A Meander with the Sheep

Dartmoor Grey Face - the same sort of sheep that live down the road and roar at me and my daughter...  - By Keven Law from Los Angeles, USA (Anybody know a good barber???..:O)) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

[Just down the road from us are a flock of Dartmoor Grey-faced (or should is say daemon throated) sheep. They look very cute, oh yes, but don’t let that deceive you.  If you hear them bleat… By all the gods, it is like the sound has echoed through from hell…

Having said this my 9 month old daughter loves them, laughing at their zombified blunt-teethed guttural roars like they where singing the dawn chorus.

Anyway, sheep are not always to be trifled with, as some of their lore will show, though I should add that the gentle side of sheep is most acknowledged.

This soft side is clearly shown in the story of John Trinnaman.  The tragic hero of the story, not John himself but his long suffering pantry boy, is sent by the lady of the house to “catch a lamb down in the meadow and bring it to her daughter to fondle.” I am not sure if this is a euphemism or not, but it does lead to a strong protective love between the daughter and the pantry boy, as well as inspiring the jealousy of John Trinnerman himself, so you can fill in the blanks as you please…

Lambs could also signal the number of years a Devon maid had to wait before marriage - the count of the first lambs she sees being equal to the years she had to wait (from Roy and Ursula Radford's West Country Folklore1993).  Another Westcountry lore from the same book involves taking note of the position of the first lamb you see - facing towards you is lucky!

Lambs! - By Keven Law, Los Angeles, USA [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Of course Christian traditions hold the priest of a parish to be a ‘shepherd’ to his ‘flock’, so in a way good Christian people could be the sheep in some stories.  Joan, a Cornish old woman who is led on a terrible ordeal having put fairy ointment in her eye is eventually found (in effect rescued) by the squire and his boys on Sunday bringing in the sheep.

The Dragon of O Brook, Dartmoor, could be another example of this allusion.  The dragon itself could be seen as a non-Christian, maybe a pagan (like in Saint George and the dragon?), and his main crime was eating both sheep and humans.  Perhaps in this case the sheep were the plebeian Christian flock, and possibly the humans the squires and nobles (the people who ‘mattered’). Alternatively the eating of sheep (specifically) could be seen as someone attacking the economic stability of the locals. This economic importance is witnessed by Tom the Cornishman’s lack of greed given a plentiful supply of cattle and sheep – beef, mutton and homespun clothes being the height of luxury, and no further advance being needed. In another story of Tom his wife Jane is ashamed to serve a guest only beef and peas, and wishes instead to serve him a better dish of freshly killed mutton or lamb.  Tom also placated Jane’s previous Giant husbands dogs, Catchem and Tearem, with the carcus of a sheep, whom the Giant had given to Tom when he was vanquished.  Alternatively the sheep eaten by the Dragon of O Brook could have belonged to monks, who brought large scale sheep keeping to the uplands in the medieval period.

Sheep (and their wool) was once vital to the economy of the Westcountry, influencing even the political allegiance of towns and villages. The Abbots Way, or Jobbers Path, across Dartmoor linked up the abbeys of Buckfast, Buckland and Tavistock, and along its granite cross marked way the monks of old where said to have hauled the precious commodity. Widecombe fair (of folk song fame) was once a great spot for the selling of sheep, as are many other annual fairs around the area.  Priddy Sheep Fair in Somerset springs to mind, while Ralph Whitlock (1978, A calendar of country customs) gives a vivid description of Britford sheep fair near Salisbury, Wiltshire, held on Lammas by the old calendar where to travel a mile took an hour and a half because of all the flocks of sheep. Cricklade in Wiltshire also had a Lammas sheep fair, While Devon and Cornwall also had Lammas fairs, though whether these where connected to sheep is uncertain.

Michaelmas Fairs (September - October time) where also a big thing, and in Wiltshire (pushing the Westcountry thing a little, I know) Wilton Great Fair was and is a major event. In the 1860's 100,000 sheep were sold annually ( Ralph Whitlock,1978, A calendar of country customs).  The night before this event the shepherds of Wiltshire would compete for the title of 'King of the Shepherds' by having an anything-goes fight. This also happened at Hurtisbourne Priors, Wiltshire, and involved Somerset shepherds as well, though this had some rules and involved 'shepherd's sticks', ending with first blood.

At Weyhill Fair, near Andover, New shepard where initiated by placing a metal cup filled with ale between two rams horns on his head while the following rhyme was repeated -

Swift as the hare; cunning as the fox;

Why should not this little calf grow up to be an ox!

To get his own living among the briars and the thorns, 

And die like his daddy, with a great pair of horns.

(Ralph Whitlock,1978, A calendar of country customs).There are other versions of this rhyme. The initiate then drank the ale and bought a round.

In Wiltshire and perhaps other Westcountry counties, right up until at least the 1970's, the hills would have rung to the sound of sheep bells, as a protection from straying and witchcraft.  Sensibly the most adventurous ewes would have the honor of waring the bells (Margaret Baker - FOLKLORE AND CUSTOMS OF RURAL ENGLAND, 1974).

 Hurdles stored for the Priddy Sheep Fair -

http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/61968 
  © Copyright Patrick Mackie and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

One has to be careful purchasing sheep, though, especially on Dartmoor, where an unwary stranger was once tricked into buying a flock of “grey wethers”, or white castrated rams. Upon approaching the sheep the stranger found to his horror that he had purchased not flesh and bone, but some low slung granite boulders, known as “The Grey Wethers”, that form a prehistoric double stone circle on the moor, now much ‘repaired’.

An important time for the sheep keeping comunity was sheering time. Margaret Baker, in FOLKLORE AND CUSTOMS OF RURAL ENGLAND, 1974, reports that in 19th century Devon (along with most other places) sheering time was marked by dancing, often going on all night and all day.  It was a tough time, but a communal time, with everyone coming together and helping each other in turn. Special clothing was used ("duck white 'sheering suits'") which where cleaned daily, the dirt and grease from the sheep making them quite filthy after a day. Hands where washed using wild mint in flower in water.

In the 19th century in Buzcote Farm, Devon, (according to Devonshire idyls, 1892, by Hannah O'Neill) sheering would stop periodically for food brought in by the "girls" and the sheering would pause for about three minutes while the sheerer stuffed down their 'Cut -Rounds' (presumably bread?) spread with cream (presumably clotted!) or gingerbread, and tea.  The day ended with a feast of beef, whole pigs, cheese, junket and cream, and, of course, plenty of strong ale!

The end of sheering (as well as the dancing mentioned above) was marked in some Westcountry areas by a feast including a portion of Christmas pudding saved for the six months for this purpose (from Roy and Ursula Radford's West Country Folklore1993).  Roy and Ursula also mention a couple of rhymes that act almost as wassailing does for apple trees, a blessing and a toast on next years flock.  I shall let you purchase their book if you want to read them (one includes the line "for their dung serves the corn ground", a good solid recognition of the value of sheep).

Chagford Show Sheep Sheering competition - complete with a bonnet full of beer!

In fact I lead you rather astray when I said the lore of sheep would show you a dark side, it is rather more magic than dark...

In reffrence to the comment left by the Faerie at the bottom of the post, I found a Gidleigh (Dartmoor) rhyme that runs -

If your flock begins to blacken

Your luck then begins to slacken

Black sheep, it seems, were not wanted (from Roy and Ursula Radford's West Country Folklore1993).  Perhaps this was from the days when a white fleece could be died any colour, while a dark one stayed dark, thus was less profitable. Burning onion skins was also said to be bad luck (from the same book).

I have only one story giving any reason to be fearful of sheep, and in this the sheep is not so much evil as a justified executioner.  I got this story from an information folder in Beer on the coast, but there is also a good description in Roy and Ursula Radford's West Country Folklore1993. Up on the hills of Broad Down in Devon is Hangman's Rock, and it is said a sheep rustler once rested here. Under his large coat was tied a restless sheep.  Somehow, as the thief slept the sheep wriggled free and climbed the rock before attempting to make a quick get-away on the far side. Unfortunately the rope was still secured around its middle, and in leaping off it never made it to the floor, dangling midway down. On the far side of the rock the thief was also left dangling – by the neck, a loop of the rope had caught him there. He was found the next day, quite dead, while the sheep lived.  Could this be another Christian allegory?

On a tor near Holne, Dartmoor there was an annual Ram Roast associated with midsummer (Ruth St. Leger-Gordon, 1965, The Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor; Ralph Whitlock, 1978, A calendar of country customs) that took the form of a sacrifice more than a meal (sacrificing Christians? - I think I take this analogy too far!).  The ram was chased, decorated in roses and other flowers, slaughtered on a menhir, roasted in its skin, and eaten at precisely mid day, the youths competing for meat for their girls. In Kingsteinton, Devon, a similar sacrifice took place at Whitsun (the beginning of summer) Which came with an associated legend.  The local water supply dried up in a drought and there was not enough water to provide even for a baptism. The locals therefore took a ram onto the dry watercourse and let the blood seem through the dry stones.  The water then miraculously bubbled up, and there is said to be a stone, still baring the hand print of the mother as she lent over the rising water and baptized her child (also in Ruth St. Leger-Gordon's The Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor 1965).

Sheep skull on Dartmoor - Richard Knights [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

The power of a sheep was also harnessed in another bloody rite, this time for protecting the flock from evil spirits  (Margaret Baker, - FOLKLORE AND CUSTOMS OF RURAL ENGLAND, 1974). A man in 1954 recalled how in Crowcombe Court, Somerset, a Sheep's heart was stuck through with pins and nails by the shepherd for this purpose (see a Meander Through the Lore of Eyes for more animals used in a similar way).

However, to stop your sheep bleeding, for instance after docking a lambs tail, you should consult a blood charmer such as Kelland from near Yealmpton, Devon (from The Transactions of the Devonshire Association - cant remember which one!).

The idea of being seen as a passive part of a flock (of woolly headed victims) is rather unappealing to my modern mind, so I like this last tiny snippet's best of all –

Sheep, it is said, on Dartmoor, are not all always what they seem (Ruth St. Leger-Gordon The Witchcraft and Folklore of Dartmoor 1965). Along cattle they can sometimes be decidedly fae, and it takes a trained eye to spot an interloper (in sheep's clothing!).  They can be wild spirits in disguise.  If one of these weird beasts where found among his beats the moor-man would have to leave well alone until the being left of its own accord.  Any interaction with the other sheep had to wait until this had happened.

On a side note I once encountered a very strange stallion on Dartmoor. He stank - I smelt him from quarter of a mile off.  His hair hang down in long dreadlocks to the ground and his coat was thick with mud.  He was however, in fighting wild health, and I steered a wide course around his hollow, while he stared at me and stamped some paces towards me with ears pointed and nostrils flared. If ever their was a Piskie horse - he was it...

Sheep also form a curious roll as curers of whooping-cough, a child with the condition being thought to benefit from being around them.  I have read of this in two different places in Devon, one being on Dartmoor.

The idea that underneath the impenetrable wool and strange devilish bleating they have some kind of magical child-healing agency makes me think more fondly of them.

I think I may feel brave enough to take my daughter for a walk down the road…]