Shepherds Wore Stilts
This photograph shows a shepherd standing on stilts, which are a pair of upright poles with supports for the feet that enabled them to walk at a safe distance above the ground. This might have seemed like something one would expect to see at the circus, but shepherds in certain areas of France were forced to wear these to keep their legs and feet from getting soaked by the marshy ground below. The five-foot wooden stilts were strapped to their legs and supplemented with a long staff that the shepherd used as a support to rest and to direct the flock.