Droving ancestry

Back at Dingwall auction mart looking at the family tree, figuratively anyway. Extra 1 gives you a better look at the dog. The forebears are Scottish drovers, weavers, blacksmiths, farmers, and those are the strands I know about. Even the Hugenot refugees were weavers.

Droving was a dangerous business. All you had to do was get the cattle down to market, right? Well first, take a look at a contemporary map of the drove roads. Think about it way back when it was pretty lawless. Overnighting at  droving inns. Keeping an eye on the stock all night. Getting together next morning to check all the boys and girls were still there. Then, after the market, you had to get the money back to the neighbours who had entrusted their livelihood to you. Sleeping with the cash close to your chest. Greater danger.

One great, great grandfather took cattle as far as the big market in Otley, fell in love, married in. He appears on successive census records as cattle dealer, then farmer, then gentleman. Clearly he knew how to party.

Extra 2 is The Drover's Departure, Edwin Landseer 1835. So many stories in this picture, down to the chicken saying "how bloody dare you" to the dog chasing the chicks. How many narratives can you see, class?

I'll tell you about the blacksmiths another time. Great granddad's fantastic erection is something else.