1st ELAGABALUS DENARIUS

Raised a lot of cattle growing up: you only had ONE bull for a herd (100). Sooo... quality bulls were very important. We had 1/3 rights to the Canadian Grand Champion bull on a 3 year rotation... yeah, it was worth the big bucks for the 1/3rd Bull!

 

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haha!.. great minds big A

 

You beat me too it. One bull per herd. Too many bulls means trouble.

 

This has been a very interesting thread. Great coin @gregarious. Plenty of nice examples from everyone else too.
This one is quite rough but it's my only Elegabalus and it was only about 2 bucks so I can't complain.

 

The term "Horny" refers to the horns of a cuckold. If a man wore the horns of a cukold it meant that his wife was cheating on him. Interestingly, we still do this today. The gesture we make with our fingers behind someone's head is a throwback to the cuckold's horns. We are in fact saying that this person is being cheated on.

 

Come to think of it, a little cuckolding may not be beyond Elagalabus's interests...

 

I did some more research

http://www.takeourword.com/pt.html
"The word horny "sexually excited, lecherous" derives from an interesting yet not surprising source. As early as the mid-18th century, an erection was known as a horn or the horn, simply because it looked a bit like one. James Joyce even used the term in his Ulysses. From there, any man having the horn was called horny, and this is first recorded in 1889. It was surely in use long before then, as the horn probably was. It often takes some time for lewd slang to make it into the written record."

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=horny&searchmode=none
"it probably derives from the late 18c. slang expression to have the horn, suggestive of male sexual excitement (but eventually applied to women as well); see horn (n.). As a noun it once also was a popular name for a domestic cow. For an adjective in the original sense of the word, hornish (1630s) and horn-like (1570s) are available."

 

Okay, so this is really getting off topic. But I'm curious. Why didn't you just keep one of your bulls intact rather than renting?

 

a cuckold's horns?!?...hmmm.. i always thought the term cuckold came from the cuckoo bird.

 

It is related. From wikipedia:"The word cuckold derives from the cuckoo bird, alluding to its habit of laying its eggs in other birds' nests.[2][3] The association is common in medieval folklore, literature, and iconography."

As for the horns of a cuckold:

http://www.strangehistory.net/2014/05/16/cuckolds-horns/

"The most difficult question is, of course, where does the idea of a cuckold’s horns originate? There are many theories but the best notion has to be that pushed a generation ago by Graber and Richter (1987). They referred to a curious agricultural custom whereby castrated roosters (capons) had their spurs transplanted onto their combs: where they grew into the comb as horns. (Talk about adding insult to injury.) The cuckolded husband is neutered, hence the capon’s horns. If all this sounds interesting but hardly cuckoldish, consider that the German word for cuckold is Hahnrei (rooster-deer): etymological proof always sounds so convincing. The problem is that most studies suggest that the practice originated in the Latin Mediterranean (i.e. that’s where we get most early evidence) but the connection there was with goats not roosters"

As you can see, the whole origin of the horns of a cuckhold is not easy to ascertain.

 

We did. For the year we had Champ, bull was studded out to another farm.

 

ok, i always think of that poem from college "for thus sings he..cuckoo! cuckoo! o word of fear, unpleasing to the married ear", of o bill shakespeare. yup, those cuckoo's are purdy sneaky birds.

 

The cuckold's horns are very prominent in the works of Shakespeare. Look to "Much ado about nothing" for examples.

You might also consider the reference to cuckoos from middle English:

Middle English[edit]
Svmer is icumen in
Lhude sing cuccu
Groweþ sed
and bloweþ med
and springþ þe wde nu
Sing cuccu

Awe bleteþ after lomb
lhouþ after calue cu
Bulluc sterteþ
bucke uerteþ

murie sing cuccu
Cuccu cuccu
Wel singes þu cuccu
ne swik þu nauer nu

Sing cuccu nu • Sing cuccu.
Sing cuccu • Sing cuccu nu

Modern English
Summer[a] has arrived,
Sing loudly, cuckoo!
The seed is growing
And the meadow is blooming,
And the wood is coming into leaf now,
Sing, cuckoo!

The ewe is bleating after her lamb,
The cow is lowing after her calf;
The bullock is prancing,
The billy-goat farting,

Sing merrily, cuckoo!
Cuckoo, cuckoo,
You sing well, cuckoo,
Never stop now.

Sing, cuckoo, now; sing, cuckoo;
Sing, cuckoo; sing, cuckoo, now!

 

ah, that's a good one too! and now i hear in my minds ear the child rhyme of the kookaburra