01-08-2025
Sheep are so much more than livestock. They are literary influencers.
Sheep! Where to begin?
How about early Western civilization. Jason, our most famous Argonaut, retrieved the Golden Fleece, the wool from a winged ram. Jesus Christ is the Lamb of God. In the Middle East and in Europe, sheep husbandry, along with the wool trade, shaped commerce. The pastoral, a literary genre, would not exist without sheep. Sheep wandered into fairy tales, nursery rhymes, puppetry and the terrific poem 'The Sheep Child' by James Dickey. Centuries after industrialization and technology transformed the natural world came Dolly, our first clone, a sheep.