Well, despite the assurances, this mother was going to do us some serious damage if we'd walked. She seemed to be in the midst of 5-6 calves with one about 50M away. And, of course, the path ran between her and the calf with no viable alternative route. She was tearing up the ground with her hoof, snorting (not a line) and giving us the evil eye. I've also walked across many a field with cows in, but this was different. Whatever, I wasn't going to be the tragic, almost unique, case in the paper. Discretion being the better part of valour and all that... Having said that, I could run a darn sight faster than the bloke with me, but he didn't seem keen to test the theory.
As it happens, it was <1/4 mile back to a bridleway and thence onto a country road to take us back into the village we'd started from, so not a big deal in the end, except we were utterly knackered by then.