The European nation ruled by sheep

Standing in the Faroe Islands National Archives in the capital, Tórshavn, I opened a small cardboard box and stared at an ancient book bound in leather and burnished by hundreds of years of handling.

Known as Seyðabrævið (the Sheep Letter), it's a collection of laws enacted by the Faroes' then-Norwegian ruler Earl Hákon Magnússon in 1298 and is the nation's oldest surviving document. Among other things, it details the level of compensation to be paid if a man lets his dog chase another man's sheep; takes grazing land away from a neighbour's flock; or drives a wild sheep into another shepherd's herd, thus disturbing the "calmer" animals.  

I spent a year living in these sparsely populated islands, and I never felt lonely when wandering by myself through the dark green mountains, since there were almost always sheep within view. For more than a millennium, these hardy, tangle-haired creatures have grazed the slopes clear of most vegetation apart from grass, physically sculpting the dramatic landscape of this remote, windswept nation and shaping the country's identity.

Marooned in the North Atlantic between Scotland and Iceland, the Faroes' 18 volcanic islands are effectively a far-flung, supercharged slice of Scandinavia. They're home to traditional wood-built houses topped with turf and the kind of lightning-fast, near-universal wi-fi you might expect from other Nordic nations, but also thundering waterfalls, sharp cliffs and jaw-dropping fjords that are leading a record-breaking number of travellers to visit in 2024.

First inhabited by Irish monks in the 6th Century CE and permanently settled by Vikings in the 9th Century, today the Faroe Islands are an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. The 54,000 islanders speak their own language, Faroese, which is very closely related to Old Norse. And in case there's any doubt about how crucial the islands' sure-footed sheep are to its national identity, one only has to look at its name in Faroese: Føroyar (the Sheep Islands).

Recent studies suggest that sheep have inhabited the Faroe Islands ever since the first Irish settlers landed here. When the Vikings showed up centuries later, they named the islands after these northern European short-tailed sheep they found living here. Ever since in this rugged, remote land, the rearing of semi-wild sheep for meat and wool (alongside fishing, whaling and hunting sea birds) has been key to survival for more than a millennium.

Flocks were traditionally sailed to specific parts of the islands and, then as now, they are usually communally owned. Most Faroese families still have a share in a flock somewhere, and many people – whether they be doctors, lawyers, tradesmen or teachers – will turn out during the autumn roundup to help with the slaughter and divide the meat fairly. And today, nearly every Faroese family still keeps a leg of fermented lamb in the larder all year long.

Visitors to the Faroes will see these doe-eyed creatures everywhere – sometimes even in the car park of the islands' only airport – happily grazing on roundabouts or munching on the grass roofs of old Faroese buildings. In fact, the islands' 70,000 Faroese sheep easily outnumber the Faroese human population.

The Faroes are buffeted by some of the strongest winds in Europe and rain is likely up to 300 days per year. Not much can be grown in this thin soil: a few potatoes, turnips, some carrots and rhubarb are the main crops here. As a result, fermented lamb and mutton are dietary staples. This pungent food (known as skerpikjøt) is shaped by the Faroes' unique windy-but-never-too-cold-nor-too-warm climate.

After the autumn slaughter, the meat is hung in sheds called hjallur where it slowly dries and is colonised by a layer of bacteria. The meat acquires a strong cheesy flavour, passing through several stages – moist (ræst), dry (turt) and finally fermented (skerpi). According to Jógvan Páll Fjallsbak, a microbiologist at the Faroes' Food Science and Veterinary Agency, it is the rapid growth of bacteria on the meat's surface that produces its distinctive blackened appearance.

"We know there are more than 600 species of bacteria identified on the surface of the meat," he explained. "But we still don't fully understand the chemical processes that affect the final taste of the meat. It varies according to humidity and air temperature. Some people say they can tell which island the meat has come from by the taste."

It's not only the meat that matters. There's an old saying in Faroese; "Ull er Føroya gull", meaning "Wool is Faroes' gold". Traditional Faroese knitwear still makes good use of the thick hairy yarn, and knitting clubs are found in every village. Most locals wear the distinctive Faroese hand-knitted jumpers all year round.

In a country named after them, it's perhaps natural that sheep have become something of a national symbol. The logo of the national tourism board is a ram's head. One of the country's most popular beer brands is Black Sheep. In the centre of Tórshavn – home to 40% of the island's population and eight of the nation's nine traffic lights – you will see a bronze statue of a ram. The horns shine where the metal has been rubbed smooth by children who love to come and sit on his back. Created by Faroese sculptor Rógvi Hansen, it is just one of several sheep monuments in the capital, including a group of stylised steel sheep munching the grass outside the Nordic House Cultural Centre.

Aside from feeding the Faroese, clothing them and mowing their roofs, sheep have also provided other civic services over the years. To help raise its tourist profile and, as the Nordic Council of Ministers put it, "introduce the Faroe Islands to the world", the Faroese government created a series of films in 2016 made by camera-carrying sheep. They called their Google Street View parody Sheep View, and officials say it resulted in a massive upswing in tourism awareness for the islands.

"We hoped people would see the funny side of Sheep View, and with a relatively small budget, we thought it might be the kind of unusual idea that would capture peoples' imaginations," said Guðrið Højgaard, CEO of Visit Faroe Islands. "We do value our sheep and they are such an important part of our national identity that it seemed very fitting to make them famous around the world. I happen to think our sheep are rather pretty too."

Meanwhile, Høgni Reistrup, who runs the local tour agency Guide to the Faroe Islands reports that they often receive requests from around the world for "sheep-related itineraries".

"I have had clients from other countries where sheep culture is important, like New Zealand and Australia, asking if we can supply a guide who can take them to a farm to meet a Faroese shepherd, and even to join in with the autumn roundup. It's a very photogenic time of year," Reistrup said.

Tourists can also sample dishes made with the islands' famous fermented lamb at restaurants in Tórshavn – notably at Ræst, located close to the harbour. Some farmers also offer traditional food experiences under the home-dining scheme known as heimablidni (home hospitality), while sheep farmer Jákup Petersen offers guided hikes on his land near the village of Kaldbak, where visitors trek to a mountain hut to sample wind-dried skerpikjøt mutton made from his own sheep.

Eva ur Dímun is the eighth generation of her family to farm sheep on the small Faroese island of Stóra Dímun, where she lives all alone with her husband JógvanJón and their roughly 500 sheep.

"I admire these animals, they are so tough, and not boring creatures as many people may think," ur Dímun told me, after an exhausting day rounding up the flock on the island's steep slopes. "We use a lot of energy running after the sheep, and cannot survive here without food and shelter. I feel a bit inferior when I think about how well-adapted they are to surviving in this place, They produce lambs and survive all winter on just a diet of grass, and they can withstand wind and rain and snow."

To understand just how these hardy creatures learned to adapt to the Faroes' unique climate, visitors can head to Tórshavn National Museum, where a glass display case contains a little family of three brown taxidermied sheep. They are much smaller and less woolly than today's Faroese sheep, and they were captured in the late 19th Century on the uninhabited island of Lítla Dímun, just a few miles across the sea from where ur Dímun farms. They are the last-known examples of the original Faroese breed the Vikings discovered on the islands when they arrived in roughly 800 CE. Larger and heavier varieties from Scotland, Iceland and Norway replaced the native breed in the 19th Century to provide more meat and better-quality wool.  

From Viking settlers to Danish landlords to modern travellers, wave after wave of settlers have blown into the Faroes with the winds over the years. But through it all, the hardy sheep has remained, sculpting the land, shaping a nation and humbly forging the Faroes' unique identity.

-BBC