Cow

Available for over a year

Brett Westwood investigates the peaceful, hefty, cud-chewing beasts which have been by our side for thousands of years. Discover what Shakespeare made of this special relationship, hear Dinka songs from the intense cattle-based cultures of South Sudan and travel to a Leicestershire dairy where robots do the milking. It's a pastoral scene and a violent one too: the fearsome virility of the bull in the poetry of Lorca, sacred cows prompting vigilante violence in India, and a Greek tyrant who would bake his victims alive in a giant metal bull, its resonance turning their cries to moos. From all this bovine history it's clear that the domestication of the cow has fundamentally changed human society. Producer: Melvin Rickarby First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2017.