OPEN POST: The Sunday Roast, featuring the Knitting, Stilted Shepherds of Landes, France

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Vincent Price threatens a roast with knife and sword

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Happy Sundog, y'all! Today we're doing a road trip, as is traditional on Sunday, only instead of ending up at Grandma's house for hours of boredom with your cousins and food in every shade of beige, we're going to Landes, France, a century ago. And we're gonna get some nice sweaters while we're there. 

Now a surfing capital and tourism destination, a hundred years ago it was mostly marsh and forest. The hard-working sheep herders of the local marshland got tired of wet feet, as one does. The land was great for grazing sheep, but not so good for the humans who looked after them.So they decided to watch their sheep on stilts (the shepherds, not the sheep. Sheep are terribly clumsy on stilts) and as they strode, stilted and majestic across the marsh, they knitted and spun the wool from their own flocks. I tell ya, the shepherds of Landes musta been hella coordinated!

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As you can see, the stilts were of the hands-free variety, and shepherds are very practical people, so they didn't want to waste any time. I suppose they wore the sheepskin coats for intimidation purposes. "Alors, Fou-Fou, if you step another sabot out of line, I swear..."

If you're a knitter, here's a contemporary pattern designed in Landes and named Landes, and it doesn't get more authentic than that. 


 

Apic/Getty Images 

As one Redditor put it, "You joke about Napoleon being short one time and look what we do."

CBC

 

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