You are currently browsing the tag archive for the ‘sheep’ tag.
Here we are in the hottest months of the year—the Shepheardes Calender year that is (uh, and the real year too, I guess). I must confess, sometimes Spenser’s 16th century political allusions and classical references (and even his religious homilies and analogies) leave me confounded and sorely vex’d. However in July, the poetic meter suddenly takes on a chantlike quality and the allegorical meaning of the text becomes more straightforward too (and more familiar to my Protestant Appalachian roots—in attitude if not in altitude). Morrel, a somewhat grandiloquent and pompous goatherd has called down from a mountain to Thomalin a shepherd who lives on the plains. The goatherd wants the shepherd to come up to the loftier station, but the latter wants to stay close to his roots and avoid the excesses of pride. Also Morrel’s guileful goats are running amok, whereas Thomalin dutifully keeps his sheep together.
This straightforward (yet somewhat contrived) set-up becomes a metaphor for the contest between Protestantism and Catholicism in England–an all-too-familiar theme for Spenser’s original audience. Thus, as we proceed through the poem, we find ourselves mired in a theological controversy which runs the entire length and breadth of England. The pastoral frolics of sheep and goats transmogrify into a sly commentary on the politicians and theology of the day. In Dante-esque fashion Spenser combines this with classical allusions, and personal grudges. This little poem thus represents the spiritual, the natural, the personal, and the political–all mashed together in the form of two yokels shouting at each other on a hill.
This sounds amazing and it is–but it is also couched in Spenser’s faux Middle English, and the poem contains allusions to historical personages who are no longer well-known. Thus amongst the classical deities and Biblical personages we find the peculiar figure of Algrind—a not-very-subtle anagram of Grindal–who was the bishop of London at the beginning of Elizabeth’s reign. Fortunately for us, the bishop encounters another Ferrebeekeeper theme—a mollusk, dropped upon his head by an eagle. It is enough to give the reader brain fever…or maybe that is just July’s heat….
At any rate, without further preamble, allow me to present:
The Shepheardes Calender: July
Ægloga Septima.
A R G V M E N T.
THis Æglogue is made in the honour and commendation of good shepheardes, and to the shame and disprayse of proude and ambitious Pastours. Such as Morrell is here imagined to bee.
THOMALIN. MORREL.
Is not thilk same a Goat-herd proud,
That sits on yonder Bank;
Whose straying Herd themself doth shroud
Emong the Bushes rank?
MORREL.
What ho, thou jolly Shepherd’s Swain,
Come up the Hill to me:
Better is, than the lowly Plain,
Als for thy Flock and thee.
THOMALIN.
Ah! God shield, Man, that I should clime,
And learn to look aloft
This Read is rife, that oftentime
Great Climbers fall unsoft.
In humble Dales is footing fast,
The Trode is not so tickle;
And though one fall through heedless haste,
Yet is his Miss not mickle.
And now the Sun hath reared up
His fiery-footed Teme,
Making his way between the Cup
And golden Diademe:
The rampant Lion hunts he fast,
With Dogs of noisom Breath,
Whose baleful barking brings in haste,
Pine, Plagues, and drery Death.
Against his cruel scorching Heat,
Where thou hast Coverture,
The wasteful Hills unto his Threat
Is a plain Overture.
But if thee lust, to holden chat
With seely Shepherd’s Swain:
Come down, and learn the little what,
That Thomalin can sain.
MORREL.
Siker, thous but a lasy Loord,
And rekes much of thy Swink,
That with fond Terms, and witless Words
To blear mine Eyes dost think.
In evil hour thou henst in hond
Thus holy Hills to blame;
For sacred unto Saints they stond,
And of them han their Name.
St. Michel’s Mount who does not know,
That wards the Western Coast?
And of St. Bridget’s Bow’r I trow,
All Kent can rightly boast:
And they that con of Muses Skill,
Fain most what, that they dwell
(As Goat-herds wont) upon a Hill,
Beside a learned Well.
And wonned not the great God Pan
Upon Mount Olivet;
Feeding the blessed Flock of Dan,
Which did himself beget?
THOMALIN.
O blessed Sheep! O Shepherd great!
That bought his Flock so dear:
And them did save with bloody Sweat,
From Wolves that would them tear.
MORREL.
Beside, as holy Fathers sain,
There is a holy Place,
Where Titan riseth from the Main,
To ren his daily Race:
Upon whose Tops the Stars been staied,
And all the Sky doth lean;
There is the Cave where Phoebe laied
The Shepherd long to dream.
Whilom there used Shepherds all
To feed their Flocks at will,
Till by his Folly one did fall,
That all the rest did spill.
And sithence Shepherds been foresaid
From Places of Delight;
For-thy, I ween thou be afraid,
To clime this Hilles hight.
Of Synah an I tell thee more,
And of our Lady’s Bow’r:
But little needs to crow my Store,
Suffice this Hill of our.
Here hen the holy Faunes Recourse,
And Sylvanes haunten rathe;
Here has the salt Medway his Sourse,
Wherein the Nymphs do bathe:
The salt Medway, that trickling streams
Adown the Dales of Kent,
Till with his elder Brother Thames,
His brackish Waves be meynt.
Here grows Melampode, every where,
And Teribinth, good for Goats:
The one, my madding Kids to smear,
The next to heal their Throats.
Hereto, the Hills been nigher Heaven,
And thence the Passage eath:
As well can prove the piercing Levin,
That seldom falls beneath.
THOMALIN.
Siker thou speakest like a lewd Lorel,
Of Heaven to deemen so:
How be I am but rude and borrel,
Yet nearer ways I know.
To Kirk the nar, so God more far,
Has been an old said Saw;
And he that strives to touch a Star,
Oft stumbles at a Straw.
Alsoon may Shepherds clime to Sky,
That leads in lowly Dales;
As Goat-herd proud, that sitting high,
Upon the Mountain fails.
My seely Sheep like well below,
They need not Melampode;
For they been hale enough, I trow,
And liken their Abode.
But if they with thy Goats should yede,
They soon might be corrupted;
Or like not of the frowy Fede,
Or with the Weeds be glutted.
The Hills, where dwelled holy Saints,
I reverence and adore;
Not for themself, but for the Saints,
Which hen been dead of yore.
And now they been to Heaven forewent,
Their Good is with them go;
Their Sample only to us lent,
That als we mought do so.
Shepherds they weren of the best,
And lived in lowly Leas;
And sith their Souls be now at rest,
Why done we them Disease?
Such one he was (as I have heard
Old Algrind often sain)
That whilom was the first Shepherd;
And liv’d with little Gain:
And meek he was, as meek mought be;
Simple, as simple Sheep;
Humble, and like in each degree
The Flock which he did keep.
Often he used of his Keep
A Sacrifice to bring;
Now with a Kid, now with a Sheep,
The Altars hallowing.
So louted he unto the Lord,
Such Favour couth he find,
That never sithence was abhor’d
The simple Shepherds kind.
And such I ween the Brethren were,
That came from Canaan;
The Brethren twelve, that kept yfere
The Flocks of mighty Pan.
But nothing such thilk Shepherd was,
Whom Ida Hill did bear,
That left his Flock to fetch a Lass,
Whose Love he bought too dear:
For he was proud, that ill was paid,
(No such mought Shepherds be)
And with leud Lust was over-laid;
Tway things doen ill agree.
But Shepherds mought be meek and mild,
Well eyed, as Argus was,
With fleshly Follies undefil’d,
And stout as Steed of Brass.
Sike one (said Algrind) Moses was,
That saw his Maker’s Face,
His Face more clear than crystal Glass,
And spake to him in place.
This had a Brother (his Name I know)
The first of all his Coat:
A Shepherd true, yet not so true,
As he that earst I hote.
Whilom all these were low, and leef,
And lov’d their Flocks to feed,
They never stroven to be chief,
And simple was their Weed.
But now (thanked be God therefore)
The World is well amend:
Their Weeds been not so nightly wore,
Such Simpless mought them shend.
They been yclad in Purple and Pall,
So hath their God them blist;
They reign and rulen over all,
And lord it as they list:
Ygirt with Belts of Glitter and Gold,
(Mought they good Shepherds been)
Their Pan their Sheep to them has sold,
I say, as some have seen.
For Palinode (if thou him ken)
Yode late on Pilgrimage
To Rome (if such be Rome) and then
He saw thilk Misusage.
For Shepherds (said he) there doen lead,
As Lords done otherwhere;
Their Sheep han Crusts, and they the Bread;
The Chips, and they the Chear:
They han the Fleece, and eke the Flesh,
(O seely Sheep the while!)
The Corn is theirs, let others thresh,
Their Hands they may not file.
They han great Store, and thrifty Flocks,
Great Friends, and feeble Foes:
What need hem caren for their Flocks,
Their Boys can look to those?
These Wizards welter in Wealth’s Waves,
Pamper’d in Pleasures deep;
They han fat Kerns and leany Knaves,
Their fasting flocks to keep.
Sike mister Men been all misgone,
They heapen Hills of Wrath:
Sike sirly Shepherds hen we none,
They keepen all the Path.
MORREL.
Here is a great deal of good Matter,
Lost for lack of telling:
Now siker I see thou dost but clatter,
Harm may come of melling.
Thou meddlest more than shall have thank
To witen Shepherd’s Wealth:
When Folk been fat, and Riches rank,
It is a Sign of Health.
But say me, what is Algrind, he
That is so oft bynempt?
THOMALIN.
He is a Shepherd great in Gree,
But hath been long ypent:
One day he sate upon a Hill,
(As now thou wouldest me,
But I am taught by Algrind’s Ill,
To love the low degree)
For sitting so with bared Scalp,
An Eagle soared high,
That weening his white Heat was Chalk,
A Shell-Fish down let fly.
She ween’d the Shell-Fish to have broke,
But therewith bruis’d his Brain:
So now astonied with the Stroke,
He lies in lingring Pain.
MORREL.
Ah! good Algrind, his Hap was ill,
But shall be better in time:
Now farewel, Shepherd, sith this Hill
Thou hast such doubt to clime.
PALINODE’S EMBLEM.
In medio Virtus.
MORREL’S EMBLEM.
In summo Felicitas.
Today’s post takes us back to Namibia. The vast empty desert nation is the home to beautiful cheetahs, the world’s fastest land animal. In fact Namibia has the greatest number of cheetahs in the world. Namibia is also (now) home to heavily armed sheep farmers who make their living by raising delicious delicious sheep in the cheetah-haunted arid scrublands. This mixture has led to…um…misunderstandings of all kinds.
Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) on dune with desert landscape in back ground. Namibia.
There is no need to dwell on just what the hell German sheep farmers are doing in a vast African desert anyway (or whether their forbears committed terrible genocidal acts in 1894 to obtain their lands). History is rife with…misunderstandings. What is important is where we stand now. Because of habitat destruction, disease, and hunting, cheetahs are fading from the world. And here is where the heroic Anatolian shepherd comes in.
Anatolian shepherds are huge powerful dogs which trace their heritage to Turkey at the dawn of civilization. The first herdsman faced similar problems to today’s Namibian sheep farmers (namely unreformed wolves, lions, and leopards brazenly preying on their livestock). These early farmers responded by breeding big bold dogs to bodily confront large predators. However, as civilization moved onward, the nature and appearance of herding dogs changed too.
An Anatolian Shepherd with a border collie
Most modern shepherd dogs are smaller than cheetahs. German shepherds, collies, corgis, et cetera tend to have long coats for cold climates. They also react to threats by herding their flocks toward safety. This was not working in Namibia, as it triggered cheetah’s hardwired chasing instincts which lead to even further carnage misunderstanding.
With short pale hair, ideal for the desert heat, Anatolian shepherds stand 69 to 74 centimeters tall and weigh as much as the largest cheetahs. They are less “shepherds” who move flocks around and more “guards” who directly confront predators. This triggers the cheetah’s hardwired running away instincts. As misunderstanding decrease, the cheetah population in the world’s most populous country (for cheetahs) is stabilizing. Happy news for beleaguered cheetahs and farmers…and good news for the Anatolian shepherd too a big beautiful dog with a new (old) job.
A commercially available lamb costume
Last week was sheep week on Ferrebeekeeper. I was surprised by the extent to which sheep farming and wool production have been woven into humankind’s language, religion, and culture since time immemorial. Unfortunately, I became so impressed with these ancient ties, that I forgot to include my special bonus post—a gallery of silly sheep mascots just for fun…
Hopefully you are still celebrating Chinese New Year, because here, a week late, are the sheep mascots. There are so many, and they represent so many different crazy organizations!
Rameses, a live Dorset ram, is the mascot of the North Carolina Tar Heels. look how magnificently his horns are painted!
Lance Corporal William Windsor (a regimental mascot in the armies of the Queen of England)
A black sheep costume
“Shaun the sheep” at a mall looking skeezy
“High Quality Angry Sheep Mascot Costumes”
Oh dear…
Cam the Ram–Colorado State Mascot
Dodge Ram Logo
Stock Ram Logo…
There are ever so many more, in every shape and with every expression… i sort of gave up on making a comprehensive list. I am struck anew by how much people love sheep–even as the symbol of an organization or a product (although maybe its subconsciously appropriate for organizations trying to gain followers?)
There’s even a professional football team. Look how angry his face is!
Today is Chinese New Year! Happy Year of the Ram! This is a controversial zodiac year—at least during this era. For one thing, it is unclear whether the ancient Chinese character representing this year’s zodiac sign should be translated as ram, sheep, or goat. Although sheep are herded in the northwestern grasslands of China, they are far less prevalent than goats. Throughout the rest of East Asia the distinction is clearer: Vietnam celebrates the year of the goat; whereas Japan is emphatically in the sheep camp. However in China, the exact animal varies by region. Here at Ferrebeekeeper it is sheep week, so we are going to go with sheep—but we are going to say “ram” (a horned adult male sheep) so that everyone recognizes we are dealing with a horned caprid of some textual ambiguity.
Can’t we all just get along?
There is an additional problem: in contemporary China the sheep is regarded as one of the worst of all zodiac signs. The virtues associated with a sheep personality are not currently en vogue in venal laissez-faire China. People born in the year of the ram are said to be gentle, compassionate, kind-hearted, and artistic. These were not necessarily considered bad attributes in classical China, but in today’s mercenary world of slippery business deals they are equated with weakness. The newspapers are filled with articles foretelling a dearth of newborns in 2015 as expectant mothers skip having babies to wait for more predatory zodiac creatures.
The trouble has been compounded by the chief executive of Hong Kong, Leung Chun-ying, an unpopular communist-appointed mandarin who has been attempting to quell the restive island by a wide variety of techniques. His most recent attempt to quash conflicting voices was a New Year’s exhortation to be more like the biddable sheep. Leung stated:
Sheep are widely seen to be mild and gentle animals living peacefully in groups…Last year was no easy ride for Hong Kong. Our society was rife with differences and conflicts. In the coming year I hope that all people in Hong Kong will take inspiration from the sheep’s character and pull together in an accommodating manner to work for Hong Kong’s future.
The phrasing takes on a particularly sinister bent considering that Leung Chun-ying is universally (and completely unofficially!) known as “the wolf”. His new year’s speech was cartoonishly in keeping with this sobriquet.
![[image unrelated to Hong Kong]](https://ferrebeekeeper.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/cartoon-wolf-sheep-16965219.jpg)
[image unrelated to Hong Kong]
The Birth of Jesus: Scrovegni Chapel (Giotto di Bondone, ca. 1304-1306, fresco)
It’s day two of sheep week! Yesterday’s post got pretty involved with practical and useful aspects of sheep, so today we are veering wildly to the opposite extreme—sheep in art. There are lots and lots of sheep in art from cave paintings of ancient prehistory to Babylonian murals, right up to wild abstract rams by Andrew Wyeth and elegant empty sheep skulls by Georgia O’Keefe. It’s hard to choose from so many beautiful works, so we are going to concentrate on a founding legend from the history of art itself. In art history, there is a point when the anonymous artisans of the middle ages give way to the great named masters of the Renaissance. It is the point where the history of western painting usually starts (although obviously, in reality, there were all sorts of ancient Roman, medieval, and Byzantine antecedents). The point when art becomes the discipline we think of today (with genius masters struggling in their Brooklyn garrets when they are not posting little blog articles about sheep) is usually considered to be the career of Giotto. Giotto lived from 1266 (?) to 1337 and popularized many of the bedrock principals and tropes underlying artistic painting from the early Renaissance right up until the First World War (when painting, like humanity, got all messed up). I put one of his nativity murals at the top of this story to show his use of perspective and shaded forms—innovations often attributed to Giotto. The great art historian Vasari grandiloquently summed up the view that painting originates with Giotto by writing, “In my opinion painters owe to Giotto, the Florentine painter, exactly the same debt they owe to nature, which constantly serves them as a model and whose finest and most beautiful aspects they are always striving to imitate and reproduce.” Gosh.
Cimabue observing the Young Giotto (Gaetano Sabatelli, 19th century, oil)
So where did Giotto come from? Vasari provides that story too. One day the great artisan, Cimabue was passing through the farmland of Tuscany when he saw a lively little shepherd boy surrounded by his flock. The child was scratching pictures of the sheep on a rock with the earth, charcoal, and sticks at hand. The pictures were so beautiful and lifelike that Cimabue was stunned. He went immediately to the shepherd’s master and begged for the privilege of taking the boy as apprentice and teaching him painting (which the astonished yokel immediately granted). Giotto’s genius flowered in Cimabue’s shop with the proper materials and subjects at hand.
Giotto and Cimabue (José María Obregón, 1857, oil on canvas)
The story is dramatic and beautiful. It is like a classical myth or miracle from a saint’s life. Sadly, like classical myths and medieval hagiographies, the story of Giotto’s origin is almost certainly false. Most contemporary art historians don’t even think he studied with Cimabue! But who cares? This is a myth about the founding of painting. It doesn’t have to be real.
Cimabue und der junge Giotto (Clemens von Zimmermann, 1841, oil on canvas)
Not surprisingly many painters have painted renditions of this subject. Aside from Giotto’s actual painting of sheep, I have used these works from throughout art history to illustrate this strange little tale (I’m sorry if you were fooled into thinking this post was going to be about Giotto’s, you know, art—I guess we’ll have to address that some other time).
Giotto and Cimabue (T. de Vivo ca. late 1700s early 1800s, oil on canvas)
So according to Vasari, western painting grew organically from the Tuscan land and sprang fully grown from the Giotto’s raw genius. That it was a shepherd who had this revelation and that his first (known) subjects were sheep also seems to have symbolic significance. Does this equate artists with Jesus (something Vasari clearly felt) or is it a deeper metaphor about humankind transitioning from farming to skilled work? I wonder what this story really says about artists, truth, and innovation. I wonder even more what it says about the tormented relationship between artists and the whims of the herd…
This week has been bitterly, horribly cold. The other day I was cooking a hearty winter stew of mutton, barley, leeks, and turnips. The kitchen was cold, so I put on the wool socks, sweater, and hat which my mother made me (my parents operate a fancy yarn store on Market Street in Parkersburg, West Virginia, which means I always have knitted goods made of the most gorgeous yarn). When I put on my woolens I was suddenly warm, and the smell of boiling mutton pervaded the whole house. It forcefully stuck me that I should devote a week to blogging about sheep (Ovis aries) in order to celebrate the many gifts of wool, milk, and meat which these gentle artiodactyls have given us over the years.
And the years are not few. I wrote before that goats were the first domestic farm animals, but there are some who argue, fairly convincingly, that sheep were domesticated first [our beloved friends the dog (who were once our feared enemies the wolves) were really first, by thousands–or even tens of thousands–of years, but dogs are hardly farm creatures]. Sheep were first domesticated somewhere between 11000 and 9000 BC in Mesopotamia. The animals are ideal for herding. They are large enough to be useful, but small enough to be manageable. Their highly social herd nature makes them tractable. It is not difficult to imagine hunter gatherers who followed mouflon herds around at first, and then held onto a few orphaned lambs…and then helped the sheep avoid other predators…and then led the flocks into greener pastures, until one day the relationship between the two groups of organisms was completely different. I am saying “sheep”, but there are actually a number of species in the Genus Ovis—different beautiful wild sheep from around the world. There are argali, urials, bighorn sheep, Dall sheep, and snow sheep. There were once others–now gone from Earth. But we are writing about mouflon (Ovis aries orientalis) and their domestic descendants, (Ovis aries aries).
Since they played such a large role in the origin of farming, sheep are deeply enmeshed in human culture and play a central role in many religions. The Abrahamic faiths were created by ancient herders and there is certainly a strain of sheepherders’ absolutism woven into monotheism! Cowherds are occasionally crushed, goatherds and swineherds despair of their charges’ willful intelligence, but shepherds have complete dominance. Christian literature in particular emphasizes sheepherding (Christ, the resurrected deity, often goes by sobriquets like “the lamb of god” and “the shepherd of men”). The lovely myths of Greco-Roman polytheism, ancient Egypt, and predynastic China are likewise filled with stories of the golden fleece, the supreme god Amun Re, and celestial rams.
Although more people worldwide have eaten goat meat, there are more sheep in existence and they are more important economically than their close cousins the goats. There are over a billion sheep on Earth belonging to upwards of 200 breeds. Each different breed was laboriously created by artificial selection across the long years to maximize meat, milk, hardiness, quick growth, tractability, or wool characteristics (or judicious combinations of these attributes). Just look at some of these breeds below. It is amazing they are the same animal, and yet they are obviously the same animal.
There are people who are very rich because of sheep. There are nations which depend on the wooly herds for their GDP. I have written much about sheep, but little about their milk, meat, and wool. Of these, perhaps sheep milk is least familiar to us in the industrialized west, since it is not easy to collect by mechanical means. Cheesemakers however still use it to make premium cheese. Some of the greatest and most delicious cheeses are sheep cheeses (sadly I have them infrequently, but they are indeed delicious. Sheep meat is known as lamb when it comes from young sheep and as mutton when it comes from older beasts. Prime cuts of lamb are more expensive than steaks–and arguably more delicious–but I like cooking mutton which can be boiled all day into soups and stews of surpassing flavor (although my urbane roommates sometimes wrinkle up their noses and look at me like I am a warlock dancing around a cauldron atop some ancient hill).
Sheep’s wool is the most common animal fiber in use. It is so familiar that it comes as a shock to read about its virtues with a fresh eye. Wool has a distinctive microscopic crimp which allows it to be spun into threads and yarns which do not unwind themselves (the sad fate of my otherwise excellent llama sweater). Wool can also be hammered or compressed–which causes microscopic barbs to attach to each other and form felt. It is an excellent insulator even when wet and it also absorbs sound. Wool is surprisingly fire resistant—much more so than other fibers. If it becomes hot enough to catch fire, wool does not melt or release toxic gases but forms a self-extinguishing char which still retains insulating properties. In airlines, where every other amenity has been removed or replaced, there are still wool carpets and dividers because of its excellence in fires (although no doubt right now some soul-eating MBA with a spreadsheet is working to make things less elegant and less safe). Wool is also extremely durable—although different varieties of wool last in different ways, and it can be dyed.
Of course to the jaded modern human, milk, amazing fiber, and meat are of little concern. Today’s city dwellers care even less about an animal’s docile nature or its ability to graze, reproduce, or stand off predators (which sheep do by forming together as a dense barrier wall!). Perhaps we are outgrowing sheep. However, they kept us alive for 10 hard millennia! As the arctic winds howl outside through Brooklyn’s empty streets and I sit at my computer in my wool socks and hat my eyes wearily trace to my bed where my little cat is curled up on the red trapper’s blanket. I certainly haven’t outgrown my dependence on sheep. Join Ferrebeekeeper in saluting our ovine friends during the coming week!
ferrebeekeeper 