Migrating Wool
"At the start of summer, before heading for the tops of the mountains, sheep and rams would leave their winter coats in the hands of their owners. Washed by powerful arms, then spun, the wool would one day go to the loom (...)". Ferreira de Castro - The Wool and the Snow, 1947.
Wool, woven to protect and comfort, has been part of human life since ancient times. The culture of wool is inextricably linked to shepherding and the ancestral knowledge of agricultural and pastoral societies.
The unique conditions of the Serra da Estrela made it an important meeting point between seasonal migration routes, so that many mountain villages specialised in activities related to shepherding, namely, the production of wool-based fabrics.
Frazão (1982), quoting Polybius, Pliny and Strabo, Roman writers dedicated to agricultural matters, says that in Betica (a province in the south of the Iberian Peninsula) sheep of the burdo type were widely bred. It was from here that the term Bordaleiro was derived, referring to wool and fabrics that were already well known.
The shepherding families in the Serra da Estrela used the wool from their flocks to produce cloth (Burel) which was floored and scalded to obtain a very resistant and strong fabric to protect against the cold and bad weather that brought rain and snow.
The Serra da Estrela sheep, with its black or white wool, or sometimes of a third type, the surrobeca (a phenotype between black and white), through its Bordaleira wool, contributes to the production of Burel, a fabric that traces its origins to medieval times and has always been associated with the Serra da Estrela, the mountains and the shepherds with their cloaks.
Today, the Bordaleira wool from Serra da Estrela sheep is used for a wide variety of purposes.
