Running with the Bull tomorrow, not me I hasten to add! It sounds so “romantic” doesn’t it? “Running WITH the Bull”?
I have to admit, I gave thought to doing it too. It sounds “exciting” Dangerous, Adventurous, in a sort of “Hemingway” kind of style. But I have pledged my support to trying to stamp out ANY forms of animal abuse and so I decided despite it being an opportunity to experience “Real Spain” it was not going to sit well with what I believe.
I think “running” with a Bull might still be an exciting thing to do though; but I decided it would be braver and more challenging to do it on equal terms. Give the Bull the freedom to give me a heart attack on open territory! This poor beast will be funnelled into a town with hard streets on a long rope. There will of course be an opportunity to give someone the Horn, and call me callous, but if it happens, then bravo Bull! If you are prepared to run with it, then prepare to be gored by it and don’t complain if it gores you!
I remember a field of cows with calf’s in Richmond that were mingling with the Wensleydales from Izzy Lane. Isobel and I were walking in these fields and a silly Sheep had been butted into a ditch by one of the cows. It was still trying to butt the sheep even though it was stuck and so I ran at the cow and punched it on the nose. It looked at me with vague contempt and sauntered off back to the herd. It wasn’t a brutal punch but it got the message. I then helped the hapless Wensleydale out of the ditch and it too looked at me with disdain! I think the cow saw the sheep as a threat to its calf why it didn’t see me in the same light I don’t know, but it seemed reasonably fair for me to approach the problem this way. It could have trampled me but didn’t.
Now obviously it would have been slightly different had it been a “Bull”! I might well have thought twice, but then again, I might not! My concern was for the poor helpless Wensleydale. I think other animals know when fear is present and also when it isn’t and most of them will think twice when faced with “equal aggression” there are cases of a lowly cat seeing off a Puma for e.g. and I know someone who yelled and screamed at a large wild Boar and it left her alone! This Bull in town though, will have noise and much activity and taunting, that would surely make it confused and both angry and defensive!? Not a “Fair” situation at all.
I then thought of going to photograph the spectacle but now, I don’t want to be anywhere near witnessing it and so, shall toddle off to the woods maybe and listen to the wild, without human interference.
Viva el Toro, “Suerte”
