Born of An Unholy Union

THE SCENE: Don’t have sex with cows, lest you invite in into the world an abominable Man Cow

THE TEXT: Shortly before the coming of the English into the island a cow, from a man’s being with her – a particular vice of that people – gave birth to a man-calf in the mountains around Glendalough. From this you may believe that once again a man that was half an ox, and an ox that was half a man was produced. It spent nearly a year with the other calves following its mother and feeding on her milk, and then, because it had more of the man than the beast, was transferred to the society of men.

– The History and Topography of Ireland, Gerald of Wales, 12th Century AD