Dun Cow of Dunsmore Heath

The Dun Cow of Dunsmore Heath is one of the great Warwickshire legends, and one of the oldest documented giant-beast traditions in England. The cow began benevolently: a miraculous animal of inexhaustible milk, she wandered the county providing freely for all who came to her. The trouble began when a witch — in most versions an old woman of malicious intent — sat down with a sieve instead of a pail and milked her without stopping until the supply ran dry. The cow, maddened by the experience, turned savage and ravaged the heath.

Her destruction fell to Guy of Warwick, the county's great legendary hero, who fought and killed her on Dunsmore Heath. The encounter was treated as historical fact for centuries: a gigantic bone, said to be her rib, was kept in Warwick Castle and shown to visitors well into the early modern period. It is now believed to have been a whale's rib — but that has not diminished the legend's hold on Warwickshire identity.

The Dun Cow also lends her name to a scatter of English pubs, a sign that the tradition spread far beyond its Warwickshire origins.