A Wayward Ewe
The ewe peered at me from the top of the bank. I thought she meant to come down into the road, and waved my arms to drive her back, but she did no more than bang her forefeet on the ground. Thinking she was held by a thorn, I climbed up to set her free, and found she was wearing a triangle on her neck. This method of restrict- ing the wanderings of a particularly wayward sheep is often used here. Three hazel rods, as thick as a finger and about eighteen inches long, are tied behind the sheep's head to form a triangle. The aperture will not allow the sheep to extract its head. When the wanderer goes to a gap in the hedge it cannot push through as it has been in the habit of doing, for the protruding ends of the sticks catch on the adjoining bushes. In the case of the ewe I encountered, the device. was having a different effect. It held the unfortunate sheep prisoner. Two ends of the triangle were wedged in the shoots of a holly bush, and it was only after a deal of struggling that I was able to release her. Off she went over the field, looking for some new way of escape.
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