The wind lashes against your face. Snow is hurdling down to the ground whipping against your wooly sweater like pellets. You call out for your sheep, you hear nothing, and can not make out anything solid in the distance. You shout louder but the wind roars in your ears and forces your eyes shut. Where is the leader sheep? Where has he led the flock?

Whoever said sheep herding was easy obviously never dealt with Icelandic sheep.

Almost 20 sheep got buried under snow in the region of Kelduhverfi in northeast Iceland last weekend after they were caught in a severe blizzard. But don’t worry, they were later rescued by farmers in the area. This is not the first example of bad “leader-sheeping,” oh no, far from it. Last month 100 sheep met their untimely ends while crossing a river after the leader sheep jumped into the river at the wrong spot.

You see, thanks to evolution the sheep of Iceland have had to adapt to the rough nature and developed the ability to manage the flock sans shepherd by way of the leader sheep or as they say in Icelandic forystufé.

I’m not sure how the forystufé came about exactly, though breeding is believed to be the best bet, but despite the changes in farming practices, which hampered the need for them severely, they still make up about 1,000-1,200 out of 500,000 fluffy white, black and brown sheep that plod about the Icelandic countryside.

Iceland has but one breed of sheep. Don’t get us wrong, we aren’t being “sheepist,” its just that the North European Short-Tailed sheep brought here by the Viking settlers some 1,100 years ago is all we have ever known and thanks to restrictions forbidding livestock importation, it’s all we’ll ever know.

Apparently leader sheep aren’t that hard to identify. They have several physical characteristics that distinguish them from the herd, such as an obviously more slender build, long boned and light weight (as they were bred for brains not the butcher). They are usually multicolored with horns, a couple sometimes, heck even four in a few cases.

Another seemingly common trait amongst the leader sheep is a paranoid-esque alertness that forces them to jump out of the sheep-house ahead of all the others and, like a child at a street crossing, glare down all surrounding directions on the lookout for danger before moving.

Although the visual imagery of a paranoid sheep leaping out of a house and flipping his head in a million directions looking for predators may seem funny to you, the leader sheep are absolutely adored by Icelandic farmers. So much so that sheep scientists, Icelandic shepherds and your garden-variety sheep enthusiasts formed The Leader Sheep Society of Iceland on April 18, 2000.

The Leader Sheep Society was founded with the aim of supporting the maintenance of and conservation of leader sheep. To improve individual recording, research and gather past and present information about such sheep and distribute educational material about them.

Now although the Leader Sheep Society is a good idea I have doubts as I fear the Leader Sheep are losing their powers a bit. I mean, first one of them leads a 100 of his flock to a watery grave and now into a snowy burial. This time luck and some hard working shepherds were the only things that saved the leader sheep’s butt, Next time he might not be so lucky. I think they should give him the axe. And by that I mean he should be fired. Not actually axed.

NÁ – nannaa@hotmail.co.uk