlight. With their shaggy, double coats of fur they also strived in snow and ice. Needing little, they in turn had a generous, giving nature. The highland cows bountifully gave the ancient Celts so much: milk, meat, horns, and leather.

Cattle played such an important role in Celtic life; they were the main currency of the ancient Celts. In Ireland, by Brehon Law, wealth was measured in cattle and each person’s status was measured in terms of wealth. Almost any crime could be recompensed by paying a fine equal to the victim’s status. For example, fifty cows for a king, three cows for a peasant.

In Wales the Laws of Hywel Dda also measured fines and payments in numbers of cattle. The Dimetian Code of Laws recorded fines paid in cattle to the Lords of Dynevor. In 1210 AD the wife of William de Breos (Brecon) tried to appease King John (of the Robin Hood tales) with a gift of a bull and four hundred cows. Also, the Welsh Prince Llewelyn Fawr was ordered to make a payment to King John of 20,000 cattle. Even as late as the 14th century, payments in cattle were still common in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland.

The ancient Celts lived in small settlements and hill-forts.  At certain times of the year, they gathered together to trade cattle and for festivals. Cattle played a major part in the Celtic Fire Festivals. At Samhain, the people and the cattle came down from the hills to take shelter in the winter quarters. It was also slaughtering time, as the tribe had to provide food for the coming winter. At Beltane, before leading the cows to pasture, the Celts drove their herds which, unlike the skittish horses, amiably and bravely tread between the blazing heat of two, hot, roaring bonfires, which scorched and killed the external parasites that had multiplied during the close confinement of winter.

Bridget - Patroness of Cattle

Of all creatures, the cow seems the closet personification of the earth mother. Is it any wonder that one of the most revered female figures, whether she’s looked upon as a Celtic Goddess or a great Saint of Ireland, Bridget was the patroness of cattle. Legend goes she was raised on the milk of a white, red-eared cow. It is also said, Bridgett milked a cow until its overflowing milk formed a lake, Loch an Ais.

Among the Celts, Cow Goddesses were linked to fertility and abundance. The Celtic deity Bouinn or Boann, worshiped in Gaul, Italy, Ireland, and Bohemia, was known as the White Cow Goddess. Along with being the patroness of livestock, it was Boann who first released the waters of poetry and the Salmon of Wisdom into the world. Ianuaria, the Celtic Earth Mother, had a cow as her totem. She served as an understanding bridge between animals and humans. An ancient shrine stands at Beire-le-Chatel in France where a stone statue portrays Ianuaria as a young girl with curly hair, wearing a heavy pleated coat and holding a set of pipes, triple-horned bulls, and doves. Damona, a Gallic healer goddess, depicted with a crown of corn ears and a serpent curled around her hand was known as the Divine Cow.

As you pet one of these gentle beasts, you can imagine a young redheaded Scottish cattle drover, named Rob Roy, leading his herd of Highland Cattle to market in Crieff. The history of the Celts and the history of this majestic breed cannot be separated. First and foremost the Celts were cattle farmers who loved and cared for their herds. In turn these gentle beast supplied them not only with milk, meat, horns, and leather but also influenced their political status and their spiritual life.

At the Celtic Heritage Festival in Kilgore Texas, the bagpipes played a reverberating, ethereal tune, calling for the gathering of the Clans, just like pipers drew the Scottish Clans together for wars, hundreds of years ago. The Clans paraded through the festival with their banners held high as the Highland Cattle proudly took up the rear in this ancient march of bravery, loyalty, and kinship.