A Place for the Heathlands

This contribution should be read as a collage. It is an attempt to describe parts of a niche, patchy reintroduction of herding on a few Danish heathlands in western central parts of Jutland. Until the twentieth century, herding was a way of life on Jutland's heathlands. Today, its revival reflects both a cultural renaissance and an ecological management strategy.^{1 ( 1 )}
See for example Løvschal and Fjalland 2023.

The collage includes ethnographic material from several field visits, interviews, site observations, workshops, collective walks and a menu conducted in 2021-2023.^{2 ( 2 )}
Visits undertaken by using methods from participatory design, visual anthropology, and ethnographic observation. The collage is like a bag,^{3 ( 3 )}
This is a reference to the "The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction," written by the American sci-fi writer and essayist Ursula K. Le Guin in 1986. In that essay, the "bag" is framed as humanity's first tool, a container for gathering and carrying sustenance, stories, and experiences. Le Guin contrasts this with tools of domination – such as weapons – presenting the bag as a metaphor for collaboration, inclusion, and the gathering of multiple, often overlooked narratives. This perspective challenges traditional heroic, linear storytelling by celebrating the mundane, collective, and nurturing aspects of human experience. a metaphor for collaging as an ongoing practice. A good bag is a most appreciated companion: lightweight enough not to burden, but spacious enough for collecting. Crucially, it allows you to move freely, and to be moved by its content.

This collage is a bag of fragments – a story about landscaping,^{4 ( 4 )}
I work with an understanding of landscapes as complex constellations that are unfolding in particular ways between place, people, and environment, and link past(s), present(s), and future(s). For more on this, see the work of Doreen Massey, Sarah Whatmore, and Anne Spirn, among others. about movements, about patchworking and creating pathways through the past, present and future of Danish heathlands. It gathers drawings, maps, stories, notes, quotes, photographs and letters. Most importantly, it is a collection that seeks to weave an unfinished landscape story. For this reason, I chose a collage as way to tell it – a "thing" that exists between narrative and explanation, connection and speculation.

I visited some of the remaining heathlands and shepherds in western central Jutland for the first time in March 2021. I went to study herding – specifically, shepherding – as a form of landscaping. At the time, I knew little about the deeper and longer histories of this specific landscape. I had read it described as a desert – unwelcoming, barren, even "beasty" – terms that contrasted sharply with the fertile, the lush, the golden and green. The landscape was portrayed as miserly and poor, and its inhabitants too, making it a worthless, lifeless landscape. It was described as monotonous and melancholic. Stories of the landscape's "stubbornness" piled up like potatoes and timber.^{5 ( 5 )}
This notion of the heathlands is often tied to narratives from the late nineteenth century: See for example Geografiske billeder fra heden by E. Dalgas (1870), Heden – Saaledes som den var ca. 1880 by E. T. Christensen (1930), or "Lyngens børn" by J. Aakjær in De danske heder vol. 1 (1943).

The descriptions seemed to echo what the writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie refers to as the "danger of a single story."^{6 ( 6 )}
TED talk from 2009, "The danger of a single story." In this, Adichie warns against reducing individuals, places, or cultures to a singular, simplistic narrative, which risks perpetuating stereotypes, stripping away complexity, and diminishing the rich diversity of experiences and perspectives. For more on the relations between story and place, see the work of Margaret Somerville, Anne Spirn, and Leonie Sandercock. They confused me. Yes, the heaths might have appeared ungenerous and stubborn to those approaching the land with an agrarian perspective. But archaeologist Mette Løvschal had introduced me to much older stories of the heathland, and clearly, the heaths had not always been seen as "ungenerous." On the contrary, the heaths seemed to be full of untold stories about rich, complex and resilient relations between humans and the land.^{7 ( 7 )}
See for example Løvschal, "Mutual Entrapment" (2022) or Løvschal, "Anthropogenic Heathlands" (2021). As Adichi would say, what we need is "many stories," and this is how I have met the contemporary shepherds, their work, and the heathlands they tend. In my search for many stories – not only in the past and present, but also the ones we have yet to uncover – I engage in this (re)search. This collage represents a small part of that journey.

In Denmark’s western central Jutland, a small group of shepherds is performing mobile grazing systems and fire management. They told me they herd sheep, goats, and horses to preserve the heathlands they have access to. They do not own land, but get access through grazing contracts with private and municipal landowners, as well as grazing subsidies. The agreements last between two and five years; after that, they can be extended, or assigned to someone else. The shepherds say it is a vulnerable situation for them, because taking care of the heathlands requires more than two to five years. They describe how they connect with the land through herding, burning, walking, observing the vegetation, and gathering berries, and how difficult it is when they lose access to the land. The heaths require burning every tenth year, followed by rest and careful grazing. In theory, anyone could continue the “disturbance practice,”^{8 ( 8 )}
See for instance chapters 11, 12 and 13 in The Mushroom at the End of the World by Anna L. Tsing (2015). Tsing uses the concept of “disturbance practice” to describe activities that intentionally disrupt ecosystems, such as fire or grazing, to foster diversity and resilience. These practices create space for new forms of life by breaking the established order, and they often rely on human interaction with the land to maintain ecological balance. Tsing highlights how such practices are crucial for sustaining environments but are often under threat due to changing societal and economic conditions. but the shepherds tell me that the knowledge is rarely shared, burning is seldom done, and extensive mobile grazing is practised only by them.

The shepherds work on Øster Lem Heath (c. 80 acres), owned by the Danish Nature Agency; Præstbjerg Heath (c. 130 acres), partly owned by the municipality, partly by private landowners; Tihøje Heath (c. 40 acres) and Trehøje (c. 52 acres), both partly owned between the Danish Nature Agency and private landowners; and Gjellerode (c. 80 acres). They use border collies as sheepdogs. The number of sheep herded varies according to site, weather, and season, ranging from fifty to three hundred. The sheep are of the Lüneburger, Spellsau and Gute breeds, which are accustomed to being outdoors year-round and have longer, softer wool fibres than the heritage sheep known in this area. Goats, specifically Valais Blacknecks, are also part of the flock, as they are effective at working with the trees, according to the shepherds. One shepherd lives on an old heath farm close to a river, surrounded by meadows, plantations, and fragments of heathland. Though they cannot herd or manage these areas with fire, the shepherds use them for walks, recreation, and workshops.

“In the shepherd’s colloquial language, a number of peculiar expressions appeared, unknown in the Official Language. […] O søg*g en Kow” meant dragging the animal slowly along the edge of the ditch to allow it to eat the grasses,” as noted in “Hyrdeliv på heden” by H. P. Hansen (1941), in my translation.^{9 ( 9 )}
H. P. Hansen, Hyrdeliv på heden (1941). I find this fragment interesting as it links landscaping with language, and represents an embodied, local knowledge – almost a chorographical performance of herding. This requires relational sensitivity to the animal and intimate understanding of the land. It mirrors my observations of contemporary shepherds moving and dragging the sheep and goats along specific lines and areas of land. They move slowly when there’s abundant grass to eat (especially Molinia caerulea), and quickly when the animal’s claws make small cracks in the surface, which the shepherds believe is beneficial after burning. They also know where there are certain plants that should be left to rest and regenerate, leading the sheep away from these sites. Let’s call it a local botanical sensitivity of the landscape. The shepherds guide the sheep to rest and digest at the edges and to night-folds on grass fields.

This is a list of flowers and plants favoured by a shepherd, who looked for and cared for them on the heaths where she herded and helped burn, before she passed away in November 2022. In addition to Calluna vulgaris and Erica tetralix ( “klokkelyng” in Danish), her favourites included Andromeda polifolia (“rosmarinlyng”), Lycopodium annotinum (“femradet ulvefod”), Lycopodium clavatum (“almindelig ulvefod”), Pedicularis sylvatica (“mose-troldurt”), Arnica montana (“guldblomme,” which grows abundantly where the heaths have been burned), Antennaria dioica (“kattefod”), Drosera rotundifolia (“rundbladets soldug”), Narthecium ossifragum (“benbræk”), Botrychium lunaria (“almindelig månerude”), Scorzonera humilis (“lav skorsonér”), Dactylorhiza maculata ssp. maculata (“plettet gøgeurt”) and Trollius europaeus (“engblomme”). She told me that she saw these – and many more – as small fragments or signs of a larger system of doing and care. The plants were the small results of what she, the sheep and the fire had done – and what they had yet to do.

Fire and grazing could be understood as an un-making and un-designing, wilfully undertaken to “make spaces” – temporally, spatially, materially, ecologically, and symbolically. With sheep, goats, and fire as companion landscape architects, the shepherds create space in small patches: for plants that thrive in open, sandy soils; for slow-land practices like herding and fire management; for sheep, goats, horses, and fire; and for plant gathering and wool work. Making space for heathlands and shepherds seems to offer a radical alternative to, and is largely incompatible with, contemporary and dominant land-use regimes that prioritize efficiency and intensity.^{10 ( 10 )}
For further, see Løvschal and Pérez Fjalland, “Hededrømme” (2023).

In the early spring, the sheep are in a field outside the heath, spending the nights on grass fields. In the morning the shepherd gathers them and takes them to a heath-patch. She takes them for a two-to-three hour walk, depending on where there is food for them to eat and where there are branches and trees they can gnaw on. Later in the summer, they also stay overnight on grass fields. She gathers them in the morning and takes them for a longer walk, and to areas that need a lot of grazing. Sometimes she leaves them for the day before moving them elsewhere. In summer, the sheep wander for five or six hours, before being put in a night fold to digest.

One shepherd could herd up to five hundred sheep and lead two dogs. I was allowed to follow along. The shepherd read the landscape carefully and listened attentively to the sheep, looking for clues from the animals and plants. Walking calmly and resolutely through the knobby small bushes, she told me about ravens pecking the eyes out of lambs about to be born, and about carrying dead sheep home on her back. She spoke of priests who still came to talk about Jesus, of hunters wanting forest, farmers wanting arable land, administrators wanting untouched nature. She told me about wolves, and how they must have room to roam. She spoke of the seagulls that had returned to the lake since the mink farms closed^{11 ( 11 )}
The mink industry in Denmark was temporarily banned during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, when the government ordered the culling of mink after a mutated strain of the virus was detected at a farm. ^. The shepherd told me about losing children, a farm, a place, a work, about illness, broken love. She told me about all the plants and flowers and insects that thrive in these landscapes.

As we walked, she grasped pine shoots, pulled them up by the roots, and hurled them through the air, explaining that the heather – and many flowers and herbs – would not thrive in the shade. The shepherds watched over the flowers, ensuring the sheep passed by without eating them. The shepherds told me about the berry bushes – lingonberries, crowberries, and blueberries – not to mention juniper. They told me about the children, grandchildren, and grandmothers, and how plants, including berries, are integral to rituals and traditions passed down by the older generations. They spoke of the threads that connected the marshes to the coast, the meadows and forests. Herding, they say, was like weaving – a wicker’s work. As they spun wool and knitted yarn, they shared stories about the battle for the land access, the endangered and rare species found on the heathlands, and all those who sought shelter and refuge in this landscape.

She kept an eye on the land, observing its life in pictures, seeds, pollen and words. She herded a fragment – or was it a patch? – something between past and present and future. Her body is no longer here, but her work remains. She herded with the land, her body in tune with it, connected through every step.

In your eyes, what is the purpose of the herding heathlands?

It is about caring for and preserving the heathlands with the sheep and fire. The goal is to preserve the heather and the biodiversity of the land. And you can see, with your own eyes, how fire and the movement of the sheep help. The heathland gets better and better, though it is a very slow practice. Sometimes people might think nothing has been done, but there’s clear improvement where we’ve worked. You need to learn to see how the heathland thrives – many can’t see it, but it’s there, in the beauty of the plants, especially the bell heather. It’s troublesome work, but it’s also about appreciating the flowers and the smell from them – enjoying the orchids, and seeing the changes in the heather. Then, winter comes, and spring follows.

What does a day on the heath look like for you?

I start at 8 o’clock down here. I arrive at the car park, then I collect the sheep from the night fold. I call them: “Mæææke, mææke, mæke, mæke…” and as they come running, I check carefully – is anyone of them hurt? I must see if they are healthy enough to join the walk. Is anyone limping or sick? First, I call the sheep to me, and then I enter the fold with the dogs. I have two border collies, waiting by the paddock. We slowly walk towards the grazing area, and they eat on the way. We walk for about two hours, then stop for a half-hour rest. After all, they are ruminants. Then we walk for another two hours, followed by a half-hour break. Here someone sleeps, digest, and the dog sleeps too. We eat our lunch. Sometimes the dog gathers sheep who think they need to move on: it is important that the sheep get rest. Afterwards, we wander for another two hours, then a half-hour rest before returning to the night fold. In total, it is about eight hours per day during the summer. If something happens along the way – if someone becomes ill, bitten, or hurts their leg – we must deal with it and catch the sheep, treat it, sometimes calling for help to transport. The season usually runs from mid- or late March to November. If the weather is bad, we end the season earlier, but if it’s warm and not too wet, we can herd until December.

Paths exist when there is movement. To create a path, many feet must pass the same site, in either one mass movement or several solitary movements.^{12 ( 12 )}
See for instance Svenson, Saltzman and Sörlin, Pathways (2022). The shepherds move: sheep, goats, and humans. Traces of deer, wolves, and badgers. Path-making is collaborative. We walked on heritage paths, even ancient strays. The shepherds enjoy finding them, along with old wheel tracks: they are kept in motion, always in the making. In a way, the path is always new – it doesn’t get old if different generations walk it. Walking weaves the paths together, almost like a life process between generations, a continuous co-production.

I heard rumours that I could find the flower Pulsatilla vernalis (in Danish “vårkobjælde”) on this patch of land – a small, dear anemone-like flower, star-shaped, blooming in March or April. But I couldn’t find it, I had to wait and return another time. But the shepherd reassured me: “I know someone who can help you. She knows where to find them, she follows the flowers of the heath, keeps an eye on them.” We were supposed to have burned, but it rained and was too wet. Again. I wandered on and met a small waterhole, opal blue. I followed a small stream – what a trickle! As in body to body, or between body parts. I followed an animal track through the heather. “Walk will grow your courage,” my great-grandmother had written in an old letter to a friend. I am named after her, we are name-sisters. I walked decisively, imagining her walking like this too, going far.

The shepherds tell how they see pollution from industry and agriculture change the living conditions for the heath’s plant communities, and how the heaths also lack care, they lack a human community. This became especially evident for me when walking a specific heath patch one day in spring: the heather was younger, it had been burned, and the sheep had trod and eaten. Fine little herbs and plants grew, they were small and you had to get close to see them, they did not make themselves known from a distance. There were heath spotted orchid, arnica and viper’s grass, the small white chickweed-wintergreen, tormentil, heath milkwort and flowering berry bushes. I hadn’t realized how nice the lingonberry bush’s flowers really were until that day. There were old, felled birch trunks, a group of European aspens, juniper, willows, mosses, lichens and more – hills, tufts, holes and caves. Perhaps here, on this tiny patch of heath, you could get a sense of what the heath maybe, someday, could become.

The menu merges landscapes, skills, and dishes, drawing on local and seasonal ingredients – some sourced directly from the contemporary Danish heaths. It was created to explore the enduring stories of the landscape, exploring how food can serve as wayfinding and path-making. The menu celebrates the Jutland heathlands and shepherding traditions beyond the Danish heaths, while also honouring cultural encounters, mobile cultures, and foods for travelling.

According to the UN, transhumance – the seasonal movement of people and livestock – has played a vital role in shaping cultures across Europe and around the world. This practice is part of a rich heritage that has nurtured cultural landscapes of pastures, tended by humans and other animals, in harmony with nature, for thousands of years.^{14 ( 14 )}
https://ich.unesco.org/en/decisions/18.COM/8.B.14

They had packed what little they owned and found a place as shepherds. I don’t know if they belong to the past or the future – these many bodies the heathland embraces. But I could hear the whispers of ghosts. Some spoke of enlightenment, enclosure, and fertilization. Others, almost feverishly, called for savagery. And there were those who secretly called the shepherds crazy old ladies with their odd sheep. The ghosts were not alone: the berry bushes and junipers joined in too, whispering their secrets to the wind.

I have carried with me a fragment, a quote from Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Left Hand of Darkness: “Truth is a matter of imagination. […] Facts are no more solid, coherent, round, and real than pearls are. But both are sensitive.” This quote has been a guide for me on the topographic journeys “to” the Danish heaths, helping me to listen to and see the many voices, stories and dreams of – and for – the heathlands.

I hold onto these words because it was always clear to me that the sheep, shepherds, and heathlands are often met with prejudice and scepticism. They fall outside the dominant landscape desires – those landscapes engineered to deliver resources like food, energy, or building material, or to enhance biodiversity effectively. Heathlands are neither. They are something else entirely.

Le Guin’s words, alongside Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s, call for a multiplicity of stories, have been essential in the process of understanding the heathlands. This collage is just one of many heathland stories, patchy and imperfect, yet part of the whole.