Nerys Patterson describes transhumance as a very old practice, suggesting that Polyphemus, the cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey, is the earliest reference to such a practice. He is certainly engaged in the sort of milking and cheese-making associated with the booley. Read the description below, from Samuel Butler’s 1898 translation of Book 9 from the Odyssey.

“We soon reached his cave, but he was out shepherding, so we
went inside and took stock of all that we could see. His
cheese-racks were loaded with cheeses, and he had more lambs and
kids than his pens could hold. They were kept in separate
flocks; first there were the hoggets, then the oldest of the
younger lambs and lastly the very young ones {80} all kept apart
from one another; as for his dairy, all the vessels, bowls, and
milk pails into which he milked, were swimming with whey. When
they saw all this, my men begged me to let them first steal some
cheeses, and make off with them to the ship; they would then
return, drive down the lambs and kids, put them on board and
sail away with them. It would have been indeed better if we had
done so but I would not listen to them, for I wanted to see the
owner himself, in the hope that he might give me a present.
When, however, we saw him my poor men found him ill to deal
with.

“We lit a fire, offered some of the cheeses in sacrifice, ate
others of them, and then sat waiting till the Cyclops should
come in with his sheep. When he came, he brought in with him a
huge load of dry firewood to light the fire for his supper, and
this he flung with such a noise on to the floor of his cave that
we hid ourselves for fear at the far end of the cavern.
Meanwhile he drove all the ewes inside, as well as the she-goats
that he was going to milk, leaving the males, both rams and
he-goats, outside in the yards. Then he rolled a huge stone to
the mouth of the cave–so huge that two and twenty strong
four-wheeled waggons would not be enough to draw it from its
place against the doorway. When he had so done he sat down and
milked his ewes and goats, all in due course, and then let each
of them have her own young. He curdled half the milk and set it
aside in wicker strainers, but the other half he poured into
bowls that he might drink it for his supper. When he had got
through with all his work, he lit the fire, and then caught
sight of us, whereon he said:

“‘Strangers, who are you? Where do sail from? Are you traders,
or do you sail the sea as rovers, with your hands against every
man, and every man’s hand against you?’ ”