‘You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’ might be considered to encapsulate the English-speaking people’s mind-set better than any other saying, as it appears to be the oldest English proverb that is still in regular use today. It was recorded as early as 1175 in ‘Old English Homilies…’ Today during the early evening, whilst I moved six ponies from off one grazing area to another in readiness for gathering-up with other ponies this coming week,†this proverb came to mind as the following unfolded.
I had first taken down an electric fence and opened up a gateway in readiness. Then came the task of getting these unhandled ponies the 200 metres to and through the open gateway. By appealing to their stomachs and the fact that two of them were ‘characters I knew,’ I slowly inched them towards the open gate with†plenty of verbal calling of names of the known two. Talk about slow – with the light going, I began to imagine I would be stumbling the 3/4mile back to the truck in the dark or, they’ll think ‘Oh, blow this’ and run off in completely the opposite direction! Finally however, the mission was accomplished.