A Sea of Sheep

Baaaaaa. Or as the Icelandic sheep say: mæh-mæh. And we would certainly know.
This past Saturday, we climbed aboard our classic little turquoise bus, clad in our raingear and armed with cameras, to what was, at the time, an undisclosed event in an undisclosed location. We rode in quiet anticipation- glaciers? horses? hotsprings? What would our half-day adventure turn out to be? And then, as the bus slowly turned into a field filling with cars, a rousing cry of “kind!” (pronounced kin-dur) came forth.

Sheep.
Lots and lots of sheep.
We had learned the word on our hiking trip and it quickly became our (well, my) favourite word. It developed into the basis for my Icelandic language acquisition: “Komdu, kind!” (come here, sheep!), “sjá, kind!”(look, sheep!),“hvitur kind; svartur kind” (white sheep; black sheep), “ég elska kind” (I love sheep). So naturally, I was thrilled.

Bounding off the bus, we encountered hundreds, if not thousands of sheep enclosed in a pen made of stone. With horns painted blue and their wool unkempt, they looked just as wild as the people who first brought them to this island. Palin had explained to us that the practice we were observing was centuries old. Farmers in Iceland let their sheep roam freely during the summer; giving the tourists something to take pictures of and the mutton its characteristic wild taste. At the beginning of autumn, all the sheep in the region are herded into a large pen, after which the farmers come to claim them. This reclaiming essentially entails everyone and their grandmother chasing the kind. The only changes in this age-old tradition: the neon orange weather gear and the numbered tags (instead of notches) on the ear of each sheep.

The festivities began shortly after our arrival. A few of the more intrepid Icelanders vaulted the wall and began clapping their hands rather mildly. The sheep panicked. Out they ran-through a newly opened passage- into a second, smaller pen. This was shaped like a wagon wheel; the spaces in between the “spokes” were individual pens for each farmer to herd his sheep into. And herd they did. As we watched from atop a grass covered stone wall it became apparent that, in addition to the neon pants, proper attire included your stereotypical Icelandic sweater. Appropriate accessories were either a can of beer, a small child or (if one was so talented) both.

To catch a sheep the following actions must be taken:
step one, straddle the sheep;
step two, grab the horns (if it lacks horns, simply grab the scruff of the neck);
step three, check the tag number (if the sheep is yours proceed, if not release it and go back to step one);
step four, walddle the sheep to your allotted pen.
Repeat.

Interestingly, as hinted at before, this is not a male-only event; wives, girlfriends, daughters- anyone with enough gumption to haul a sheep- is out in the midst of it. So, if them…why not me?
Armed the mantra “ég elska kind!” I hopped down (rather unceremoniously) into the pen. It reminded me, to say the least, of the running of the bulls in Madrid- except much fluffier. My advice for any who find themselves in a pen with hundreds of frightened animals? Watch out for the horns, hoofs, and the random ones that fly through the air.

Elizabeth-Anne
(Photos by Elizabeth-Anne and Abbey)