Ryafår - Sweden

Ryafår are an endangered conservation landrace sheep breed from Sweden that has Norwegian Spelsau sheep in their heritage.  At the beginning of the 20th century, when industrialism took hold, the Ryafår found it difficult to compete with other wool-producing breeds of sheep and numbers dwindled but thankfully the curly shiny wool is needed to make weatherproof coats for the shepherds so that breed was not allowed to die out completely.

Beautiful 18th century lustrous yarns and textiles from the old Ryafår were studied and the quality found seemed to be missing from modern land breeds. The driving force behind the rediscovery of the Ryafår was Axel Nilsson, director of the Röhssaka Museum. He concluded that this must have been an old breed of sheep in the Nordic countries that left this material. In 1915, he came into contact with Emma Zorn in Mora who discovered that the hill people in Mora, Orsa and Gagnef had a trim on their leather jackets that was made of a beautiful sheepskin that it came from the breed Axel was looking for.

The journey around Dalarna began and they found remnants of the Ryafår breed in Skattungbyn and on Sollerön. 15 ewes were selected and purchased.  They were placed with the Gothenburg family Mannheimer, where Maria Mannheimer saved the breed from extinction through succesful breeding work.  The conservation work was then followed up by the Wåhlstedts in the 1920s.  Soon the Swedish Sheep Breeding Association also took care of the breed and established a national studbook. 

The ewes are known for their good mothering qualities and ability to find food in difficult terrain.  They are medium-sized and hardy and have good meat texture and plenty of wool.  The tail, head and legs are wool free but covered in short, shiny hair.  Rams weigh 70kg-100kg and stand 75cm at the withers and ewes weigh 60kg-80kg and stand 70cm at the withers.  Both sexes are polled.

They are a double coated breed and the wool is long and can be 6 inches (15cm) long on a three month old lamb and up to 12 inches (30cm) long on an adult.  The two coats make up around 50% each on the fleece. Most are white, with some grey, black and brown individuals.  The colours should be solid without any white markings or coloured spots. The wool grows fast and has long straight guard hairs along with some shorter underwool.  Whatever you make will be durable.  Can be spun or felted.

The wool of the Ryafår has unique properties that are appreciated by many, especially by hand spinner and other artisans of handicraft.  The wool is of high quality, fairly straight, strong and durable and yet soft.  There is high lustre and good pile formation.  The coats can be separated and spun to make weather proof items from the outercoat and warm snuggly items from the undercoat.  The back of a shorn fleece can be felted on the cuts and made into a rug.

In 1978, the breed association Föreningen Ryafåret was formed.  The breeding work includes a special sampling of the Rya sheep and wool samples are taken from all animals that are to be used in breeding work to ensure that the properties of the wool are maintained and improved.

In 2017, there were 54 herds of sheep consisting of 72 rams, 732 ewes and 1551 lambs registered in Elitlam.  In 2021 there were 491 registered breeding ewes, which means that the numbers are decreasing.  

I bought this breed in as 94g of unwashed raw fleece that was part of a sample pack that featured 8 different Swedish breeds that I purchased back in early May 2022 from a lady called Anita Grahn based in Uppsala, Sweden.  I was going to add a link for Anita and her shop but when I looked her last social media post was in October of 2024 stating that she was in hospital and she has not posted anything since and her online shop is still empty as of January 2026. I do hope she is OK.  However, I can provide a link to Swedish Fibre, a small business run by Sandy Zetterlund who has a passion for knitting, wool, spinning and now a passion for bringing these beautiful fleece from these rare conservation sheep kept by small farmers into the limelight and put them in front of similarly passionate hand spinners like myself who care about ensuring the future and continuation of these rare and unique breeds.  The demand for and sale of the fleece from these rare breeds really do help the survival of the breed. 

I washed this on 23rd May 2022 and the water turned a very weird milk mid-grey kind of colour, not brown like with other fleece that are dirty and muddy, this was a definite weird grey colour.  Once it was dry it weighed 89g.  I combed it almost immediately on 30th May 2022 and I got 64g of hand combed top from it that still has a good amount of the guard hairs left in it because I felt that if I took any more guard hairs out then I wouldn't have enough left for spinning.  The undercoat is much softer and a darker colour to the coarser and lighter coloured outercoat.

I split the fibre into two equal amounts, spun singles and made a 2-ply yarn.  It was difficult to spin and keep both fibre types together as the two fibre types were behaving like opposing magnets and trying to keep away from each other. It was a constant battle and the resulting yarn is stiff, hairy, prickly and difficult to work with. It is fingering weight and I got 61g/162m of it.

I finished the knitted piece on 13th January 2026 but the lettering is incredibly difficult to see and read.