“When the longhorns could be gathered up and driven, it was theorized that the heat from the herd’s mass attracted lightning. (Such was the radiant heat from a large herd that a cowboy’s face would be blistered on whichever side of the herd he’d ridden by the day’s end.) Their great horns also seemed to attract electricity, so that lightning and ground-electricity would bounce around from horn to horn throughout the herd – a phantasmagoric burning blue circuitry. The cracking of the cowboy’s whips and the twitching of the cattle’s tails also emitted sparkling “snakes of fire.”
― The New Wolves: The Return of the Mexican Wolf to the American Southwest
Richardson, Texas
I’ve never heard such a thing. It’s fascinating. First I thought, “Is that true”? Then I thought, “I don’t care. I want it to be true.” I can see those herds, like roaming Tesla coils.
I don’t think it can be literally true – but, like you, I don’t really care – what an image! Then image a pre-European herd of bison.