A lycanthrope in Powys County has sorted an entire flock by fiber grade and seasonal coat thickness. The sheep appear unharmed. The farmer appears less so.

LLANDRINDOD WELLS, WALES — A farmer in Powys County is reporting that something came out of the tree line on three consecutive nights last week and sorted his sheep. Not scattered them. Not killed them. Sorted them. By wool. Gwyn Parry, 61, who has run Bryn Mawr Farm for going on thirty-four years, arrived at his lower pasture on Thursday morning to find his flock of 218 Texel-Welsh crosses divided into what he describes as distinct, stable groupings — separated by fiber grade, he believes, and by the thickness of the seasonal coat. The groupings held. The sheep did not rearrange themselves. This is, in the estimation of seven witnesses and this network, a meaningful data point.

Mr. Parry noticed the first separation on Tuesday. He assumed the dogs had done something unusual. He has two border collies, Mair and Pont, both of whom he describes as capable. By Wednesday morning the groupings had refined — what appeared to be a rough sort had been corrected overnight, with at least eleven animals moved between clusters. Pont spent Wednesday hiding under the kitchen table. Mair has not, as of press time, been available for comment. By Thursday the pattern was clear enough that Mr. Parry called his neighbour, Rhys Llewelyn, who called his wife, who called her brother, who is apparently the sort of person who has this network’s tip line saved to his phone. We appreciate that.

Community Notice

What the Organization Actually Looks Like

According to Mr. Parry and corroborated by three of the seven witnesses who examined the pasture on Friday morning, the flock was arranged into no fewer than four distinct clusters. The largest group — approximately ninety animals — consisted of sheep with what Mr. Parry characterized as standard-grade fleece in full winter thickness. A second group of around sixty held what he called his better animals, the ones he’d been planning to sell to a specialty mill in Brecon. A third, smaller cluster of roughly forty contained older animals with coarser, degraded fiber. The fourth group, the one Mr. Parry finds hardest to explain, contained fourteen sheep he cannot immediately account for in terms of his own classification system. They were, by his description, separated out deliberately. From everything else. He has no category for what they represent. Neither do we yet.

I’ve had my sheep for thirty-four years. I know my sheep. Whatever did this knows my sheep better than I do, and I don’t know how to feel about that.

— Gwyn Parry, Farmer, Bryn Mawr Farm, Powys County

The creature itself was observed directly on two of the three nights. Mr. Parry saw it from his kitchen window on Wednesday at approximately 2:15 in the morning. He describes it as large, upright, and moving along the fence line with what he specifically called a considered pace. It was not running. It stopped at the fourth cluster — the fourteen animals — and stood there for a period he estimates at four minutes before returning to the tree line. A neighbour, Sioned Griffiths, observed it briefly from a vehicle on Thursday evening and described the posture as purposeful. I have written that word down. I am going to leave it there.

It didn’t touch them roughly. All of them, even the ones it moved twice — not a mark on any of them. It was careful. That’s the part I keep coming back to. It was being careful.

— Rhys Llewelyn, Neighbouring Farmer, First Corroborating Witness

WTC has reached out to three textile industry consultants, one retired veterinary pathologist, and a professor of folklore at Aberystwyth University. The professor called back. She confirmed that organized resource assessment behavior has no meaningful precedent in lycanthropic literature and then asked, after a pause, whether we were sure about the fourth group. We told her we were not. She said she would look into it. We have her number. I am keeping the radio on tonight. The static has been uneven since about six this evening and I have not yet established what that correlates to, but I want it noted that it started uneven. Mr. Parry has been advised not to move any of the sheep until we know more. He said he hadn’t planned to. He said Pont was still under the table. We will update as this develops.