Little Stog is the smaller 'satelite' off the south-west coast of Stomgrog. It is actually part of the same land mass of its bigger brother Stomgrog but the connection is underwater and so it appears to be an island in its own right. The gap between the two land masses is large enough that it too has unique wildlife, some of which is not even found on Stomgrog. The most notable is the sheel, a type of sheep. Due to the lack of any natural predators on the island it has, through thousands of years of evolution, gradually lost the use of its legs. They remain vestigally, in the form of atrophied limbs similar to flippers. If the sheel wishes to move, usually either for mating purposes or to graize elsewhere, it will roll sideways using its head as a kind of rudder to steer.

Early seafarers used to think that the sheel was a unique kind of woolly seal (hence the name sheel, a combination of the words 'seal' and 'sheep'). Eighteenth century ships logs remarked how the sheels would jump off the high cliffs that border most of Little Stog and dive into the sea. It was then noted how they could hold their breath underwater for as long as the ship was there. Modern naturalists have rejected these theories with the explanation that occasionally the sheel starts rolling down the steep hills towards the cliff edge and is unable to stop. The unfortunate creature can then roll over the edge into the sea. Once in of course, the weight of the water that soaks into its wool drags it down and it sinks out of sight.

Layer upon layer of thousands of years of dead Sheels produced the famous pate mines which in the late 1880's led to the famous 'Cold Meat Rush'. Companies such as Mattesons and Shiphams amassed their fortunes, but in the process the pate mines have been all but totally exhausted. The tiny ammounts of pate now mined are regarded as trove and are the joint properties of HM the Queen and King Benny of Sweden. The sheel was also hunted to the edge of extinction and the sheel joint (a Victorian forerunner to the Matthews Turkey Roast) was a much prized delicacy.

Nowadays Little Stog is much quieter - designated a nature reserve and the sheel is a protected species.

19th Century sailors woodcut of the sheel

the sheel today, happy in its habitat

to go to Stomgrog, pat the sheel on the head