Being a Sherlockian will inevitably take one to unexpected places in one's life.
This past Saturday, I found myself finally attending a meeting of a Sherlock Holmes society where I was the only human present, a meeting of the Bovestrians of Ragged Shaw. The Bovestrains, named for that moment in "The Adventure of the Priory School" where Holmes concludes, "... it is a remarkable cow which walks, canters, and gallops," hinting at the possibility that someone is out there riding cows instead of horses. Thus "bovestrian" instead of "equestrian."
The group started with some digital trading cards put together by my friend Mary O'Reilly back in September of 2021, after the idea of a society with that name came up at our local library Holmes group meeting.
Other cards followed that fall . . .
And, eventually, in January of 2022, a meeting of the Bovestrians . . .
Baskerville the hound, Lucinda the cobra, Teddy the Mongoos, Car and Buncle the geese, and Toby the tracker dog all showed up for the first story discussion, showed at the first Dangling Prussian pub night. (Oh, wait, Silver Blaze was there, too! Missed her photo. Sorry, S.B.!)
To see how the first and second meetings of the Bovestrians went, here are a couple of links:
This year, we'll get to look in on the Bovestrians one more time, which might be the last for reasons that will become apparent when we get to see it on Friday night
at the Dangling Prussian virtual pub night. It's also the first meeting that I got to attend, even though the Bovestrians seem to think I founded their group, even though I did none of the amazing work that went into gathering what has to be the first non-human Sherlockian society on planet Earth. (Credit Mary O'Reilly and her Doctor Doolittle-like skills there.)
Like I said at the start, stick with Sherlock Holmes long enough, and he'll take you to some very unusual places.
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