3

Yoda

TWO PAIRS OF EYES LOOKED at me from across the table, waiting for my response. A third pair joined them as the four-day-old lamb cradled in my arms stopped drinking from his bottle and looked up at me. We looked at each other for a moment and he let out a tiny, squeaky, gurgling, ‘Baaaa.’

‘He’s your lambie now.’ Suddenly the inevitability of the situation hit me: I was leaving with this lamb. I’d been excited when one of my research participants had said another pony breeder would be coming by with a caddy (bottle-fed) lamb. And now here I was, the owner of a tiny sheep. For every question or objection I had, there was an answer ready: ‘Here is some powdered milk and a bottle, you can get more from the vet’s on your way home.’ ‘He will be no bother, just give him his bottle four times a day.’ ‘Your husband will love him. No, no – don’t call him to check.’

I drove home in a state of panic. Where would he live? How did you look after a lamb? And what would Steve say when I came home with a sheep?! I had really wanted the lamb, but reality was beginning to sink in: I now owned an animal that I had little idea how to take care of. I tried to concentrate on driving, trying to forget he was there, telling myself to worry about it later. This was easier said than done when at every corner there was a soft thump as he lost his balance, followed by a scuffle as he stood up again.

Waiting at the ferry terminal I took a picture of the lamb and sent it to Steve with the message: I got you a present. Arriving home, however, it was clear from his initial enthusiasm that the signal had not been strong enough to send the photo, and he had only received part of the message. As he opened the back door of the car, the lamb stood on wobbly legs and emitted a loud, insistent bleat.

‘Where is that going to go?’ Steve asked. ‘And how long is it here for?’ I suddenly became aware of how badly the lamb smelled. He was absolutely coated in dried mud and poo, and the journey in a hot car seemed to have ripened him. His owner had said that he was one of a pair of twins, and that the mother had accepted only one – the weaker-looking twin, oddly – and had rejected him. She’d watched, hoping the mother would come to her senses, but the little lamb had wandered from sheep to sheep trying to get some milk. The other yowes had chased him while his mother took no notice. ‘He is a fighter and a survivor,’ she had said.

There was no way he could sleep outside, alone, it would be far too cold, and so we made him a little home in the garage. This would be temporary, I assured Steve. The lamb would learn to live with Lowrie’s flock – I would not let him become a pet and would spend the summer teaching him to be a sheep.

We opened the garden gate and in he bounced, sniffing at flowers and seemingly unfazed by his new surroundings. Within a few minutes of the lamb exiting the car, one of the children next door appeared. As the boy ran through the garden the lamb followed, bouncing high in the air, tiny hoofs kicking to the side.

‘What are you goin tae call him?’ he asked. I looked at the lamb, who stood still and serene, his ears comically large, and I realised the date. May the 4th. Star Wars Day.

‘Yoda,’ I replied with a smile. After a few more minutes playing with Yoda, the little boy said he had better go home. Folk on the ferry had seen I had an animal in the car and had called our neighbours to update them on this development. They had been worried I had got a dog, and he needed to go and tell them that it was just a sheep.

With a basin filled with warm water and several old cloths and towels on standby, it was time to bath Yoda. He was far too small and at risk of the cold to place him in the water so Steve held him still while I combed and wiped at his fleece, trying to remove the larger chunks of dirt. There was a constant clattering of hoofs as he protested this treatment and tried to wiggle free. I wrapped him in a blanket and took him into the house to warm up. His dark blue-black eyes began to close as I slowly rubbed him with the towel, and before long he was asleep on my knee, snoring slightly. I was instantly and completely in love with this little orphan lamb.

Most of my earliest childhood memories involve the animals that I shared my life and home with. For a time we rented a house that came with a goat, and we soon borrowed a donkey to keep him company. We had dogs, chickens and ducks that roamed around the large garden and joined me on adventures. When I was five, I found a baby jackdaw that had fallen out of its nest. Bald and a little transparent, he was the ugliest creature imaginable, and I loved him completely. Mum named him Gerry, after Gerald Durrell, as she said my ability to find and bring home wildlife was reminiscent of his stories in My Family and Other Animals. Gerry came everywhere with me, and my days were spent chatting to my various animal friends with Gerry perched on top of my head. Once I started university and was living in cities, I never had any pets, it just didn’t seem practical or possible, but as I sat with this little lamb on my knee I realised how much I had missed this contact.

After giving Yoda his last feed of the day, I got my hot water bottle, which had a soft fleecy cover, filled it with warm water, and placed it on his bed. I hoped this warmth would make him feel less alone. In the morning, as I fed Yoda his bottle, I worried about the conversations that I needed to have. Our landlord’s response to my enquiry about keeping a lamb in the garage had been matter-of-fact and slightly enigmatic (‘There has been far worse as a lamb in that shed’), and so I nervously waited for Lowrie. I desperately hoped he would allow Yoda to live in the field with his sheep – but what if he didn’t? I didn’t really have a plan B and felt that asking this favour was taking advantage of a neighbour’s generosity.

As soon as I heard Lowrie’s quad bike approaching I burst out of the house, Yoda close on my heels. Lowrie looked from me to the lamb and said, ‘You poor girl, what have you done?’

Talking too fast, I tried to explain what had happened. Lowrie laughed kindly, interrupting my rambling to explain that at this time of year, everyone with a male caddy was trying to give them away. The trick was to be firm when you say no. Before I had a chance to ask, he said the lamb was welcome to live with his sheep and that there was plenty of grass for him, but he warned me not to get too attached. Desperate to show I wasn’t some city type from down south, I assured him I would be very practical about this. I’d feed him and work to integrate him with the sheep. There would be no unnecessary cuddles. As Lowrie left he turned and asked if I’d named him yet.

‘He’s called Yoda.’ I smiled.

He laughed and said, ‘Good luck.’

It was a clear sunny day, so I sat outside with Yoda. Ina came round and said that Yoda was ‘a lovely peerie fellow, a lovely peerie fellow’, and offered to give him a bottle any time we were away. I gratefully accepted this kind offer, as I had been a bit worried about how to combine fieldwork trips off the island with feeding Yoda four bottles a day. Robbie joined us, said Yoda was a fine lamb, and then told us a story of a caddy he’d once known. When the lamb had been little, he would come into the house and sleep by the fire like a dog. Some months later, he’d joined a sheep flock on an uninhabited island, where he’d lived for many years. When the crofter had brought him home, this lamb, now a large Shetland ram with impressive horns, had immediately run into the house and taken his place by the fire as if he’d never left.

Wherever I went, Yoda followed a step or two behind me. So I decided to take him for a walk along the ness. I reasoned that walking where his soon-to-be adoptive flock lived would be a good experience for him, to help him know he was a sheep.

The ness

When the Vikings came to Shetland they named the places they found. Names were often practical and descriptive, detailing geological features, events or activities. These names remain an important part of today’s Shetland dialect, sometimes offering tantalising glimpses of how areas once were. When a derelict-looking expanse has ‘-bister’, ‘-quoy’ or ‘swin-’ as part of its name, you know that in the past, people farmed there. ‘Ness’, meaning ‘headland’, is a common place name in this land of rugged coastlines.

The ness was the place I walked, the place where I grew to know and fall in love with the Shetland landscape. Every day in this same place the experience was different, as more and more of its life was revealed to me. When I first arrived, its colours were muted, brown and mossy, interrupted by patches of brighter green in the wettest areas. Other than the sheep, and a few fulmar nestled into rock crevices or gliding on graceful wings, this land appeared vast and empty. Hints of others were revealed through shells, bones and scat, the remains of feasts. Barnacle-encrusted shells of various crab species and the empty carapace of giant sea urchins punctuated the rocky coastline. The regular appearance of the grotesque twisted corpses of ling with sharp teeth in gaping mouths told me that there must be several otters in the vicinity. I saw their tracks, their droppings, and found fur-coated areas of earth where they had been rolling, but for weeks the otters themselves remained elusive.

As I learned to sit and look, growing accustomed to the biting wind, I saw gulls (herring and black-backed) drop their underwater finds onto the rocks to break into the shells. I became increasingly aware of the attention of selkies. If I sat on a still day, it wouldn’t be long before one silently appeared, watching, unblinking, then more and more would join them. Some would stretch their necks high out of the water, looking like they were bouncing on the spot to get a better view. They usually remained a few feet apart from one another, but sometimes they played, rolling corkscrews in the water, snorting and biting each other’s necks. As I walked, these curious companions would often follow, disappearing beneath the waves, only to resurface parallel to the path I was walking.

One day, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a different movement. A large otter was making his way to shore, an orange butterfish dangling from his jaws. The brown of the otter’s coat matched the colour of the thick forests of seaweed that the low tide had exposed. Had he not been moving, I could have been just feet away and known nothing of his presence. The sounds of tearing flesh and crunching bone travelled on the wind, and within minutes the otter returned to the water. A few feet out, he paused, looking back to the shore before, with arched back, he dived under the waves. Keeping my eye on the ripple that marked his decent, I crept forward, keeping low to the ground, to find a closer vantage point. The grey lichen-covered rock made a prickly and uncomfortable seat, but as the otter reappeared, closer to shore, I remained still. He swam a few feet and dived again, this time reappearing with another fish.

After this long-awaited sighting I regularly encountered otters as I explored the ness. Often I saw them hunting in the bay but occasionally I would meet them on land. Once, I found a sleeping otter, curled up in a hollow behind a large rock, its chest rising and falling with the rhythms of breath, fur moving with the breeze. It seemed small, and I wondered if it was a youngster. I crouched low, hoping to obscure my silhouette among the rocks, suspended in the moment, watching. After a few minutes the otter woke, stretched and started to roll, snapping its jaws as clouds of dust rose from the hollow. After stretching again, it paused, lifted its head, looking around, alert, before starting to rub its neck and cheeks along the rocks and seaweed. With one last look around, the otter defecated on the rock, which was already covered in scat, before slipping beneath the waves.

Every day, as I watched and learned, I saw land and sea merge, through the rhythms of life on the ness. I felt this otter must have been aware of my presence even as I remained hidden, with the wind blowing and carrying my scent. Were my more regular encounters with otters a result of them no longer taking such care to avoid me? I wondered if, as I walked, my presence was becoming a part of the place, that life on the ness was also learning to live with me.

Slowly, as they grew to trust me, Lowrie’s sheep would come down off the hill to see if I had any food. I came to know several of the tamest ones well, giving them each names as I wrote about their antics in my fieldnotes. Starey Sheep was the moorit with the white stripe and bulging eyes, a close companion of Y-Face, the charcoal yowe. Four White Feet … well, had four white feet, and the rest of her body was black apart from a white stripe in the centre of her face. Two other sheep were often with her, and I called them Pretty Pink Nose and V-Face, based on their markings. The amazing variety of colours and markings meant I was able to identify individual sheep in a way I had never been able to do with flocks I had met before.

One morning, I was sitting on a wall, Yoda at my feet, and noticed how spring had transformed the ness. Shades of brown had become green, and nestled among the new blades of grass were tiny purple flowers: spring squill. Only a few centimetres tall, beautiful but strong, they defiantly bloomed despite high winds and unseasonable hail showers. Bright pink flowers, toadflax-like in shape, clustered close to the stones. Where the longer grass grew, the first bog orchids were starting to emerge, some a rich purple, others a delicate, lace-woven pink and white. The air was heavy with a threat of rain, the opaque sky marbled grey with silver highlights. The sound of skylarks, carried with the wind from the heather hill, formed a constant background melody.

Closer, a wren sang. I would often see this tiny bird here, perched atop the highest stone, ready to dart, mouse-like, into a crevice, whenever I came too close.

Then a new sound rose, a haunting elongated wail that echoed through the landscape, radiating from hill, sea and sky so I could not tell from where it originated. Everything else fell silent as this sound, telling of unknown worlds, continued. The back of my neck prickled and goosebumps rose on my arms as another voice joined, and, lifting, the songs entwined around each other, enveloping me in their magic.

When I returned home, my eyes constantly scanning to see who had sung, Robbie was at the gate. ‘Did you hear the rain goose?’ he asked, and I realised I had been listening to the courting call of the red-throated diver. He told me a pair usually returned to each of the lochs in this area to breed, and they sing throughout their spring courtship. Every morning from then on, I listened, watching through binoculars as they swam parallel to one another, the red of their throats vivid against charcoal necks as they lifted their heads and sang. I grew to know this pair well, their shapes on the water a familiar sight throughout the summer.

The weather became more spring-like, and one morning as we walked together Yoda started bouncing, jumping high in the air, and clambering onto the lower parts of walls or rocks before hurling himself off once more. Lowrie’s sheep stood at a distance, watching. A honey-coloured sheep with a very fluffy head moved forward a few paces. Yoda galloped over towards the flock and she darted back, appearing terrified of the lamb. As he approached the flock once more, a few sheep allowed him to come close, but the majority moved to get away from him, disappearing over the hill. Yoda ran happily full-speed back to me, seemingly unaffected by the flock’s rejection of him. As I continued to walk, Yoda followed a few steps behind me. I fretted about how I could make him more sheep-like. Although he needed to sleep indoors at night until he was older and stronger, I had hoped he could spend his days in the sheep field. However, any time I placed him in the field, as soon as the sheep started to gather around him, he would decide he did not like sheep and would try to find his way back to me. These attempts were always successful, as the combination of his small size and the elderly nature of the walls and fences meant that minutes after hearing his panicked bleat he would reappear beside me.

As we drew closer to home, I noticed Yoda was walking to one side of me, rather than directly behind me as he usually did. My feet had left the well-worn sheep path that wound its way across the headland, but he remained steadfastly on it, moving in the same direction as me, but along a different path.

The garden

As the weeks became months, I was increasingly amazed by the generosity of our neighbours. They regularly gave us gifts of eggs, fish or other produce, always with a line such as ‘We had a bit extra so thought you would like some,’ or ‘The hens are laying so much – we have too many.’ I was left uncertain how to reciprocate. We did not produce anything, we only had things we’d bought, and so it seemed unlikely that we would ever have extra that we needed to give away. I felt that buying something specifically to give wouldn’t be right in this situation. But I really wanted to give something: I couldn’t bear the thought of repaying kindness with rudeness.

My first thought was baking. I reasoned that I could easily make something that it would seem natural to share. Unfortunately, I had never baked before, and with most of my days on the mainland for fieldwork and hours of notes to write up every day, I had very little time to practise. My first attempts were too ugly, burnt or strange-tasting to give to anybody. As I improved slightly, by sticking to simple recipes and following instructions to the letter, I became more aware of the baking skills of islanders, who all seemed to be able to make scones, bannocks or fancies that were light and fluffy and seemingly without turning their kitchens into smoke-filled disaster zones. My own attempts seemed worse and worse in comparison. I worried that if I was to give people my own poor efforts it might look rude, like I was getting rid of baking rejects. My overthinking on this was causing me such anxiety that I decided to just get on with it and share my most recent attempt at cookies with Ina. They looked and smelled good but unfortunately, I had not tried them before I offered her some. She bit into one; I could hear the sound of crunching. Although she smiled kindly, it seemed chewing it was requiring considerable effort. Once she had swallowed her mouthful, she said that it was lovely but she would save the rest for when she was home. As soon as she’d gone, I tried one. It was rock hard. I cried with disappointment and embarrassment, feeling like I had nothing to offer and didn’t know how to be a good neighbour.

Once I stopped feeling sorry for myself, I decided I would work on growing some vegetables, hoping that later in the year I would be able to share the harvest. I went out and surveyed our garden. It was an absolute mess. Despite several dry days the grass remained waterlogged, and the ground sank a little wherever I put my feet, water filling the footprints I left behind. The areas that had once been used for growing were covered with a thick, tangled mat of dead grass, while a closer inspection revealed that this place had clearly been a feline toilet for some time. There would be a risk of exposure from a north wind, as nothing but a rickety wooden fence stood between the garden and the sea.

There were, however, bushes that could provide shelter from the south and east. Throughout the winter, I had watched as these bushes’ bare, forlorn-looking branches were whipped by the wind and lashed with salt spray, and had begun to wonder if they were alive at all. But with the changing season, buds and fragile green shoots had begun to emerge. In the sheltered areas below, leaves grew up from the ground, straight and steady: daffodils and bluebells, Ina had told me. Not knowing what other potential might lie below winter ground, I decided to devote my efforts to the vegetable garden, a small flower garden, and a new path, and wait and see what grew in the other areas.

I started with the small area where I thought a flower bed might have been before. With the dry stone wall on one side and a large patch of rose bushes on the other, it seemed like a sheltered place. It was completely overgrown, so I set to work pulling up the grass. I found that if I yanked on a handful of stalks at a diagonal angle, they came out of the ground quite quickly, bringing with them clumps of wet earth. I dug, amazed how far their tangled roots stretched, enjoying the smell and feel of the earth on my fingers. In some patches, beneath the carpet of grass were small furled leaves, stretching up towards a sun they couldn’t see. Intrigued, I cleared space around them, wanting to see what they would become. I unearthed a regular line of smooth stones that indicated this had indeed been a flower bed, and a faded garden-centre label confirming this. As I worked, Robbie came and leaned against the wall to chat. He said he thought there had been flowers and maybe some herbs in the area I was digging, and suggested I get to work on the vegetable patch soon if I wanted to get anything planted this year.

As I removed stones from the earth, placing them to one side, Robbie told me about a day when he’d been out walking and had found an unusual stone. It was not like any he had seen before on the isle, so he’d taken it to a geologist friend who’d confirmed it would have been from a ship’s ballast. Ships would use rocks from their departure port to provide stability for their voyage, jettisoning these as they collected cargo, and, in doing so, creating enduring evidence of their journeys in the geology of places. He’d explained that because Whalsay had been an important port throughout history, as part of the Hanseatic trade route and as a regular stopping point for fishing vessels, the island’s seabed contained many unusual stones. Robbie went away for a few minutes, returning with a large piece of flint, which he handed to me. He said that it too was likely off a ship that had come here long ago, and suggested I could keep it in the garden, or with the other stones I collected from the beach. I laughed and thanked him, aware of how visible I was as I walked along the ebb, examining rocks and bones and pocketing treasures like sea glass.

My arms were beginning to ache from digging, so I made myself a cup of tea and then fetched my packets of seeds and the small pots that would house them. I had chosen kale and cauliflower, both of which needed planting inside and would then be transferred into the garden later in the summer months. One by one, I filled the tiny pots with soil, placing a seed in the centre of each one and giving a little water before moving them into the porch. I then sprinkled some mint seeds into a larger pot by the front door.

The next morning was bright and sunny. The wind had moved to the south and it felt considerably warmer, although the local weather forecast confirmed it was just 10 degrees Celsius. The sun now rose high, and the song of the skylark carried from the hill, while the garden was alive with the sounds of sparrows and starlings. I began work on the vegetable patch by removing all the cat poo. Even though I was wearing rubber gloves and using a trowel, I hated this job, feeling unclean no matter how many times I washed my hands. Next I tackled the grass, but here it was far more stubborn, and my pulling technique from the day before had little effect. I used a fork to break the earth, cutting through several inches of matted, dead grass before reaching the soil below. Once I had removed all the visible grass, I set to work on what was underneath. The first half-metre below the surface was a tangle: extensive networks of fine grass roots; thick and stubborn dandelions reaching deeper than I could ever have imagined, and mysterious reddish-brown roots that I later discovered – when they continued to grow despite my best clearing efforts – were an invasion of mint. I worked for hours, feeling hot despite my breath being visible in the cold air, and slowly, I began to see a little progress as the area of bare soil grew.

I stopped for a moment, watching a neighbour’s sheep as they made their way across the beach, their almost-identical white forms in a line as they followed in each other’s footsteps. Except there were two darker sheep with them. I looked closer and saw Y-Face and Starey Sheep, Lowrie’s sheep, with the wrong flock. Grabbing a bucket and some sheep nuts I headed towards them. The flock scattered, breaking formation and darting across the hill. I rattled the bucket loudly and Lowrie’s two stopped and turned towards me. I rattled again, but they remained stationary, watching me. Unsure what to do next, I walked towards the gate of their field, still rattling the bucket, and hoping they would follow. When I reached the gate I opened it, standing back a little to give them room to pass through. They could see the sheep on the other side of the fence and clearly wanted to go through, but did not want to come any closer to me. I walked through the gate straight towards the flock, scattering sheep nuts around me. It worked, and the pair rejoined their flock. As I closed the gate behind me I felt a bit proud, happy that I had done something useful at last.

A little later, when I was back working in the garden, Lowrie came by on his quad bike, saying he had a couple of escaped sheep to round up. I said that I had herded them back to their flock. He thanked me and called me his helper. I was delighted.

Foal watch

May is the month when most Shetland pony foals are born, when the worst of the winter weather has passed and the new grass has begun to grow. I was trying to spend as much time as possible with pony breeders as they got to know the new additions to their studs, and was thrilled when Leona from the Robin’s Brae stud had phoned to ask if I could help them with their foal watch on a day the whole family would be away from home.

Earlier in the spring I had met Leona and her brother, Irvine. They were the third generation of pony breeders in their family, and described growing up surrounded by animal lovers: ‘You never knew what you would find opening the door – there might be a lamb in the porch.’ Shetland ponies were always a part of their childhood, and they described helping out with tasks such as foaling and halter training from an early age.

As foaling time approached, the pregnant mares were placed in a field close to their house, and during the night the family took turns checking the horses. This level of attention was common among pony breeders, with many describing weeks of sleepless nights, made worth it by the joys of being there with their horses as the foals were born.

Shetland ponies are known to be good foalers, rarely needing assistance; however, complications can arise. On the phone the night before Leona had told me that only one foal had been born and that several of the mares were due. She’d said I should look out for mares showing signs of discomfort – rolling, pacing or frantically eating grass, any of these could be signs that labour was imminent. She’d described the signs that suggested a mare might be in trouble and had talked me through what I should do. She’d given me a list of phone numbers for the vet, family and neighbours, and had told me to help myself to the lasagne in the fridge. Although excited about the day ahead, I was reluctant to leave Yoda, who was still so little. Would he be lonely if I was away all day?

I went to visit the ponies in the further field first, where I sat on a large stone overlooking the field. Shetland’s distinct geology means there can be a striking difference in landscapes within a small area. Beneath the earth here was sandstone, which combined with the relatively flat topography created a fertile area, perfect for farming. The limited areas of cultivatable land in Shetland mean these most fertile regions have experienced near-constant human presence. Nineteenth-century crofthouses, formed from the stones of 2,000-year-old brochs (Iron-Age roundhouse towers), nestle beside the remains of mysterious Neolithic burnt mounds, where sheep and ponies continue to graze. This landscape is a tapestry, where the shapes of ancient walls live in the present, a connection to past farmers.

The green fields were separated by dry stone walls and the circular outlines of planticrubs stood at regular intervals. Although no longer used for agriculture, some of these crubs were still doing their job, as trees and shrubs, having found protection from the wind and hungry sheep, grew up to the height of the wall. The wind was brisk, and though I was sitting in the warmth of the sun, the lines and patterns along the horizon told me rain was on its way. Seven ponies, all heavily pregnant, stood with bums pointed towards the wind, most paying little attention to my intrusion into their field. A black-and-white mare lifted her head and made her way over to me, standing very close. Her nose was warm, and as she sniffed at my hands and face, the smell of her grassy breath brought back vivid memories of childhood days spent at riding stables. I took off my gloves and started to scratch her neck. Tufts of her winter coat flew with the breeze. She placed her head on my shoulder and started to lightly nibble at my jacket, moving with the rhythm of my scratching. This is something you regularly see between horses: they will stand and groom one another, and sometimes they extend this practice to the humans who take the time to groom them. Several of the other ponies had grown curious and gathered around, sniffing and nuzzling, their breath providing a little warmth from the cold wind.

I went inside to warm up. From the window I had a good view of the closest field where the ponies thought to be likely to foal imminently grazed. Jewel, a pretty brown-and-white mare, rolled on the ground and then made her way over towards the corner of the field, where she stood still, eyes closed. As another mare approached her, Jewel put her ears back and started to move away. My heart leaped: did this mean she was going to foal? Would I know what to do if she did? Remembering something Leona had said about some mares who were ‘bursting to foal’ that wouldn’t go into labour if they thought someone was watching, I decided to stay inside, where I could see without being seen.

After about five minutes, Jewel turned, and slowly walked back to graze with the others. Happy that she was not going into labour, I went outside to sit with the ponies. I hoped the one foal, born just a few days ago, might come up to see me. Brown and white, with a spiky mane, long legs and knobbly knees, he was absolutely gorgeous. He seemed curious, watching me but staying close to his mum, moving around the field by her side and nursing regularly. At times he seemed to gain a little more confidence, stepping away from her and approaching the other mares. I watched as they immediately darted away from him, then stood looking between the foal and his mother. I was reminded of how the sheep responded to Yoda – maybe they thought I was his mother and might try to defend him? I decided to try keeping more of a distance from Yoda next time I was on the ness, to try to indicate that it was OK for the other sheep to approach him.

When the family returned, I described Jewel’s behaviour, and Leona said it sounded like she might foal soon so she would keep an extra eye on her. Leona’s husband had spent the day lambing and showed me pictures of the babies. It had been such a wet year that the lambs needed jackets. He showed me another picture of a line of lambs in bright orange waterproof coats. Because scent was so important for yowes and lambs to recognise each other, they were being kept inside together the first night, before their jackets were placed on. I felt my eyes well up thinking of my wee orphan lamb, alone at night with a hot water bottle, rejected by his mother and others of his kind. Trying to keep my composure, I smiled when Leona asked about Yoda, amazed that she knew about him. She said that they didn’t have any caddies yet, but doubted they would get through a whole lambing season without at least one. Leona’s father said that if you were quick you could sometimes get an orphaned lamb adopted by another yowe, describing how one year a yowe with no lamb had adopted a caddy and had even produced milk for the lamb. He paused for a moment, before telling a story about the local minister many years ago, a clever man but with little sense. He’d had a goat that had stopped producing milk so he’d asked the local crofters’ advice. They’d told him he needed to get her covered. The next morning the community had found the minister had misunderstood the instruction, and instead of getting a billy goat to her, he had covered his goat in woolly jumpers. I laughed along with the family, not wanting to admit that until a few weeks ago I would also not have understood what was meant by ‘covered’.

That evening, as I waited for the nine o’clock ferry home, the light remained. The green of the land was highlighted in gold, the sea luminescent. Watching the boat slowly easing into dock, taking me home to my lamb after a day with Shetland ponies, I marvelled at how much my life had changed in just a few short months.

A Whalsay wedding

The next morning, Yoda appeared lacklustre. He drank his bottle, but then stood in the garden nibbling at some grass before lying down, eyes closed. This was such a contrast to how he normally behaved – galloping around at full speed – that I was instantly worried. I googled ‘lethargic lamb what do I do?’ and ‘how to treat a sick lamb’, quickly learning that everything can kill a pet lamb. He was making little grunts from the back of his throat and was grinding his teeth. Following advice from friends with sheep and what I read online, it seemed he might be suffering from bloat. While I waited for the vet to return my call, I cradled his head against my shoulder and placed my arm under his chest to keep him standing. His stomach did feel quite swollen, so I started to massage his tummy to try to get some of the gas out. His grunts intensified and, sure enough, out came a burp, closely followed by another. I continued, encouraged as gas regularly passed from both ends.

At the sound of Lowrie’s quad bike I went over and asked his advice. Gently, he picked up Yoda, felt along his stomach and his legs, checking in his mouth and his ears, all of the time speaking to the lamb in soft tones: ‘What ails de? What ails de?’ He said that sometimes lambs are abandoned by their mums because the yowe senses something is wrong. My heart sank as I remembered Yoda’s owner telling me how strange it was that the mum had abandoned the better lamb but had accepted the weaker-looking twin. Seeing the look on my face, he reassured me that there was still hope for Yoda. His eyes were bright and he still showed some curiosity – these were both good signs. Sometimes caddies just took a bit of a dip, and the vet would likely give him a vitamin injection, which would help him recover.

The vet called back and said they could see Yoda the next day, but until then I should reduce the amount of powder I was using in his bottles. Sometimes Shetland lambs respond badly to full-concentration yowe’s milk replacement, and watered-down bottles might help. Bottles should be half strength and given twice as often until his appointment.

Today was the day of our neighbour’s wedding and so far I had spent most of it in the shed with an ill lamb. I didn’t want to leave Yoda, but felt that turning down such a kind invitation to stay home with a lamb might be unforgivably rude. Feeling that people might not understand our situation, Steve and I agreed that we would take it in turns to subtly drive home, to check on and feed Yoda, who now needed bottles every two hours. Not wanting to leave him in the garage, we brought his blankets and hot water bottle into the kitchen and made him a little bed in a cardboard box. I caught sight of myself in the mirror and realised I had a lot of work to do before I could leave for the wedding party – my skin and clothes were covered in lamb poo and my eyes were puffy and swollen from crying. Despite my efforts not to get too attached, I was, of course, completely in love with my small woolly friend, who bounced, baa-ed and followed me everywhere. The thought of losing him broke my heart.

When we arrived at the wedding, the party was in full swing. We chatted to friends and neighbours, and at around 8pm, I got the invitation I had been hoping for: the bride’s father asked if I would like to visit the cookhouse. Across Shetland, different islands have their own distinct wedding traditions, and a central part of a Whalsay wedding is the mutton supper. Over the months I had lived on the island I had heard a little about this ritual. In the days before the nuptials, fourteen sheep are chosen, and on the wedding morning the cooking begins. The feast is always prepared in the same place, by the same group of men. Setting off to the cookhouse, I had little idea what to expect – many of the stories I had heard were vague on the detail, but apparently it was ‘a bit like Dante’s Inferno: all peat smoke and fiddle-playing’.

Stepping through the door, the heat and smell of cooking meat hit me like a physical force. Dominating the room was the largest fireplace I had ever seen, in which piles of peat burned, glowing bright in the dimly lit room. Sat atop the flames was a large silver beer keg, cut in half and with the number 2 painted on its wooden lid, and surrounding it, at various distances from the fire, were several more half-kegs, each with a painted number. On the wall behind the fireplace was a chalkboard with a list of numbers and times. Beside it there were photographs that looked like they went back several decades, all showing this room with groups of men cooking around the fire. I recognised some of the faces in the pictures as the same people who now sat in the chairs that circled this small room. There were about half a dozen men, some with tins of beer, others holding drams. An elderly man wearing a Fair Isle jumper stood up and walked over to the fire, lifting the lid of the pot to show us the contents. It was filled with large chunks of mutton, bubbling away with the heat of the fire. I asked what went into these pots and was told it was nothing but mutton, water, onion, salt and pepper. The flavour from these island-bred sheep is such that nothing else is needed.

We watched as two men removed the pot from the fire, placing it with the others by the hearth, and putting another one onto the fire, making a note on the board. The elderly man explained that there was a rotation system: pots boil above the fire, but the heat is such that they continue to cook when they are removed. The system for where to place them and the timings has been passed down through the generations. Once the meat reaches the hall, it joins cakes and bannocks, all baked by the community. ‘Most places have forgotten how to do this now,’ he said. ‘Once, everywhere in Shetland would have cooked like this for a wedding, but we are the only place left that does it now.’

Accepting a dram, we sat a while. People came and went, the atmosphere relaxed and friendly. We were introduced as ‘the new folk at Margaret and Willie’s hoose’, and everyone made us feel very welcome. Many of the guests came with a bottle of whisky and a glass. They would fill the glass and offer it to the person closest to them, who would take a sip and pass the glass back to its owner. The glass would then be topped up and passed to the next person, until everybody in the room had been offered a sip. In the weeks leading up to the wedding, Whalsay folk had told me many stories about visitors who had not understood the tradition and had drained the full glass each time it was offered, only to end up severely the worse for wear. Aware that later in the night I would be driving back and forth to Yoda, I only took tiny sips when offered a glass.

Conversation flowed, a blur of names and places with regular eruptions of laughter. Despite efforts to include us, and my longing to be a true part of such an event, I felt very much like we were on the outside looking in. A combination of accent, dialect and the island habit of referring to everybody by nicknames meant I understood little of what was being said, I didn’t have the shared knowledge required to fully participate. Peat smoke filled the room with a thick haze, the fire crackled and pots sizzled, previous generations smiled down from the walls. It felt like community in the truest sense. Mutton and peat from the hill, cooked as part of a celebration where friends, families and neighbours joyfully continued an island tradition. The flow of visits, the easy conversation, laughter, nicknames and jokes, practised and perfected through years of shared lives, a dance of relating to each other, and to the island.

Each time I visited Yoda during the evening he appeared weak, walking over to me on shaky legs and returning to his bed immediately after his feed. When I woke the next morning I approached the kitchen door with trepidation. I could hear no sound on the other side and I feared what I might find. As the door creaked open, Yoda’s head popped up over the top of his cardboard box. He bleated and made his way over to me on shaky legs. The extra bottles had made quite the impression on his bladder and bowels, and he slipped several times in the mess he had created.

After I had wiped him down and given him his bottle, it was time to get the ferry and take him to the vet. I had borrowed a dog cage for the occasion to keep him safe and secure, as he would be in the car for several hours. The vet’s first response was ‘First time I’ve seen a lamb in a dog cage,’ before asking a series of questions: Was he eating? Pooping? Able to stand? As I answered each question in the affirmative she looked increasingly puzzled, and so I awkwardly explained that he just didn’t seem his usual self and I was worried about him. She examined him closely, and said she couldn’t see anything very wrong with him, but gave him vitamin and penicillin injections and issued instructions to keep his bottles at their weaker concentration for a few days, before gradually increasing the quantity of milk powder again. Relieved, I started the drive home, wanting to catch the ferry in good time before the second night of the wedding.

Shetland weddings are a huge social occasion, and most weddings have a first and second night. The first night follows the ceremony and is usually a little more formal, with friends and family, while the second night is more of a big party for everyone in the surrounding area. The second-night party was taking place a ten-minute walk from our house, which would make going back and forth to Yoda a little easier, and as we’d be making the journey on foot, I would be able to have a dram.

It was a mild night with little wind and everybody sat outside chatting. Cans of beer were distributed at regular intervals, and most of the guests had brought their bottle of whisky and a glass to share. I had intended to go to Yoda without anybody noticing or knowing why I was gone, but when people asked about the lamb I found myself pouring out my woes and worries. To my surprise, everyone was genuinely very sympathetic, saying how attached you could get to caddies and sharing stories of their own experiences with lambs they had loved.

I was told about a lamb who had grown up to be much loved by the crofter who had bottle-fed her, but her continual noisy presence drove the rest of the family to distraction. Every attempt the family had made to sell her was thwarted. This reprieve seemed to have been extended to her descendants. The crofter’s daughter told us that any brown sheep in the area was probably that caddy’s great-great-great-granddaughter. An elderly woman told me about a caddy she’d been given to look after when she was seven years old. Her mum had made her give it back at the end of summer. She described how she could hear that lamb, recognising its bleat, distinct from the sounds of all the other sheep. She’d cried for weeks because she could hear him call but couldn’t go to be with him. Another woman told me about a friend who had painted her caddies with zebra stripes the day before they were due to be sold, hoping this would prevent her dad taking them to the auction.

My love for my caddy, which I had thought might separate me further from the community, turned out to be a shared experience, making me feel more connected, even if most people’s caddy experiences were from their childhoods. Caring for caddies is one of the ways the younger generations gain practical experience on the family croft, and learn about care, life and death. Long after the individual sheep are gone, the love for them remains, coming alive again in the telling and retelling of stories. Love, understanding and information flowed through these stories, and I came to understand these anecdotes as part of the landscape, of the social life between people and animals, across generations, part of the fabric of being in this place.

Knowing how Shetland stories carry instructions about island life, I paid attention to the animal stories people told me. I noticed that after I got Yoda, several people told me a story about ‘the wife, fae sooth, who ended up with a hundred goats’. Somebody had moved to the isle and had adopted a goat – before long she had more and more. She didn’t have the knowledge or experience to properly care for them, and her neighbours had to step in, eventually taking care of all the goats. This type of story is common: where somebody with little crofting experience naively takes on animals and then has to rely on the kindness of their neighbours to help them out when things inevitably go wrong. I was in no doubt that these kindly spoken stories carried a warning not to keep acquiring more animals, and I vowed to work even harder to teach Yoda to be a real sheep, determined not to leave behind a troublesome caddy when my fieldwork ended.

Over the following days, Yoda grew stronger. One day I walked with him along the ness, guiding him towards Lowrie’s flock who were grazing in the distance. He walked steadily, the bounce back in his step. As we approached, Four White Feet and V-Face moved forward a few steps and, remembering the mares’ responses to the foal at Robin’s Brae, I retreated. Yoda stood for a moment before bounding back to me. I tried again, encouraging him forward towards the other sheep, and then trying to edge back without him noticing. Four White Feet looked from me to Yoda and took a step forward. Yoda stayed still, watching her. She sniffed him, and he then bleated in panic, running back to me at full speed while she walked back to rejoin her flock. I hoped she wouldn’t lose interest in him, but for now it didn’t matter that he was not acting like a sheep. I was just delighted he was well again.

Whenever I walked into their field with Yoda, the sheep would lift their heads, sniffing the air in a way that reminded me of deer or antelopes. I had never seen sheep do this before – usually sheep would graze until they saw me, pee, then run away. But now this flock was used to my presence, associated me with food, and seemed quite relaxed when I was in their field. I became more aware of my own body in relation to them, consciously moving in ways I hoped would communicate that it was OK to approach us, that they had permission to speak to Yoda. Four White Feet was becoming the boldest, moving away from the flock to see us. As she and Yoda got closer, I continued my practice of backing slowly away, hoping Yoda would not sense my departure. As I stepped back, Four White Feet moved forward. At first, whenever she sniffed him he would run away, but over time he allowed her to touch him, and started to sniff her in return. As her confidence in the situation grew, she would approach Yoda even when he was by my side and would follow him if he backed away. I asked Lowrie about her, if she had maybe been a caddy because she was so tame and trusting. He replied that she had never been a caddy but had been tame ever since she was a lamb. He told me she had had lambs in previous years, and must enjoy them if she was spending so much time with Yoda. ‘I’ll put her tae da ram when it is time, then she can have her own lamb next year.’

I went back to visit June, eager to hear more about her life with horses. When I knocked on her door there was a volley of barks as two large black Labradors hurled themselves against the glass door. June appeared, opening the door and shooing away the excited dogs. ‘You shouldn’t have knocked, it just confuses them,’ she said, ushering me into the kitchen.

As soon as I had sat down, Vinnie, the younger of the two dogs, put his paws on my knees. In his mouth was a toy. He kept edging closer and closer towards me until his nose was nearly touching mine. June called him a daft bugger and said that he wanted to put the toy in my mouth and that I needed to tell him I didn’t want that. I did so. Seemingly unconvinced by my refusal, Vinnie moved a few feet away, but kept watching me, edging closer, before finally giving up and joining the older dog who was now snoozing by the window.

Over a cup of tea, June described how as a child she had loved watched the hill ponies, keeping a diary of their actions, trying to learn all about them. She said that even after decades of working with ponies she was still learning, because ponies had so much to teach us. Where we sat at the table offered a spectacular view over the voe, where a small marina provided shelter for a number of fishing boats. June told me that everybody in the community knew each other’s boats and this attention kept people safe at sea. She described how this sense of community is such an important part of Shetland life: people look out for one another and are always ready to help their neighbours.

We drove to visit her ponies, parking in front of a large area of hill park, and climbed over a gate and made our way up the hill. As we walked, June called out, letting the horses know she was there. After a moment, two horses appeared at the crest of the hill, then more and more ponies appeared as they made their way down the hill towards us. When they were about halfway down, the herd turned and cantered away. ‘Whar ir you goin?’ June called after them. She explained they were not used to two people coming into their field so we should sit a while and let them get used to my presence. Soon, the ponies appeared again, slowly making their way towards us, ears pricked, alert. June introduced the mare that reached us first as the matriarch of the herd, the one that the others listened to. June spoke softly, scratching the mare’s neck, before standing up and walking back towards the food troughs. The herd followed, their hoofs squelching in the muddy ground. As the troughs were filled the ponies gathered around, jostling a little before settling to eat.

June pointed to a young skewbald mare. ‘This is Hirta. She is about to move to Whalsay to find herself.’ She explained that she liked Hirta, she was a nice pony, looked good, was intelligent and had very good breeding. She’d had a foal the previous year but June felt she hadn’t enjoyed being a mum, and wasn’t very good at it, so she wasn’t going to make her a brood mare. ‘You have got to watch them,’ June emphasised. ‘See how they respond to different situations and learn what they like.’ She wanted her ponies to enjoy life and to have a purpose, so she was going to see if Hirta might enjoy being a riding pony, living on Whalsay with Roselyn, who had had a lifetime experience with ponies.

We walked across the road to another field where two fillies stood, a bay and a piebald. ‘I watch these two a lot an’ see what they get up to,’ June said. She was planning to sell the piebald, who was quickly becoming a disruptive influence, not allowing the bay to eat, just constantly annoying and distracting her, and chasing her about the field. June said this behaviour was causing the bay to become fidgety and flighty. She would keep the bay filly, who would join the herd of mares on the hill, where she could begin to calm down and learn from them.

Simmer dim

I got the last ferry home and it was nearing midnight as I walked out onto the ness, into the ‘simmer dim.’ Colours of sunset remained, the sky a patchwork of pale pinks, yellows, purples and striking duck-egg blue. Lightly rippling, the sea glowed like opal, gently splashing the rocky shore. It was not quite dark and the light had an unusual quality, seeming to radiate from land and sea to be reflected by the sky. Among the piping cries of oystercatchers and the haunting bubbling call of curlew, I noticed the new sound. For weeks, Robbie and Lowrie had been anticipating the return of the tirrick (the Shetland name for the Arctic tern), talking about the dates they’d arrived in previous years and making predictions for this season. Arctic terns spend the winter months in Northern Europe and Africa, returning to coastal areas of Britain in spring.

I walked down to the beach. The terns circled above, their shrill cries filling the still air. Despite me keeping my distance from their nesting area, the sound from the colony rose to a piercing shriek. Three birds separated from the others, flying towards me. Directly above my head they stopped, hovering on silver wings, suspended. They looked so delicate, beautiful, almost angelic, yet even in the fading light their beaks appeared treacherous and their cry sent shivers down my spine.

I turned towards the ness, the beauty of the midnight light with its feeling of magic bringing alive the landscape’s ephemeral, intangible qualities. It reminded me of the words of Neil M. Gunn:

Many are susceptible to the peculiar power of the twilight, particularly in lonely places. For me it can evoke figures I knew as a boy; tranced hunting moments at the back of woods, in a glade, eyes staring at cleft rock, ears hearkening for the inaudible. Two orders of being, the visible and the invisible, pause on the doorstep of this grey hour, and which is going to advance upon you you hardly know.

In this stillness, I felt worlds combine. It used to be common knowledge that Shetland is inhabited by trows. These little people stand just a couple of feet tall, and are described as hideously ugly. They live underground, usually below rounded hillocks called knowes. After dark, trows would cause all sorts of mischief about the croft. They might milk the cow, take food from the kitchen, or sneak into the house to warm themselves by the fire. Though they are most often invisible, known only through the results of their actions, some tales tell of face-to-face encounters. Where, lit by the moon, or the last rays of the sun, strange shapes emerge from the landscape, tempting humans to their underground homes. Trows are said to be enchanted by music, and it was often human musicians that were invited into these trowie knowes. Some of Shetland’s best-known fiddle tunes bear the names of the trows said to have composed them. I sat, enjoying the moment, wondering about all those unseen who may share our world.

Although my first thoughts were of the folk stories I’d heard, it was more than that that made the night’s walk magical. As I sat watching the light from the glowing land fade, listening to the curlew, Lowrie’s sheep made their way slowly down to the beach and started to eat the seaweed. Soon these sheep would be sheared, their wool taken, spun and made into Shetland ganseys. In autumn, yowes would go to the ram and older wethers would become mutton, feeding families who have lived here for generations. In spring, the cycle would begin anew, as lambs would join the flock, and people and animals would continue to live together, living as part of this beautiful landscape. I felt connected to the ebb and flow of life here, happy be part of this place.