Ure

I cannot vtter any more, for words waxe out of vre

But come, let vs be sure of this, to put the best in vre That lies in vs;

...it maketh him practise simulation in other things, lest his hand should be out of ure

1551, Ralph Robinson (translator), Utopia (1516) by Thomas More, edited by William Dallam Armes, New York: Macmillan, 1912, Book 1, p. 37, […] the French soldiers […] from their youth have been practised and ured in feats of arms […]

The Vre therefoꝛe ryſeth in the fardeſt partes of all Richmondeſhyꝛe, among the Coterine hilles, in a moſſe, towarde the weſt fourtéene myles beyonde Mydleham.

The Auer or Ure ox or European Bison, (bos urus, bonasus, bison,) is one of the largest oxen, and distinguished by a curly manelike product about the head and neck, by a very broad, arched forehead, and by moderate horns situated far apart, and being curved inward and upward in the shape of a crescent.[…]Some extracts from his work are here presented, because the opinion hitherto prevailing in certain circles that our common cattle were the offspring of the Ure; but according to these extracts it will be seen that several striking anatomical differences are found to exist between the Ure and our common cattle.[…]The Ure has fourteen vertebræ, and as many pairs of ribs, or one pair more than common cattle, but has only five lumbar vertebræ of which the common cattle have six.[…]In the old Ure, there was found in the midst of the two seminal passages, vessels, a single duct, shaped somewhat like a bag, one inch in diameter and four and a half inches in length, which is divided in front and at the top into two arching branches, like the horns of the uterus of the cow, extending as channels of 3 to 4 inches in width to the testicle, and there terminating in a cul-de-sac.[…]From the above it appears that the origin of the domesticated cattle and their original native country is, as yet, not fully ascertained. Formerly the ure was considered the parent of the same, but this is improbable on account of the anatomical differences between the ure and the common cattle.

In the Nibelungen Lied both beasts, also the giant elk, are spoken of as not extinct when that poem was written:— / Then slew he speedily a Wisent and an Elk, / Strong Ures and a giant stag (Schelch). / Cæsar describes the ure as “little smaller than an elephant, but in appearance like an ox, of great strength and speed; it never suffers itself to be tamed, and spares no man it sees. To have killed an ure is held in highest honour among the Germans, and its horns, set in silver, serve as drinking vessels at their carouses.”

The history of extinction of an animal has rarely been so rich in documents of all kinds as the history of the Ure or Aurochs, the second big-game representative of the bovine family in Europe, and one of the most remarkable species of wild oxen in the world. The special high interest attached to this animal is due to the fact that it is generally admitted to be the ancestral form of most European cattle breeds. The Ure ceased to exist in early historical times, though a small number of individuals survived in Poland as late as the XVII century.[…]From the very early times, the first mention being that of 1510, the herds of Bos primigenius were under the protection and custody of special game-rangers who were free of all other occupation, as well as of all tax-paying, and were to look only after the wild Ures, feeding them in winter with hay collected from the adjoining meadows, and bringing back to the forest the individuals that occasionally went astray.