November is "tupping time" on our hill farms.

At what a friend calls the fag-end of the year, the seeds of another generation of sheep are implanted in the ewes. They will carry their lambs through a long, cold winter and deliver them next April.

On my early-morning walk, I see the tups flirting with the yows, as female sheep are known throughout the Dales. Each flock bears its distinctive marks. In one case, the off-white of the wool is given a patriotic appearance by daubs of red and blue dye.

Just now, as the year runs down in a flurry of tinted leaves, a hill farmer marks the start of a new year in stock management by smearing the undersides of a tup with a special dye. He notes, in successive days, how many yows have rumps of the same hue, an indication of how well the tup is performing.

Good tups are a vital necessity on our Dales farms, which explains the high level of interest in the autumnal sheep sales at Hawes and Kirkby Stephen. A farmer's wife smiled before she said: "My husband thinks more of his sheep than he does of me. He says they depend on him. If owt happened to me, I could look after missen!"

Everyone will have heard the story of the Sunday School teacher who told of the shepherd with 99 sheep in the fold. Nonetheless, he went looking for the one that was lost. This made sense to a Dales farmer's lad who said: "Please miss - 'appen it were t'tup!"

Each tup is provided with a harem but sometimes one of the males is footloose and arrives in the territory of another. A fight is inevitable. It can be a gruesome sight. The animals back from each other, then charge, meeting head-to-head with a "clonk" that might be heard in the next parish. If any animal knows the miseries of headache, it is surely a combatant tup.

Things seem to be arranged better in these days. It is a long time since I have seen warring tups or have noticed, in the run-up to the mating season, two restless tups being fastened together by a short length of chain extending from the horns of one to those of another. Thus connected, they are unable to fight.

Attempting to part two warring tups can be hazardous. An old friend lost a thumb. He was trying to separate two tups and, unhappily, the thumb was in the way when one animal decided to head-butt the other.

Years ago, I enjoyed hearing tales about Lakeland sheep from Herdwick Billy, of Bassenthwaite. This flockmaster, a member of the Wilson family, was so fond of his Herdwicks they were featured on a stained glass window in his porch.

During a chat about Lakeland's own breed of lile, thick-boned sheep, he mentioned when farmers imposed a form of birth control on the sheep. Herdwicks are slow to mature. A farmer did not want the ewes to be covered by a tup when they were too young so they attached a cloth to each rear-end.

It was known as a "twinter clout." At the end of the mating season, the cloths were removed, washed and put away to be used the following autumn.

Gone are the days when our Dales sheep faced the winter smelling of tar and rancid butter - the main ingredients of a salve which was applied to the skins of the sheep. Salving was a tedious job. It took an hour to apply the pound of salve to each sheep. To do this, the fleece was systematically "shedded" to bare the skin and the salve was applied by finger.

When salving, a farmer sat on a stock (a special bench) with a wooden dish for the salve stuck in a hole at one side. Salving took place in an outbuilding when the normal work of the farm was over. It was invariably performed by candlelight. The combined smell of sheep, salve and candle fat, in a confined space, was almost unbearable.

The boredom of "shedding" and salving was relieved by tale-telling. Old Mr Swinglehurst of Keasden used to say: "A lot of the tales weren't so nice. It was a matter of who could tell t'blackest tale. We had a break for food. It might be rough, but there was always plenty to eat."

Mixing the salve was a skilled job. "The grease was to protect the wool and make it grow. It also shed the water. The tar was to kill "t'lice - lile, flat things we called keds."

The farmer employed extra help at salving time. At a hill farm near Clapham one of t'salvers was William Atkinson, better known as Ditherum. "All he got for t'job was a pair of fustian breeches and a new shirt."

I have heard the workers referred to as the Black Hand Gang. Weeks went by before the remnants of the salve cleared from their skin. A Littondale farmer said: "My brother was married at salving time."

The farmer laughed and added: "I'll nivver forget seeing him holding his bride's hand at the altar, cos that hand was as black as t'ace o'spades."

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