Tag Archives: sheep

Ask The Fellows who Cut the Hay by George Ewart Evans

I’ve already documented my love for George’s book Where Beards Wag All, which he wrote fifteen years later and is far more concentrated on the role of the oral tradition in rural settings.

I’ve been meaning to write up about this book for ages and now I come to do so, what I learnt from it has quite slipped my mind… but just looking at the contents pages is more than enough to wet the intellectual appetite. I mean it has chapters called ‘Beer’, ‘Field Names’ and ‘Bacon and Ham Curing’ and a whole section titled ‘Various Old People’. Ha!

As climate change starts to bite and we continue looking for ways to work the land with nature rather than by fighting against her, books like this will be valuable resources indeed.

The Economist review on the inside cover just about sums it up:
‘Original, arresting and always human… The book is a mine of information, but this is offered so unpretentiously that it reads as easily as a quiet book of memoirs’

(1814*) Dùthaich Mhic Aoidh by Ewan Robertson

Mo mhallachd aig na caoraich mhòr
My curse upon the great sheep
Càit a bheil clann nan daoine còir
Where now are the children of the kindly folk
Dhealaich rium nuair bha mi òg
Who parted from me when I was young
Mus robh Dùthaich ‘IcAoidh na fàsach?
Before Sutherland became a desert?

Tha trì fichead bliadhna ‘s a trì
It has been sixty-three years
On dh’fhàg mi Dùthaich ‘IcAoidh
Since I left Sutherland
Cait bheil gillean òg mo chrìdh’
Where are all my beloved young men
‘S na nìonagan cho bòidheach?
And all the girls that were so pretty?

Shellar, tha thu nist nad uaigh
Sellar, you are in your grave
Gaoir nam bantrach na do chluais
The wailing of your widows in your ears
Am milleadh rinn thu air an t-sluagh
The destruction you wrought upon the people
Ron uiridh ‘n d’ fhuair thu d’ leòr dheth?
Up until last year, have you had your fill of it?

Chiad Dhiùc Chataibh, led chuid foill
First Duke of Sutherland, with your deceit
‘S led chuid càirdeis do na Goill
And your consorting with the Lowlanders
Gum b’ ann an Iutharn’ bha do thoill
You deserve to be in Hell
Gum b’ fheàrr Iùdas làmh rium
I’d rather consort with Judas

Bhan-Diùc Chataibh, bheil thu ad dhìth
Duchess of Sutherland, where are you now?
Càit a bheil do ghùnan sìod?
Where are your silk gowns?
An do chùm iad thu bhon oillt ‘s bhon strì
Did they save you from the hatred and fury
Tha an diugh am measg nan clàraibh?
Which today permeates the press?

Mo mhallachd aig na caoraich mhòr
My curse upon the great sheep
Càit a bheil clann nan daoine còir
Where now are the children of the kindly folk
Dhealaich rium nuair bha mi òg
Who parted from me when I was young
Mus robh Dùthaich ‘IcAoidh na fàsach?

Utopia by Thomas More

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So powerful re-reading the words of Thomas More from ‘Utopia’ now I understand the historical context of his words.

The first part of the book is largely a critique of the society around him written in a fictional form to protect him from persecution…

“your sheep that were wont to be so meek and tame, and so small eaters, now, as I heard say, be become so great devourers and so wild, that they eat up, and swallow down the very men themselves.”

http://www.bartleby.com/209/55.htmlutopia

 

In short, communities were deprived of their access to land to make way for sheep. The wool from these sheep became the first resource to be mass produced and traded leading to massive accumulation of excess capital in the hands of a few large landowners.

This excess capital could be invested in ships which laid the foundation for empires and slavery bringing along the second big accumulation of excess capital.

Read the wikipedia entry here – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)