From Ambassador (Réttir)
2024/10/11
I think that it is safe to say that the animal most familiar to the people of Iceland is the sheep.
From the earliest days of settlement, people brought sheep to this land and relied on their meat as a source of preserved food to help them survive. The wool from the sheep's fleece could also be used to knit clothes to keep out the cold. Sheep were an important asset to people, and in fact, the Icelandic word for sheep “fé” also means “money”.
Because of the harsh climate, there is less grass for the sheep to eat in the autumn and winter. For this reason, the sheep can only be grazed in the summer. Farmers cut and gather the grass during the summer, then store the dried grass in barns to feed their sheep during the winter. Today, mowing the grass is a mechanized process carried out by special combine harvesters, but it was once hard, labor-intensive work that required a lot of manpower. It is not uncommon amongst elderly Icelanders to have been sent to work on farms mowing grass during the summer, when there was no school.
Incidentally, there is an anecdote that, in the early days of the settlement, there was a group that neglected to mow the grass, and as a result, their sheep died during the winter, forcing them to give up on the settlement with tears in their eyes. (It seems that these people spent their summers enjoying salmon fishing. It's just like in Aesop‘s Fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”)
In Iceland, the lambing season generally begins in May. The newborn lambs are released into the wild with the adult sheep, and they grow up eating wild grass in the highlands during the summer.
The annual sheep round-up that takes place across Iceland in September is called “Réttir”. Sheep gathered from the vast pastureland are herded into a circular fence, and then individual sheep are sorted into the fences of each farmer.
While I had heard about this event, this year I was able to actually observe and participate in it thanks to the generosity of Ms. Lilja Rannveig Sigurgeirsdóttir. Ms. Sigurgeirsdóttir is the youngest female member of the Icelandic parliament and her family is famous as large-scale sheep farmers.
Icelandic lamb is known to be a luxury product and is renowned as the finest in the world.
From the earliest days of settlement, people brought sheep to this land and relied on their meat as a source of preserved food to help them survive. The wool from the sheep's fleece could also be used to knit clothes to keep out the cold. Sheep were an important asset to people, and in fact, the Icelandic word for sheep “fé” also means “money”.
Because of the harsh climate, there is less grass for the sheep to eat in the autumn and winter. For this reason, the sheep can only be grazed in the summer. Farmers cut and gather the grass during the summer, then store the dried grass in barns to feed their sheep during the winter. Today, mowing the grass is a mechanized process carried out by special combine harvesters, but it was once hard, labor-intensive work that required a lot of manpower. It is not uncommon amongst elderly Icelanders to have been sent to work on farms mowing grass during the summer, when there was no school.
Incidentally, there is an anecdote that, in the early days of the settlement, there was a group that neglected to mow the grass, and as a result, their sheep died during the winter, forcing them to give up on the settlement with tears in their eyes. (It seems that these people spent their summers enjoying salmon fishing. It's just like in Aesop‘s Fable “The Ant and the Grasshopper”)
In Iceland, the lambing season generally begins in May. The newborn lambs are released into the wild with the adult sheep, and they grow up eating wild grass in the highlands during the summer.
The annual sheep round-up that takes place across Iceland in September is called “Réttir”. Sheep gathered from the vast pastureland are herded into a circular fence, and then individual sheep are sorted into the fences of each farmer.
While I had heard about this event, this year I was able to actually observe and participate in it thanks to the generosity of Ms. Lilja Rannveig Sigurgeirsdóttir. Ms. Sigurgeirsdóttir is the youngest female member of the Icelandic parliament and her family is famous as large-scale sheep farmers.
Icelandic lamb is known to be a luxury product and is renowned as the finest in the world.