Mythology!

Tarbh Uirge

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Tradition: Scottish Mythology
Alternative names: Tarbh Uirge
Category: Cow

The Myth

The Tarbh Uirge was a supernatural creature associated with small, lonely moorland lochs. Unlike the Water-horse, it was considered harmless and did not harm people who approached its haunts.

The creature normally remained in the lochs and emerged only at night. It could sometimes be heard lowing near the water before wandering among farmers’ cattle, although it was rarely seen.

Its presence was believed to explain a particular kind of unusual calf. Calves with abnormally short ears, as though the upper part had been cut away with a knife, were said to be the offspring of the Tarbh Uirge. Since the Tarbh Uirge itself was believed to have no ears, its calves supposedly inherited only half-sized ears. In Gaelic these calves were called Carc-chluasach, meaning “knife-eared.”

One account from the district of Lorn tells of a dairymaid and a herdsman who were preparing to leave a cattle fold in the evening. They suddenly saw a small, ugly, extremely black animal moving among the cattle. It had the shape of a bull, but its body was described as soft and slippery and its bellow was unnatural, sounding somewhat like the crowing of a cock.

Terrified, the two fled from the fold. When they returned the following morning, however, they found the cattle lying peacefully inside as though nothing unusual had happened.

The Tarbh Uirge was therefore a strange but essentially harmless creature of the Scottish lochs, associated particularly with nighttime appearances, unusual cattle, and an eerie supernatural bellow.

Sources

Campbell, John Gregorson. Superstitions of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland: Collected Entirely from Oral Sources. Glasgow: James MacLehose and Sons, 1900.

Schwarze Kuh

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Tradition: Austrian Mythology
Alternative names: The Black Cow
Category: Cow

The Myth

One evening, a shepherd from Montavon arrived late at the Latonz Alp to retrieve a black cow that had been left behind when the herd descended from the mountain. He put the cow in the stable and spent the night sleeping on a bunk in the alpine hut.

Around midnight, the alpine spirits, known as Bütze, entered the hut. They began cooking, boiling, and roasting in the room with an incredible din. The shepherd awoke and stared at them in confusion.

Suddenly, one of the spirits called to him to come down from his bunk. He was forced to leave his sleeping place and join them.

Then he noticed something horrifying. His black cow, standing outside in the stable, appeared to have an enormous hole in its body. The shepherd thought that the spirits had cut the flesh out of his cow and feared that they would have eaten the entire animal before dawn.

After their meal, the Bütze began playing music and dancing so violently that the alpine hut seemed almost to come apart. At the first light of dawn, the strange visitors departed.

The shepherd watched them leave and noticed a hide stretched across the doorway of the alpine hut. He believed that it was the hide of his black cow.

But when daylight had fully arrived, the hide had mysteriously disappeared. Outside, the black cow stood in the stable completely unharmed.

The terrifying events of the night had apparently been an illusion—or something supernatural that had left no lasting mark on the cow.

Sources

Vonbun, Franz Josef. “Die schwarze Kuh.” In Die Sagen Vorarlbergs. Mit Beiträgen aus Liechtenstein, no. 183, p. 141. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. Accessed August 29, 2026. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/oesterreich/vorarlberg/montavon/schwarzekuh.html

Svetna Krava

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Tradition: Slovenian Mythology
Alternative names: Svetna Krava, World-Supporting Bull
Category: Cow

The Myth

In Slovenian folk tradition, there is a saying that the world stands upon a bull. The belief was recorded in the nineteenth century by Davorin Trstenjak and published in Slovenski Glasnik in 1860. The tradition was presented as a surviving fragment of an older Slavic cosmogony.

According to the belief, the entire world rests upon the bull. Whenever the bull twitches its ear, the whole world shakes.

A closely related version was recorded among the Serbs by Vuk Stefanović Karadžić in his Serbian Dictionary of 1852. In this version, some people said that the world stood upon water, while others jokingly said that the world stood upon the bull, and that when the bull moved its ear, the world shook.

The tradition therefore places the bull in a cosmic role as the foundation supporting the entire world. The source also connects this conception with broader Indo-European traditions in which animals such as bulls, horses, cows, fish, snakes, whales, and turtles function as beings supporting or participating in the creation or structure of the cosmos.

The bull’s importance is particularly significant in the discussion of Slavic tradition because cattle were economically important to many Slavic peoples. The source also notes another South Slavic motif in which supernatural opponents transform into a black bull and a red bull, representing opposing forces such as good and evil or rival communities.

The exact ancient Slavic cosmology behind the belief is uncertain, but the Slovenian and Serbian records provide evidence that the image of a bull supporting the world survived in South Slavic folk tradition.

Sources

Kropej, Monika. Supernatural Beings from Slovenian Myth and Folktales. Ljubljana: Scientific Research Centre of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts, 2012.

Stiertratte

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Tradition: Austrian Mythology
Alternative names: –
Category: Cow

The Myth

In the Glödnitz Valley, near the place known as the “Bauer im Ort,” there is a location called the Stiertratte.

According to the legend, a group of arrogant miners once committed a cruel act against a living bull. They skinned the animal alive and drove it to Weitensfeld for people to see. They then spread the bull’s hide out at the location of the Stiertratte and played dice upon it.

As an eternal disgrace and punishment for their arrogance and cruelty, not a single blade of grass has grown at the place ever since.

The story therefore explains the existence of the barren patch of land known as the Stiertratte as a supernatural punishment for the miners’ mistreatment of the bull.

Sources

Rappold, J. “Die Stiertratte.” In Sagen aus Kärnten. Augsburg and Leipzig, 1887, no. 17, p. 23. Reproduced by SAGEN.at. Accessed August 29, 2026. https://www.sagen.at/texte/sagen/oesterreich/kaernten/allgemein/stiertratte.html

Sarangay

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Tradition: Philippine mythology
Alternative names: Sarangay
Category: Cow

The Myth

The Sarangay is a creature from Philippine mythology described as a powerful hybrid resembling a minotaur. It has the body of a man combined with that of a male water buffalo.

The creature is said to possess a precious gemstone attached to its ears. The Sarangay guards these jewels fiercely, and anyone who attempts to steal them is said to be killed mercilessly.

When a Sarangay becomes enraged, smoke is said to pour from its nostrils, emphasizing its dangerous and supernatural nature.

When Spanish observers encountered accounts of the creature in the seventeenth century, they reportedly interpreted the description as resembling the Greek Minotaur.

Sources

“Sarangay.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed August 29, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarangay

Roaring Bull o’ Bagbury

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Tradition: English Mythology
Alternative names: The Roaring Bull of Bagbury
Category: Ghost, Cow

The Myth

A notoriously wicked man once lived at Bagbury Farm. According to the story, he had done almost no good in his life, with only two acts of kindness remembered: giving a waistcoat to a poor old man and giving bread and cheese to a poor boy.

After his death, however, his ghost refused to rest. It began appearing in the buildings at Bagbury Farm in the shape of a bull, where it would roar so violently that boards, shutters, and roof tiles were thrown from the buildings. The haunting became so severe that nobody could live nearby.

The bull originally appeared around nine or ten at night, but eventually became so troublesome that it began arriving as early as seven or eight. Twelve parsons were summoned to lay the ghost. They managed to drive it, still in the form of a bull, toward Hyssington Church, but they struggled to contain it.

One of the twelve priests was an old blind parson who knew the ghost and anticipated its violent charge. He carried his candle inside his top boot. When the bull suddenly rushed at the priests, all their candles were extinguished except his. He then told the others to relight their candles from his.

Inside the church, the bull made such a tremendous burst that it cracked the church wall from top to bottom. According to the storyteller, the crack remained visible for years and was deliberately left unrepaired so that people could see where the supernatural bull had broken the church.

Eventually, the priests succeeded in forcing the bull into a snuff-box. The spirit then requested that it be buried beneath Bagbury Bridge, threatening that every mare passing over the bridge would lose her foal and every woman would lose her child. The priests refused this request and instead cast the bull into the Red Sea for a thousand years.

Even long afterward, people remained frightened of Bagbury Bridge. The storyteller recalled that the old clerk of Hyssington had personally remembered the blind parson. Decades after the bull had supposedly been confined in the Red Sea, people still crossed the bridge cautiously. One man recalled crossing it with horses and deliberately getting down from his horse, walking softly and making as little noise as possible, because he feared that the bull might hear him and emerge from beneath the bridge.

Sources

“Efft60.” Sacred Texts. Accessed August 29, 2026. https://sacred-texts.com/neu/eng/efft/efft60.htm

Riji

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Tradition: Chinese mythology
Alternative names: Riji
Category: Cow

The Myth

The Riji is a legendary strange ox said to have lived among the Yuezhi of the Western Regions.

The creature possesses an extraordinary ability: if one or two jin of meat are cut from its body, the wound heals by the following day, allowing the flesh to regenerate. According to the Xuanzhongji, when Han people entered the land of the Yuezhi, the inhabitants showed them the Riji as a rare delicacy.

The name Riji is also used for the hibiscus flower. This connection comes from the flower’s unusual daily cycle: it opens in the morning and closes in the evening. Because of this, it was associated with the idea of something that appears anew each day.

The surviving accounts therefore associate the Riji with extraordinary regeneration, although the sources provided here do not give a further description of its appearance beyond identifying it as an unusual ox.

Sources

“日及.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia (Chinese Wikipedia). Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed August 29, 2026. https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%97%A5%E5%8F%8A

Re’em

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Tradition: Israeli Mythology
Alternative names: Reëm, Re’em (רְאֵם), Rəʾēm
Category: Cow

The Myth

The re’em is an animal mentioned nine times in the Hebrew Bible. Its exact identity has been debated for centuries, and different traditions and translations have understood it in several different ways.

The creature has been translated as a “unicorn” in the Latin Vulgate and the King James Version. Other translations have rendered the name as “oryx,” “wild ox,” “wild bull,” “buffalo,” or “rhinoceros.” In Modern Hebrew, the word has been associated with the oryx.

One of the best-known descriptions appears in the Book of Job, where God challenges Job by asking whether the re’em can be made to serve mankind:
“Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow?”

The passage emphasizes the creature’s great strength and its independence from human control. Job is asked whether he can trust the re’em’s strength or make it perform agricultural labor and bring in his harvest.

Because of these descriptions, the re’em has often been imagined as a powerful wild bovine rather than an ordinary domesticated ox. Some modern interpretations identify it with the aurochs, the enormous wild ancestor of domestic cattle. Others have associated it with the oryx or other large horned animals.

The famous image of the re’em as a unicorn therefore comes largely from later translation traditions rather than from a detailed biblical description of a one-horned monster. The original Hebrew term itself does not definitively establish what animal was intended.

Sources

“Re’em.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed August 29, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Re%27em

Quinotaur

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Tradition: Frankish mythology, French Mythology
Alternative names: Quinotaurus
Category: Cow, Fish

The Myth

The Quinotaur was a mythical sea creature mentioned in the 7th-century Chronicle of Fredegar. It was described as a beast of Neptune resembling a bull with five horns, combining a taurine form with a connection to the sea.

According to the legend, the creature attacked the wife of the Frankish king Chlodio and fathered Meroveus. Through Meroveus, the Quinotaur was therefore said to have sired the line of Merovingian kings.

The creature was associated with both Neptune and the Minotaur because of its two defining characteristics: it was a bull-like creature connected with the sea. The surviving account does not make clear whether the Quinotaur was originally a genuine Frankish mythological being or whether some of its characteristics were shaped or elaborated by the Christian authors who recorded the story.

The name Quinotaurus is Latin, and its precise original meaning is uncertain. The surviving sources do not establish whether it translated an earlier Frankish name for the creature or was itself a later scholarly or clerical creation.

The story has also been compared with other ancient myths involving bulls, water, fertility, and divine ancestry. In Greek mythology, for example, Zeus took the form of a bull when he carried Europa across the sea to Crete, while the Minotaur was born from the union of Pasiphaë and a divine white bull associated with Poseidon.

The Quinotaur is therefore preserved primarily as a legendary ancestor of the Merovingian dynasty, rather than as a creature with a large independent body of mythology.

Sources

“Quinotaur.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. Accessed August 29, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinotaur

Qiongqi

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Tradition: Chinese mythology
Alternative names: Thoroughly-Odd, Qiongqi (窮奇)
Category: Cow

The Myth

Two hundred and sixty li west of the previous region stands Mount Gui. A strange beast is said to dwell on its heights, resembling an ox covered with the sharp needles of a porcupine. It is called Qiongqi and makes a sound like a howling dog.

Qiongqi is a man-eater. According to one tradition, it devours people who wear their long hair loose, a style associated with demons and shamans. Its victims are eaten beginning with the head, although another version says that it begins with the feet.

Qiongqi was later given a more human and historical identity. In the Zuo Zhuan, it was described as another incompetent son of a thearch, Lesser-Brilliance, in the same passage that also mentions Hundun. Like Hundun, Qiongqi later became a fierce deity during the Han period.

The Huainanzi gives another account of its origin, stating that Qiongqi was born from the wind of the Northern Desert. He was also one of twelve divine beings invoked during the official Grand Exorcism performed at the end of the lunar year in the imperial palace.

Despite his terrifying nature, Qiongqi had a beneficial aspect in this ritual: he consumed insect-poison.

Qiongqi appears again in another chapter of the Guideway to the Mountains and Seas, where he is described differently, this time as a tiger with wings.

A later work, the Guideway to Gods and Anomalies, gives Qiongqi an even more sinister character. There he is portrayed as a perverse creature that devours people who are loyal and trustworthy, while offering freshly killed meat to the wicked and rebellious.

Another version of the same tradition describes Qiongqi as having a human body and the head of a dog, again making a sound like a dog. Because of this form, the poet Guo Pu referred to him as a “divine dog.”

Sources

Strassberg, Richard E., ed. and trans. A Chinese Bestiary: Strange Creatures from the Guideways Through Mountains and Seas. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002.