At the beginning of July, 2,000 sheep, three shepherds and six dogs set off on a fifteen day journey, on foot, from the Mediterranean shores near St Tropez, to the cool, rich pastures of the reservation of Moncontour. To be more specific, to a mountain of some two thousand metres high. There to enjoy grass until early November and such as is no longer available at the lower pastures. But, since about 1970, nearly all off this transhumance, to give it the proper name, has been in lorries. (We call it boleying.)
But young Gilles Mistral*, with seven generations of sheep farming behind him, decided, after various jobs, to return to the old ways. His father, Aime had long since been converted from the tradition of the tiresome footslog. But Gilles was stubborn. "It was a challenge," he said, "but beyond that bit of bravado, I wanted to re open the book of the family and to write in it. My father always used to say that these journeys were the most abominable experiences of his life, but he never stopped telling us of the epics with the enthusiasm of a soldier just back from his campaigns."
And these expeditions take place along busy and not so busy roads, through defiles and passes and along tracks and paths of every kind. Because of traffic, the shepherds try to move mostly at night. They, and all the villages and hamlets they go through are aware that a flock of sheep, not strictly controlled could clear a vegetable garden like a swarm of locusts, or leave a hedge leafless. So the shepherds are prepared for lines of householders armed with brooms and sticks to ward off the animals from their roses and other precious front garden prizes.
Fifteen days of ever upward, and that's why the two hundred kilometre long trek takes over two weeks. at the last stage, when the really steep slopes loom up, the old man, Gilles's father suddenly appears - Aime, still cursing, but not to be left out. A sheepfarmer doesn't stand for much any more" regrets Gilles. "What matter? At every stage of the journey, I remember that my grandparents and their grandparents also stopped off in these fields. And that always does something to me.
As to this country, Estyn Evans says that Achill was the last Irish home of booleying. But it happened even around, and in Dublin. There is a house off Bushy Park Road in south Dublin with a modern, respectable name but according to the deeds it was originally and not so long ago, called The Booleys. The sheep probably came form Camden Street or somewhere along the South Circular Road.
. Olivier Pighetti wrote of his journey with Gilles in Le Figaro Magazine, July 13th.