A favourite trick of the Gruagach was to untie the cattle in the byre, so as to bring out the milkmaid, especially if she had forgotten to leave the offering of milk.

Louis MacNeice in Ten Burnt Offerings describes a much-loved cat, Fluid as Krishna chasing the milkmaids.

To thus belabour a horse on its hinder-parts would seem to be equivalent among the horse-breeding fraternity to chucking a buxom milkmaid under the chin.

They encounter milkmaids, who sing to them and give them a draft of the red cow's milk and they never cease their praises of the angler's life, of rural contentment among the cowslip meadows, and the quiet streams of Thames, or Lea, or Shawford Brook.

I envy now the milkmaids there below: anything to escape and be in earnest, anything for some one to teach me to be of use!

Krishna is said to have fascinated the milkmaids of Brindabun by playing on his celebrated flute under a Baku'la tree on the banks of the Jumna, which is, therefore, invariably alluded to in all the Sanscrit and vernacular poems relating to his amours with those young women.

In what ways did he love the milkmaids and why has this aspect of his story assumed such big proportions in Indian religion?