Next time you visit the Cartford Inn cast your eye across the river. You may see a few sheep grazing there. Most are gentle, thoughtful creatures who ask no more than to nibble the frosty grass and ponder. But not all … A Wyreside farmer was checking his flock a fortnight ago when he saw a group of 20 unfamiliar sheep at the far end of the field. They were Swaledales, or Sweddles as they're called in their native Yorkshire. He contacted a neighbouring farmer on his mobile and the two men set out to check the alien flock for identification marks. They were still 100 yards away when the sheep took flight – almost literally - soaring over a four-foot barbed wire fence with ease and racing away toward the horizon. Next day a farmer two miles up-river reported a similar encounter. He called on his sheepdog to round the visitors up but the dog was left standing as the sheep sailed effortlessly over a fence and a deep dike, a sort of Over Wyre Becher's Brook. Since then they've been spotted in Hambleton, Winmarleigh and St Michaels.
Where are they now? Who knows! Who owns them? Nobody apparently. They're the ovine outlaws, mean, lean and rebellious; the lambs that will not be Henried. So far no humans have been savaged, though last night a Scronkey sheepdog was found all-but sucked to death.
Beware the full moon!
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