On the first Christmas, the drama surrounding the birth of Christ took place in a stable in the presence of oxen. Many of the greetings cards we receive are of the Nativity and give the stable a cosy appearance.

The Dales equivalent of that stable would be an outbarn, or mistal, which Arnold Kellett - in a Christmas poem written in the West Riding dialect - describes as: "Shabby and bare, all stinking wi' cow muck." The poem ends with a reference to "a lass wi' 'er babby, all snuggled in t'ay."

Any oxen that are overwintering in a Dales outbarn today will be sucklers, reared for beef. At one time, when visiting a Dales farm, a familiar sight would be that of a farmer hand-milking cattle. He turned his cap so that the neb was at the back and he pressed his head against the warm flanks of a cow as he milked, the warm milk spurting against the sides of a pail.

One farmer told his man: "Milk fast, lad, then t'froth'll carry t'muck ower t'sides o't'bucket."

Part of the art of hand-milking was to avoid being caught by a flick of the cow's tail, for invariably there were pieces of hard dung, known as 'muck-buttons,' caught up in the hair. The milker could receive a nasty gash on the face if one of the buttons caught him.

It will be a lean Christmas on many Dales farms this year. The slump in prices affects even quite large milk producers. A nephew of mine who until recently was milking 130 dairy cattle has just sold them and will, instead, look after stock for other people.

In these straitened times, a farmer who was about to buy a computer pondered for a while then said: "I think I'll buy a chair instead. Then I can sit and watch t'cows. I'm on t'spot if there's owt amiss."

The legacy of the frantic years, when "thou's got to run to stand still," is seen in farm buildings that Alan Bennett, who had a home in the Dales, compared with aircraft hangars. Once herby meadows are growing wall-to-wall silage grass. In the case of the upper Dales, there's scarcely any dairy cattle left. A plastic cow stands in a mock-up of a shippon in the Dales museum at Hawes.

Dales outbarns are deserted and forlorn, yet within living memory farm children, following field paths on their way to school, would call at them in turn to fodder the stock.

Their parents would followed-up, watering the animals and 'mucking-out'. The dung was piled up in a midden to be spread across the fields in spring.

The Hawes Ropemaker made cow-bands, which were used when a cow spending the winter in a stall was tied up loosely by the neck. I used to marvel at the docility of a Shorthorn cow.

There was a special joy in making hay the old-fashioned way, with horse and cart, rake and fork, working feverishly if the sky began to darken at the approach of a storm. "Nowt makes hay faster than a thunder-clap."

"When I was a lad," said one old chap, "I worked for a man who didn't want to see his men in t'house except at mealtimes and when it was time for bed. On sharp winter days, I'd warm mi hands on t'back o' t'cows."

The first farm job of an Austwick friend was to attend the cattle in five, well-scattered barns. "I nivver minded that," he said. "I preferred walking to working!"

An outbarn was big enough for perhaps a dozen young stock to be wintered. He used a big hay-knife to cut through the hay in the moo (mewstead). He then had to turn the animals into the yard so they could drink at a spring or well.

In the run-up to his first Christmas at this farm, he was amused to hear the frugal farmer say: "I'm bahn to have all t'family up for a reight good meal. I'm not buying toys for t'kids. They nobbut break 'em!"

Edith Carr, of Settle, has many tales to tell of farm-life at a high-lying farm in wintry conditions. Just before one Christmas, she and her children had a small conifer tree, which they decorated.

It was the time when ornamental trees had clip-on candlesticks. Edith, just before going to the shippon to milk the cows, warned the children not to attempt to light a candle when she was not there.

She had not long been milking the stock when a child rushed in to report that the Christmas tree was on fire. One of the children had lit a candle. The startled mother was told: "Don't worry - we put the fire out."

They had used a jug full of milk. That Christmas, the pungent smell of milk tainted the air in every room.

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