Purple Cows - [Fearsome Critter | Slang]

 Purple Cows. - [Fearsome Critter | Slang | Food Lore]  -(Latin: Purpureus taurus; glacies crepito) - (Aka: Ice cream cattle, Lucy.) 

• About this critter: A slightly spotted, polka dotted, Purple cow. Ol' Paul once cared for a gigantic lavender heifer by the name of Lucy; a remarkable dairy animal capable of supplying enough creme & butter to grease the logging roads so that Paul was able to run his logging sleds all summer. - Ol' Paul always said that Lucy was part Jersey cow, and part wolf, this claim it seems likely, as she had quite the a voracious appetite: inhaling everything and anything that was green in sight. She ate so many trees that her milk would run as thick as sap, when she fed on ever greens tree her milk got so strong of white pine and balsam that the men used it for cough medicine and linament. – During the year of two winters it was said to have been so cold that her milk turned to delicious ice cream, moments before it hit the pail!  - Brimstone bill (who wanted to get out of shovelling.) made her some green glasses which made everything look green! This worked a bit too well and Lucy excitedly ran wild across america, eating all the snow in site in order to keep track of where she was, Paul decorated her with a massive bell borrowed from a buried church...

• History: Lucy's story was first told in "Paul Bunyan tales" [Charles E Browns 1921] Lucys story was soon embellished and published across various newspapers advertisements for the RED RIVER LUMBER COMPANY in the early 1920's ( they explain that supposedly Lucy's story was taken from oral yarns which began from somewhere in Dakota.) - Originally titled "PAULS LUCKY COW" Her story was later included with illustrations in pamphlets which where eventually compiled and published in W.B Laugheeds "The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan" [1922] -

The longer yarn about lucy, included there-in goes as follows:

"LUCY, Paul Bunyan's cow, was not, so far as we can learn, related in any way to either Babe or Benny. Statements that she was their mother are without basis in fact. The two oxen had been in Paul's possession for a long time before Lucy arrived on the scene. No reliable data can be found as to the pedigree of this remarkable dairy animal. There are no official records of her butter-fat production nor is it known where or how Paul got her.

Paul always said that Lucy was part Jersey and part wolf. Maybe so. Her actions and methods of living seemed to justify the allegation of wolf ancestry, for she had an insatiable appetite and a roving disposition. Lucy ate everything in sight and could never be fed at the same camp with Babe or Benny. In fact, they quit trying to feed her at all but let her forage her own living. The Winter of the Deep Snow, when even the tallest White Pines were buried, Brimstone Bill outfitted Lucy with a set of Babe's old snowshoes and a pair of green goggles and turned her out to graze on the snowdrifts. At first she had some trouble with the new foot gear but once she learned to run them and shift gears without wrecking herself, she answered the call of the limitless snow fields and ran away all over North America until Paul decorated her with a bell borrowed from a buried church.

In spite of short rations she gave enough milk to keep six men busy skimming the cream. If she had been kept in a barn and fed regularly she might have made a milking record. When she fed on the evergreen trees and her milk got so strong of White Pine and Balsam that the men used it for cough medicine and linament, they quit serving the milk on the table and made butter out of it. By using this butter to grease the logging roads when the snow and ice thawed off, Paul was able to run his logging sleds all summer."

Pauls barnyard & milking cows are also mentioned in glen rounds ol paul, the mighty logger [1936] however he it splits "lucy" into several cows:

Boss was the great butter cow; John Shears had only to put salt in her milk, stir it a bit, let it stand for a while, and he would have tubfuls of the finest butter in the land. Suke’s milk made wonderful bubbly hot cakes. Baldy’s milk never soured, and it was especially good in cream gravy. S’manthy’s milk was pretty poor stuff, but she had a vast hankering for balsam boughs, 

You'll note that in the above, there's no mention of her coloration, well naturally; Lucy eventually made her way to Homer Dimmicks "Paul bunyan the Giant lumberjack", [1968] where in lucy was earliest depicted and given her distinctive colour (Earlier stories (as far as i've read) never actually said anything about her coloration, so perhaps the idea of purple cows being related to bunyan "stuck" as well as it did because of babes blueness? (Jersey cows are brown/red. Red + Blue = Purple?) - I digress; eventually this version of the story found its way to be as a marker on the Paul Bunyan trail as well so, that bit of lore likely spread from there. – The excerpt from Homer Dimmicks book goes as follows:

"Lucy, the Purple Cow, was a champion producer and furnished Paul's dairy products. She was contented so long as the grass was green, so in the winter Paul fitted her with green glasses to make the snow look like grass.

The year of the two winters it got so cold her milk turned to ice cream before it hit the pail. That was the winter Paul invented the double-deck ice cream cone."

[illustration by Homer Dimmicks 1968]

But of course; its should be without saying that Lucy, despite her vibrant green glasses, would never make it into the limelight of well remembered critters or even popularly spread Bunyan lore and stories; (At least not on the same scale of "fame" as Paul & Babe did.) – its quite important to note that; the history of purple cows, never began nor did it end with Lucy; nor is the point of this article to imply as such! – This was all to just to say that at her roots, Lucy's eventual decided coloration as a 'purple cow' in fact: actually seems to be a nod towards a much earlier incredibly popular, short nonsense-poem by American poet, Gelett Burgess which was written much earlier in May of 1895! – The 'purple cow' poem in question goes as follows:

"I never saw a Purple Cow,
I never hope to see one;
But I can tell you, anyhow,
I'd rather see than be one"

["The Lark" by Gelett Burgess, May 1895] 

This poem later inspired Hank Meijero in 1934 to create a famous brand of ice cream by the name of "purple cow." – Not just that, but the poem also inspired several others to start up restaurants & businesses under the namesake as well – yet another (seemingly coincidentally purple-cow & ice-cream related story.) in Doom Virginia which also has a "Purple cow road" - Which came to be named as such due to having a gigantic purple cow head as a land mark. (Supposedly the story goes that some rowdy teenagers stole it from a local dairy shop, painted it and moved it there.) The head itself has since become a locally well known as a roadside attraction. – In the 60's, it had an ice cream parlour & burger grill underneath, the Ice cream parlour closed for many years after the owner moved, but it eventually reopened (breifly) 2015-2018. (I'm unsure what if anything its being used for today as news is sadly quite scarce!)

[clipping from 1993]

[The cow head and Skyview parlour & Grill - image source]

Doris day also used the poem in her 1954 song titled: "A purple cow" as a metaphor for being in love! - In 1956, President Eisenhower who was gifted a purple cow from williams college said that it was a lucky omen! – (on that note, Williams college has a purple cow as its mascot, apparently named after the college newsletter, which in turn took its name, yet again from the poem in question! Though; according to locals, its named as such because of a nearby mythical 'purple valley' where in the sun sets just so making everything seem purple!) - 

[Eisenhowers purple cow] -

[another poem featuring "purple cows" 1909.] 

Today still; the Purple cow poem also makes frequent appearances quite widely in children's poetry & Joke-books. According to some; January 30th is the official purple cow day, but others insist that it takes place on July 15th. (Allegedly, before it was changed to be part of 'National Cow Appreciation Day.')

[a clipping from Weird Minnesota, 2006]

• Figures of Speech, Slang: to call something or someone "a purple cow" can mean that they're "original" "strange" or "unique" (most similarly to how one might refer to someone as "a unicorn.") it can also mean that somethings "utterly remarkable" or to denote that somethings "absolutely absurd" or just plain "ridiculous." all of that said; it doesn't seem to be that common of a saying today, at least where I'm from! a purple cow can apparently also be a milkshake; grape-juice mixed with milk. yum? 

I sincerely doubt that many people have thought about Lucy or purple cows recently. - how now? - regardless; You read it here first; folks: to see or to be gifted a purple cow is a very lucky omen indeed! (Now, buy a sticker why don't 'cha!?)

• See also: Chocolate Milk (Brown) Cow, Strawberry (Pink) Cow, Holy Cow, Coosbay Cow-Whales, Babe, Bunyans Natural History, Pink Elephants.

[Art sticker & deep dive by @Samkalensky, part of my fearsome critters collection of stickers!]