The Sheep Wars

What I Remember of The Sheep Wars

As Told by Ragnar of Ragnar's Rock

"Many, MANY years ago, it was at Camp Redlands. They had some papier-mâché, three D sheep made of wire mesh and flocked to make them look like real, life sized sheep, that they were fighting over. You had to carry them, put them under your arm, and carry them out while fighting on the lyst field.

(Narrator asks: "I assume that damage to the sheep was bad - no using sheep as a shield?")

"That was frowned upon.

"We had four or five of them. There were thousands of cutouts - sheep that were photocopied and then stuck to a stake. People, as they came in, got so many sheep, depending on whether they were regular people, or lord, or a Baron. The goal was to get the most sheep. The person with the most sheep at the end of the event won. If you can steal the sheep without getting caught? Well, that's fair game. But if you got caught, well, whatever happened to you, happened. There were repercussions. There were many people stealing sheep. They would glom into larger and larger herds, gathered up mostly by households or groups. They would guard their hoards of sheep. But the thing that I remember most, is that some young sprightly man had gathered many of the papier-mâché ones and was on top of a building with a hundred of them. There was a horde of people after him. They had torches. They were surrounding the building. It was a mob scene. I'm sure someone else can tell the story better, but it was pretty wild."