A Hefted Life

A rooted life in a rootless age - wisdom from the fells

Heft: verb. To become accustomed and attached to an area of upland pasture.¹

Up on the windswept mountainsides the sheep roam free. Up here, there are no fences to limit the potential to roam wild and only a few long drystone walls (with plenty of gaps) transect the landscape — no match for a determined sheep. To the naked, untrained eye, one may assume these sheep are completely wild, owned by no one, even lost perhaps. But the sheep on this particular fellside will be here tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that. This is their fellside, their allotted place. They know this fell intimately and will not stray from it. They have been hefted.

‘Heft’ appears on first glance to be one of those rural phrases whose meaning has become redundant in modern society, the stuff of history books read by those with eccentric and archaic interests. But this is far from the truth. As is the case with most traditional rural words, heft is rich with meaning and an essential part of the vernacular of upland folk to this day. It describes a concept that without which, upland rural shepherding life would be nigh on impossible.

The land in these parts is common land, available for all to graze, use, and explore. It is the reason why we can enjoy roaming free over the Lakeland fells, the rights of which are grounded in ancient (and modern) law. These rights also permit the common grazing of these fells by the rural communities that border them. The abundant, though rough grass is free to be used by all who make their living from the nutrients these hardy plants contain via the sheep who graze them.

Thus, the sheep populating the rugged fells all over the Lake District are owned by many and are allowed to roam free. But therein lies a problem. If sheep are known for anything, it is for their habit of wandering. These common lands are vast, covering many fells and valleys and are unfenced. A nightmarish situation one might think. But that is where hefting comes in.

To prevent the sheep from wandering off onto neighbouring fellsides, and thus mixing with other communities’ sheep, or to prevent them from getting lost on the scree slopes and rocky crevices, the sheep need to be hefted to their place. That is done by acquainting the sheep with the area they are allotted to so well and so intimately that they will instinctively refrain from straying from it. An invisible barrier seems to hem them in. Originally this would have been done through intensive shepherding, but now thanks to centuries of practice, hefting is now instinctive behaviour taught by mothers to their lambs.² A form of generational rootedness that without which, farming in the Lake District would unravel at the seams.

When the time for ‘gathering’ comes (the time in the rural calendar when the sheep on the uplands are taken down to the barns for shearing), the sheep who are found to have perished on the hills, or those which cause the shepherd and his dogs the most grief in the gathering, are the ones who have transgressed the boundaries of the heft and have wandered off into danger. To be hefted, therefore, is necessary. It is not restrictive; rather it is for the flourishing and safety of the sheep. Within these ancient limits the sheep can feed, grow, and breed. To transgress them is to risk harm or death.

Wisdom for a modern rootless age

We live in a rootless age. Most of us move from place to place, seeking the greener pastures that always happen to be elsewhere. We are told by businessmen in suits and politicians from their ivory towers that significance, meaning, and purpose can be found in the hustle and bustle of the cities and most certainly not in backward rural places. So we move, breaking the ties to the land and communities we leave behind, uprooting ourselves from the places that have nurtured us, and in turn, benefited from our presence. Grace Olmstead documents this very same process in her book Uprooted. She states she “used to be surrounded by folks who committed themselves to place[s] for the long haul. They served and loved them, year after year.” But these folk are now a rare and dying breed. Instead, we now have “a boom-and-bust cycle and the exodus of the young from our rural places, which has worn down the threads of community and belonging.”³