We went with Brolle. He was with an elderly couple about twelve miles away. They have ten to fifteen ewes. Small-time sheep-owners have a tendency to give their rams somewhat over-the-top names. One we bought from named them after famous feminists. For a while we were looking at Claes Borgström, but decided on The Phantom (he protects women, apparently). Brolle’s farmers were nice. She showed me photos of her grandchildren, he showed me pictures of the sheep. We went over each of our families and circles of acquaintance with a fine-tooth comb to get a complete survey of all the links we had in common. There was something about my aunt, I didn’t quite get it. That’s how it works in the country, like Facebook, except you can never log out. We got Brolle into the trunk. Once he was in the field with the ewes, he got the idea straightaway. A bit of nosing about and then off he went. Is this really natural?