Four Hang; Two Point the Way is the name given by the folklorist Archer Taylor to a traditional riddle-type noted for its wide international distribution.
The members are described in terms of their functions, and the functions may be identified—and often are identified—by periphrases that are intentionally confusing [...] the wit of the pattern turns on the inventing of strange, yet not wholly incomprehensible, terms for the ears, horns, eyes, feet, or other members of the creature that the riddler is describing.
[1]: 611–12 As well as the cow, attested solutions include numerous other animals, the sun and the moon, and various man-made objects.
[1]: 610–21 What appears to be the earliest vernacular attestation of the riddle[3]: 444 appears in the Riddles of Gestumblindi, a riddle-contest included in the probably thirteenth-century Old Norse Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks: Fjórir hanga, fjórir ganga, tveir veg vísa, tveir hundum varða, einn eptir drallar ok jafnan heldr saurugr.
One Mongolian instance runs 'four high and slow, high and slow; five younger sisters; two wobbling right and left; you poor one alone', the answer to which is 'a camel's four legs, head and legs, humps, and tail'.