The Ugliest Sheep

*The Ugliest Sheep*
The Ugliest Sheep
Also known as	Das Häslischste Schaf; An Davas Hager
Genre	Reality television, game show
Starring	Many and various ugly sheep
Music by	Bruno Vormelker
Opening theme	"My, What Sheep We Have!"
Ending theme	"A New Amguedh"
Country of origin	Hendalarsk
Original languages	Various, principally Hendalarskisch and Kembrek
Production
Production company	Hendalarskara Broadcasting Corporation
Release
Original release	24th May 1958

The Ugliest Sheep (Hendalarskisch: Das Häslischste Schaf, Kembrek: An Davas Hager) is a Hendalarskara animal festival and reality television show.

History

In traditional Kembrek custom, a particularly ugly or runty sheep is often spared either an early culling or later slaughter for food and instead serves as a kind of family pet, cared for as a member of the household; this sheep is known as an amguedh, or "treasure". Many explanations for such a curious custom - which, in times of famine, would have imposed additional hardship on any family bearing an amguedh - have been proffered, although current scholarly consensus favours the idea that the amguedh represents a holdover from traditional cultural practices in which the unusual qualities of an ugly amguedh were seen as signs of divine workings, while a runty amguedh served as a reminder of the Christian virtues of charity and patience.

Over time, many villages in the northeastern Kembrek highlands developed a custom of choosing one amguedh from among the village's households to be the amguedh gwerthfawrocaf, or "most valuable treasure", with the prize for the household in question ranging from simple praise to extra lands or great copper coins. Because of the social stakes involved, a strict code of honour developed around these contests; inbreeding, which in any case could potentially ruin the value of a flock, was forbidden, as human meddling in what was fundamentally a chance-based activity. As the nineteenth century wore on and means of communication improved, these village competitions came to encompass multiple kombodow, or even entire keverangow. Increased awareness of selective breeding, and the rise of eugenic science, led to academic interest in the practice; this dovetailed with the rise of modern folklorists, intent on collecting regional customs such as the amguedhow as a throughline to the distant Kembrek past.

In the aftermath of the Hendalarskara Civil War, politicians and civil servants interested in rebuilding the country's shattered social ties returned to the amguedhow, and the communal participation they encouraged, as a way of increasing national understanding; they were aided in this by the proliferation of the radio, which allowed for sheep-judging competitions to spread beyond even the keverangow and become a truly national phenomenon. Hendalarskaren, at first somewhat bemused by this seemingly quaint regional custom, soon came to appreciate its gentle pace and laconic social commentary as a gentle diversion from the hard task of rebuilding the country, and as an insight into the psyches of people, the Kembrek, whom many Hendalarskaren still struggled to entirely understand. Although initially wary of this attention, which in its early days was often (not unfairly) perceived as metropolitan condescension, the Kembrek in turn came to welcome this newfound curiosity on the part of their eastern neighbours, and the first pan-Hendalarsk amguedh-judging festival was held in 1931; it has been repeated every May since then, without fail.