The Lost Flock Quotes

“In her book Woven into the Earth, Else Østergård discusses how much wool was needed each year to provide a family with their clothing and blankets. Possibly 5 kilogrammes of wool per person, which would allow for the durability of wool garments. But then there are all the additional requirements for wool, including wool tents and wadmal cloth being used as currency in the Nordic region, Scotland and Ireland. This all adds up to a lot of sheep. It has been calculated that in order to produce the required annual crop of wool to supply all the needs of the population, the combined Viking flocks would have needed to total two million sheep.”
― Jane Cooper, The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman's Journey to Save Scotland's Original Sheep

“Named for an island in the remote St Kilda archipelago in the North Atlantic, around 50 miles west of the Western Isles of Scotland where a feral flock still survives, the Boreray are very different in appearance, characteristics and behaviour from modern sheep breeds. Surviving bones and a genotype study have demonstrated the close similarity between Neolithic sheep and the primitive sheep breeds that have survived around the edges of Britain, mostly on Scotland’s islands.”
― Jane Cooper, The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman's Journey to Save Scotland's Original Sheep

“It was when speaking to those in Scotland, especially a shepherd in the Western Isles, that I started hearing about what they called the Lost Flock. These were sheep, I was told, descended from a flock that had been so far north in Scotland when the breed was first recognised and registered by Rare Breeds Survival Trust, that the logistics and expense of having someone travel to visit the flock in person for the required checking of records and visual inspection meant it didn’t happen.”
― Jane Cooper, The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman's Journey to Save Scotland's Original Sheep

“For any knitters and spinners reading this, it is the Blacker and Beyond group.”
― Jane Cooper, The Lost Flock: Rare Wool, Wild Isles and One Woman's Journey to Save Scotland's Original Sheep