Tulchan

The word 'tulchan' derives from the Scottish Gaelic and means something pretending to be what it is not. In Scotland, it was often customary to place a false calf (a tulkan calf) beneath a reluctant cow to encourage her to give milk. There is also a custom of taking orphaned lambs and giving them to ewes who have lost their own, encouraging the ewe to let it suckle by placing the skin of the dead lamb on the back of the orphaned one.