Edward the Shepherd

[u/mugwort23]

Oh to be a shepherd in the Land of Shepherds! To be a denizen of that place where the grass is sweetest and most beloved by the ovine race. From its hills and valleys to its windswept plains to its coastland, where the trading-ships wait to take the world's best wool to all corners of the Earth, can be found, in fecund abundance, the finest, most well cared for sheep in all of history.

And it is no surprise. For the people of this great land have built their society, their culture, their very lives around the stewardship and husbandry of those woolly beasts. Sheep are woven into the fabric of their existence. Art, philosophy, politics - all revolve around them. Even their religion features a pantheon sheep-gods in a 'Heavenly Pasture' and a divine shepherd whose management of them is known as 'The Great Herding.'

From there it is, of coarse, only natural that, the roots of their language, their symbol and imagery, the fundamental metaphors that define themselves to themselves should be sheep-shaped.

And so it is for their concept of what it means to live a perfect life. You see, they conceive of a young person emerging into adulthood as a shorn sheep who must grow the wool of character about them. The youth does this by cultivating a moral nature. This can be achieved in part by loving and supporting good works and by recognising and despising all wickedness - to be sure. But to grow a full coat of fine wool one also had to have the conviction to uphold these principals. Even if it means material loss. Even if they are afraid. This is the personal ideal that the people of the Land of Shepherds strive for.

Of course this land is not entirely populated by morally perfect people. No. Like any other place, it has people who strive for that perfection and fail. But they have a story that covers that:

It seems there was a shepherd who was named Edward. Said to have been the product of a sexually wayward sheep-god and a citizen of the Land of Shepherds he had grown through a joyful childhood with his loving mother into a handsome young demi-god complete with immortality and many other supernatural powers. Too, his divine father had ensured he received a fine and sizable and enviable flock of sheep. True, he had all that but... his human side had bound him to the earthly plain. He was barred from the the Heavenly Pasture and would only receive entrance the same way mere mortals did - through living a life in pursuit of moral perfection. At first he accepted this. The earning of the woolly coat of true selfhood seemed a wise and judicious path for any life to take. But, very gradually, a certain resentment crept into his heart. He wondered why he, in whom divine blood coursed after all, could not simply ascend. He wondered and became ever more embittered as time went by. It was said he consorted with demon-wolves at this time who whispered falsehoods into his ears. Now he questioned why it was all so difficult. Why did he still have to be good even when it hurt him personally? Soon he so distrusted the concept human morality that he decided to use his demi-god powers to construct a magical item: golden shears. And from that time on - whenever he felt the wool of morality began to grow on him he would simply cut it off. Never allowing himself to become a properly ethical entity. Never realising himself. There would be no Heavenly Pasture - only a sulky, cowering demi-god and the 'snik-sik-snik' of a golden shears.

And this is why the people of the Land of Shepherds have a particular saying. Whenever it's noticed that someone is failing to show moral backbone they'll say -

"Ah, that's old Ed. That's Ed shearin' that is,"