Herding Songs

There are many scary things that could happen to a medieval peasant out there in the countryside and that is no secret. There are different kinds of way to seek comfort and safety on the road, but also in day to day life. One of those methods are communal herding songs, that function as a communication between people and also cattle over long distances. It is a variation of other working songs that were created to ease the brunt of repetitive tasks and strengthen friendship among people working together during harvests or other labour intensive times.
Imagine you, going alone into the mountain pastures accompanied with a bunch of cows or sheep or goats or geese or whatever your family or your employer have at their disposal. All of those animals are nice, friendly, useful, worth probably more than you as a person and most importantly - incredibly tasty to the other population of the animal kingdom in the wilderness. The last thing you would want is to explain why did the prized cattle ended in the wolf's belly and not you.
If you are lucky, you are not the only one tending to the herds and there will be others walking with you making sure all the animals are safe over great distances. Or you might get accompanied by a dog as well. Still, it can be awfully lonely out there in the nature, full of strange and unusual sounds that all those excited moos and baahs will not really work to dispell.
Herding songs probably started as a bunch of shouts and yells from one herder to another, either from the same household or at least from the neighbouring community. People have trained their voices to carry over a distance like a large echo, hoping another will hear it and repeat it back. Slowely but surely a lot of different herding tunes and songs developed over time and there are differences between each regions. Loud noises also tend to scare other predators. And it is much more comforting to hear a song in response to your voice than howling.