Herding Calls-Personal Narrative Analysis

Would you sing to a cow? How about a goat? Believe it or not, this used to be normal for female Scandinavian shepherds, who called their animals home after grazing in nearby fields all day. In Swedish, the practice is formally called Kulning. In English, the closest translation is “Herding calls.” My first experience with it was from a video I saw while scrolling on Instagram, performed by a woman named Jonna Jinton. It had come up without my searching for it, but I listened to her perform the melodic, sad-sounding notes, and was captured by it. The power she had in that short video was incredible. An entire herd of cows came right over to her, and all she had to do was sing! To me, there was nothing more astonishing and I watched that video over and over. I immediately wanted to try it, but living just outside of New York City did not exactly present me with that opportunity. However, I knew that my parents and I would be visiting relatives in rural Poland that summer, so I prepared by singing Kulning daily, lamenting old melodies, and creating new ones. …show more content…
I took my bike out one day, to ride around the village and explore the countryside. I rode through the tall green grass until I saw a field with three cows on it, a few dozen yards from a fence. Instantly, I had the urge to recite the melodies I had memorized, and halted. Would it work? Was I capable? What if someone heard? In a village with less than 100 people, news of that would spread like wildfire. However, seeing no-one, I mustered up all the courage I could, and tentatively shuffled toward the