Notes

As expected, this entire cycle is about the chain of food. About all the different ways in which life is able to consume their food, but also about who is at the top or the bottom of the chain. When I invented the ten original story ideas … I’d forgotten all about shepherds at first.

That’s why the Dutch title is “The Forgotten Shepherd”. I changed it to “The Shepherd Solong” in English because it sounded better and tied into some later stories I wrote about the same characters.

Shepherds have been the dominant lifestyle in many places, for long periods of our history. But because they don’t leave behind anything, such as stone buildings or monuments, they are easily forgotten and hard to trace through history. And so we get “The Forgotten Shepherd”, and so we get this story.

What does a shepherd do?

A shepherd is basically a traveling farmer. They keep a herd of “tame” animals who will listen to human commands. The herd provides food (through their milk or meat) and other resources such as clothes (through their wool or leather from their skin). The shepherd can live fine without needing anything or anyone else, as long as he has healthy animals and enough nature around them.

But that is not the complete definition. Many people hear “tame” and merely think about animals who are “nice” or “won’t attack you”, but in reality it is about domestication.

Humans have the inherent wish to always look for progress and improvement. It’s the reason for many terrible events in our history, but also the reason why we live such comfortable lives now.

So what does humankind do? A sheep with “bad wool” (little produce, rough, bad quality, inconsistent) is put aside. Or maybe they’re allowed to stay, but not allowed to bear children. Because those children would also have bad wool, and before you know it half your herd can’t produce any clothes anymore.

If you only let sheep with the best properties bear children, your herd will only grow stronger (or more “suited to humankind’s needs”) over time. Each sheep produces a thick layer of wool. Each cow produces lots of milk. They’re all big and strong, and can walk with you for long distances.

Before this process, sheep existed of course, but they were much smaller and their fool was more rough and thin. Domestication is what turned sheep into the large woolly creatures we know and love today.

But the most important requirement for success? A species that will listen to you and allow you to decide with whom it mates. A “tame” species. Humans have tried to domesticate other species many times, but if it’s not possible, it’s simply not possible.

(Though, interestingly, this can change. We see species now that have learned to make themselves more likeable to humans precisely because this raises their change of survival. Foxes, for example, have naturally become slightly more tame over the past hundred or so years. It’s very much not recommended to get one as a pet, but maybe in a hundred years that has all changed. Foxes will be fluffy and less aggressive and as common a pet as the dog or cat.)

About this story

As usual, it was hard to turn this bit of information into an entertaining story. Little is known about the creation of, for example, carnivores (as I mentioned in the notes about the first stories). Even less is known about who “invented being a shepherd”. Who was the “first shepherd” and why?

So I decided to ignore those questions this time. The story starts in a period where shepherds have existed for a while. Then I took the part that makes them special: always traveling, living off of the herd. It had to become a traveling story, right?

I also wanted to experiment with a different plot structure:

The first 5 chapters follow story thread 1 (Himnib)
Then you rewind and follow story thread 2 (which happened simultaneously with the other one)

I don’t know if this turned out as best as it could be. But it’s something new and that’s always nice.

The existence of a shepherd is simple to explain, but not simple to execute. That’s why the story doesn’t really spend many words explaining anything, because it’s not needed. I mostly tried to show what can go wrong, how tough the work can be, but also how beautiful.

The story mostly spends more words explaining the Companions and the consequences of the First Conflict. I found it more important to expand on those major elements of the world, this early in the Saga of Life.

This story also received the largest revision of all stories so far. (Update from Tiamo in the future: several stories in cycle 3 received bigger revisions. I guess, as I grow as a writer, I become more comfortable with cutting up stories and completely rewriting parts.) The original was fine, but the entire idea of “domestication” barely explained, instead having several chapters of somewhat repetitive action.

Time and time the protagonists bumped into the leopards and had a short fight. That wasn’t interesting, I found. And so those small pieces of action disappeared or shrunk, leaving more words to actually dive into being a shepherd.

Finally, this story explains the introduction of the Sheepdog (in the Saga of Life’s universe), but that was simply a creative idea I had while writing. I simply picked the Raccoon Dog because they’re a fun animal and their black-white fur makes them look like a cartoon bandit.

Characters

Some notes about general naming:

Sheep names start with “Beh” for males and “Ba” for females.
Leopards start with “laz”.
(Horses will generally end on “pard”, which is a play on the Dutch word for horse.)
Bears start with “B” or end on “ib”. (Unless you’re special, such as Solong.)

Some notes about characters (which I usually use as a very rough guide while writing)

Himnib (Bear Shepherd; old black bear): takes his job as shepherd and Companion very seriously, has a magical walking cane (and is working on magical boots). Talks little and is usually serious when he does. (Few jokes or wasted words.)
Behdo (Sheep): small and weak, certain he will be pushed out of the herd so leaves on his own.
Behdiël (Sheep): largest en healthiest sheep, so he is constantly used for everything (bear children, fur, protect others).
Barina (Sheep): old, talks with a scruffy/croaky voice, bit of a gossip, is injured and dies.
Solong (Bear Shepherd): doesn’t really want to be Companion, just wants to travel around and forget all those laws, but does eventually arrive to save the vote. A shimmering bear with golden fur, like a mix between a black bear and a red panda.
Lazpard (Snow Leopard; Companion): his Law Parchment and forgotten Companion Necklace make this story possible. Has a strong sense of “honor” or “duty”, as seen when he refuses the attack Himnib and the Bandits more than necessary. But he’s angry about the world being filled with houses and borders, and laws being applied to some and not to others, and tries to sneakily change that.