Editing Cow tipping (section)

== Historical origins ==

The belief that certain animals cannot rise if pushed over has historical antecedents. [[Julius Caesar]] recorded a belief that a [[European elk]] had no knee joints and could not get up if it fell.<ref>{{cite book |publisher = Harper & Brothers |location = New York |last = Caesar |first = Julius |author2 = Aulus Hirtius |title = Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic and Civil Wars |chapter = XXVII |page = 154 |year = 1879 |isbn = 0-217-45287-6 }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last = Caesar |first = Caius Julius |editor = Rhys, Ernest |translator = W. A. MacDevitt |title = The Commentaries of Caius Julius Caesar: The War in Gaul |chapter = Book VI, paragraph XXVII |url = https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10657/pg10657.txt |year = 1915 |via = Project Gutenberg |access-date = May 23, 2016 |archive-date = December 1, 2021 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20211201104846/https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/10657/pg10657.txt |url-status = live }}</ref> [[Pliny the Elder|Pliny]] said the same about the hind legs of an animal he called the [[achlis]], which Pliny's 19th-century translators Bostock and Riley said was merely another name for the elk.<ref name="Pliny">{{cite book |author = Pliny the Elder |title = The Natural History |chapter = 16: The Animals of the North; the Elk, the Achlis, and the Bonasus |translator1 = Bostock, John |translator2 = Riley, Henry Thomas |publisher = Taylor and Francis |location = London |year = 1855 |access-date = July 31, 2013 |url = https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+8.16&redirect=true |via = Perseus Digital Library |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110805040217/http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Plin.+Nat.+8.16&redirect=true |archive-date = August 5, 2011 }}</ref> They noted that Pliny's belief about the jointless back legs of the achlis (elk) was false.<ref name="Pliny" />

In 1255, [[Louis IX of France]] gave an elephant to [[Henry III of England]] for his [[menagerie]] in the [[Tower of London]].<ref name="Fine Rolls">{{cite web |last1 = Cassidy |first1 = Richard |last2 = Clasby |first2 = Michael |title = Matthew Paris and Henry III's Elephant |work = Henry III Fine Rolls Project |publisher = The National Archives and King's College London |url = http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/redist/pdf/fm-06-2012.pdf |pages = 1–4 |access-date = May 19, 2016 |url-status = live |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160113065519/http://www.finerollshenry3.org.uk/redist/pdf/fm-06-2012.pdf |archive-date = January 13, 2016 |df = mdy-all }}</ref> A drawing by the historian [[Matthew Paris]] for his ''[[Chronica Majora]]'' can be seen in his [[bestiary]] at [[Parker Library]] of [[Corpus Christi College, Cambridge]].<ref name ="Fine Rolls" /> An accompanying text cites elephant lore suggesting that elephants did not have knees and were unable to get up if they fell.<ref>{{cite book |last = Clark |first = Willene B. |title = A Medieval Book of Beasts: The Second-Family Bestiary: Commentary, Art, Text and Translation |publisher = The Boydell Press |location = Woodbridge, United Kingdom |year = 2006 |url = https://books.google.com/books?id=0olPRmCoE8MC&pg=PA128 |page = 128 |via = Google Books |isbn = 0-85115-682-7 |access-date = September 27, 2016 |archive-date = October 13, 2023 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20231013205332/https://books.google.com/books?id=0olPRmCoE8MC&pg=PA128#v=onepage&q&f=false |url-status = live }}</ref>

Journalist Jake Steelhammer believes the American urban myth of cow tipping originated in the 1970s. It "stampeded into the '80s", he says, "when movies like ''[[Tommy Boy]]'' and ''[[Heathers]]'' featured cow tipping expeditions."<ref name=Steelhammer2013>{{citation|title=Settling a Beef with Cow Tipping|newspaper=[[Charleston Gazette-Mail]]|location=Charleston, West Virginia|date=September 22, 2013|last=Steelhammer|first=Rick|url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-35161437.html|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160220213216/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-35161437.html|archive-date=February 20, 2016|df=mdy-all|access-date=November 29, 2015}}</ref> Stories about cow tipping tend to be second-hand, he says, told by someone who does not claim to have tipped a cow but who knows someone else who says they did.<ref name=Steelhammer2013 />