Feral Cows

Dear Zoe,

Thank you for being such a courteous host.

It is, however, the tradition that the courteous host must speed the parting guest, and I'm sure you will accord with this.

Also, Thank You for your offer of food.

However, it is not my practice to eat cattle.

In the matter of blood, I'm a connoisseur.

Blood is Lives.

Blood is Testimony.

The Testimony of everyone I have ever destroyed flows in my veins.

I will choose with care who joins them now.

Ripeness is the first moment of Decay.

Sweetness is the promise of Corruption.

I shall look for The Perfect Food of This World.

And I will find it.

Never doubt that.

I will find it.

Blood is everything you needed to know, Zoe, if you understand how to read it.

Have you worked out how yet?

If you ever hope to match me, you'll have to.

Count Dracula

The “Wild” Cattle at Chillingham are The Stuff of Legend.

Around 700 years ago, one of The Lords of Chillingham Castle decided to let a herd of cattle on his land roam free, without Human Interference.

He reckoned that having wild cattle on his estate would provide him with an exciting hunt, and at the same time, deter cattle rustlers.

The herd have been there ever since.

“ It’s a bit of a mystery where the cattle came from —

About 800 years ago, The King granted the family, here A Right to Create a Castle, and to crenelate — and with that came The Right to create this Park.

And so they created The Park.

And the idea of The Park was really to hold Red Deer —

And the Red Deer were - well, they weren’t sacred, but they were definitely The Gift of The King -

and if you went and killed or hunted a Red Deer, without The Permission of The King...  Things were probably going to go very badly for you, and you would probably lose your life... and with, maybe, a few other things as well..

So, to suddenly have The Park, for the family here, was a BIG Deal...

 

So they created The Wall, and at some stage, they must've come and shut all the gates, or whatever they'd created -

and they caught all of the Red Deer, but they ALSO caught these cattle.

And The Mystery is  - What Were The Cattle DOING, Roaming around, here -- when we KNOW that cattle have been domesticated in this country for AT LEAST five thousand years, possibly six --

So, Why were The Cattle  in The Woods....?

No-one really knows.

The Cattle have been here for 800 years and more, and for the first couple of hundred years of their existence, they served no agricultural purpose at all, really - and What They Were Here For, was hunting, and to be hunted --

So they needed them WILD.

The last thing you want if you are going out hunting an animal to prove how tough and manly you were is something Tame, that's no good.

You needed to have something that was stroppy.

So they kept them stroppy, they didn't allow any sort of domesticated breeds to get in amongst them,

Special Agent Dale Cooper : 

Roger —

I know The Moves I'm supposed to make. 

And I know The Board.

FBI Agent Roger Hardy : 

So?

Special Agent Dale Cooper : 

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately. 

And I've started to focus out beyond The Edge of The Board. 

On A Bigger Game.

FBI Agent Roger Hardy : 

What Game?

Special Agent Dale Cooper : 

The sound The Wind makes through The Vines. 

The Sentience of Animals.

What we fear in The Dark and what lies beyond The Darkness.

FBI Agent Roger Hardy : 

What the hell are you talking about?

Special Agent Dale Cooper : 

I'm talking about seeing beyond Fear, Roger. 

About looking at The World with Love.

FBI Agent Roger Hardy : 

They're liable to extradite you for 

Murder and Drug Trafficking.

Special Agent Dale Cooper : 

These are Things I Cannot Control.

“ Wotan had toiled to create the free Siegfried; presented with the free Siegfried, he was enraged. 

This terrible need to be needed often finds its outlet in pampering an animal. To learn that someone is “fond of animals” tells us very little until we know in what way. 

For there are two ways.

On the one hand the higher and domesticated animal is, so to speak, a “bridge” between us and the rest of nature. 

We all at times feel somewhat painfully our human isolation from the sub-human world—the atrophy of instinct which our intelligence entails, our excessive self-consciousness, the innumerable complexities of our situation, our inability to live in the present. If only we could shuffle it all off! We must not—and incidentally we can’t—become beasts. 

But we can be with a beast. 

It is personal enough to give the word with a real meaning; yet it remains very largely an unconscious little bundle of biological impulses. It has three legs in nature’s world and one in ours. It is a link, an ambassador. 

Who would not wish, as Bosanquet put it, “to have a representative at the court of Pan?"

Man with dog closes a gap in the universe. But of course animals are often used in a worse fashion. 

If you need to be needed and if your family, very properly, decline to need you, a pet is the obvious substitute. You can keep it all its life in need of you. 

You can keep it permanently infantile, reduce it to permanent invalidism, cut it off from all genuine animal well-being, and compensate for this by creating needs for countless little indulgences which only you can grant. 

The unfortunate creature thus becomes very useful to the rest of the household; it acts as a sump or drain—you are too busy spoiling a dog’s life to spoil theirs. 

Dogs are better for this purpose than cats: a monkey, I am told, is best of all. 

Also it is more like the real thing. 

To be sure, it’s all very bad luck for the animal. But probably it cannot fully realise the wrong you have done it. 

Better still, you would never know if it did."

— CS Lewis : The Four Loves

Cows have just the right level of Fear -- They'll keep a wary distance, but if they're handled properly, they won't  scare.

Many animals, like antelope and most species of deer, can't be domesticated -- because the slightest surprise causes them to bolt.

If you try to fence-in a herd of gazelles, they'll batter themselves to death on The Fence, trying to escape in a panic.

In Indian mythology, the call of the inner world, the call of the unconscious, is often portrayed as a Deer that is tantalizingly close but eludes being  caught. 

 The King and his courtiers were galloping along when the King saw a deer just  out of bow-and-arrow range. 

He veered off and began following it, but the miraculous deer kept just outside his range. 

The King went plunging further and further  into The Forest, chasing The Deer all day, so intent was he, in his masculine vigor, to  catch this prized animal. 

By late afternoon, the King was irretrievably lost, and The Deer had vanished. 

What a Wonderful Deer. 

He gets you Where You Need to Go and  then Leaves You.  

The King was exhausted and rather frightened, as he was now separated from  his courtiers. 

Being a Wise Young Man, he got off his horse and sat down. 

If you  don’t know what to do, 

sit quietly until your wits come back. 

Van Helsing :

Count Dracula,

please attend my words with care.

CHAINS CLANG

This is St Mary's Convent of Budapest,

and you are not welcome here.

You are most specifically not invited in.

SNARLS AND HISSES

SNARLS

SNARLS

Van Helsing :

Oh!

So it's True, then.

That's interesting.

MOTHER SUPERIOR: 

What is?

Van Helsing :

"A Vampire may not enter any abode unless invited in."

I wasn't sure about that one.

MOTHER SUPERIOR :

A vampire?

Dracula :

You unlocked The Gate and you weren't sure?

Mother Superior :

A vampire?!

Van Helsing :

Oh, the iron wasn't keeping you out.

You could have torn it apart like matchwood.

Dracula :

I could tear you apart

Van Helsing :

Not from out there, you couldn't.

But what's stopping you?

A-a feeling?

A force?

Is it physical or mental?

Why do you need an invitation?

Dracula :

Do you expect me to tell you?

Van Helsing :

Oh, I don't even expect you to KNOW

A Beast can follow rules. 

I don't expect it to understand them.

NUNS GASP

Dracula :

I am More Than a Beast.

Van Helsing :

In what way?

By your own account, you've been on this Earth for hundreds of years, and you can't even walk into a nunnery?

An ox could do it.

How are you more than A Beast?

Dracula :

Do you want me to show you?

Van Helsing :

Of course.

I'm waiting.

Dracula :

WHISPERS: 

Come here. Come here.

Come here. Come here a moment.

Come closer.

Look at them.

Look at Your Sisters — 

Van Helsing :

Armed and Ready.

Dracula :

You're not looking.

Van Helsing :

I don't need to.

Dracula :

One of them - that's all I need.

If just one of your pretty little army beckons me in.... 

I will tear your world to pieces

and I will drink my fill.

Van Helsing :

Why would they invite you in?

What do you have to offer?

Dracula :

Eternal Life.

Van Helsing :

Well, they have that already.

Thanks.

Dracula :

Starting tonight, because the first one to invite me in stays at my side.

The Others I will tear apart, and, ladies...

I will take my time.

One should never rush a nun.

Van Helsing :

Your words are not welcome here.

Dracula :

Well, if you find you're not tempted by my offer, ask yourself this.

Who is?

Who's Weakest?

Who's the most afraid?

Who will break first?

And is there still time for it to be

you?

LAUGHS: 

What's that?

What are you doing?

Van Helsing :

You wanted to know Who's Weakest?

I'm SHOWING you.

SNARLS

ROARS

Van Helsing :

Oh, go on, help yourself!

There's a dog comes past here most days.

We often give it scraps.

SNARLS

Van Helsing :

Go on. You've come so far.

I'm sure you could do with a drink.

SNARLS

Van Helsing :

Hmm. You see, I'm not certain I see the appeal.

SNARLS

SNARLS

Van Helsing :

Each to his own, I suppose.

Dracula :

Do you think... 

provoking me is clever?

Van Helsing :

Yes. I Do.

I want to learn about you.

I want to see the limit of your capability.

That's The Point of This Experiment.

Dracula :

You have no conception.

Not the first idea.

Van Helsing :

Hmm...

Here, boy!

Mother Superior :

This is contemptible.

You are Without Shame.

Dracula :

Be careful.... what you Say to me.

Van Helsing :

Don't speak with your mouth full.

She's EARNED The Right to EXPRESS her contempt, you know. 

We ALL have.

Each of these women in front of you has Turned Her Back on Earthly Pleasures.

Resisting ALL forms of Temptation, 

We have freed Ourselves of Appetite, 

and therefore of Fear.

That is why you can't bear the sight of THIS.

It speaks of a holy virtue

you do not possess.

It is goodness incarnate.

Dracula :

LAUGHS SOFTLY

For a moment there, 

I thought you were Clever.

But no.

No, that's not why I fear The Cross.

Goodness has got nothing to do with it.

Van Helsing :

So you say, but how can a mere beast understand its own fear?

No-one will invite you in, Count Dracula.

They'll just pity you right where you are.

Dracula :

Who are you?

Van Helsing :

Finish your scraps. 

That's all you'll be getting tonight.