Standing in this windswept landscape, you are looking at a "rétt," a traditional Icelandic sheep fold that serves as a cornerstone of rural community life and one of the country's oldest agricultural traditions. While it might look like a simple ruin or a basic enclosure, it is actually a vital piece of infrastructure for the annual autumn "réttir." Every September, Icelandic farmers and their families head into the highlands on horseback to gather their sheep, which have spent the entire summer roaming free across the volcanic mountains and valleys. This massive communal effort is called the "smölun." Once the sheep are rounded up, they are driven down to enclosures like these. The central area of the fold is where all the sheep are gathered together, and the smaller branching segments or "pockets" are used by individual farmers to sort their specific livestock based on ear markings. The construction itself is a testament to Icelandic ingenuity in a land with few trees. These walls are built using dry-stone masonry, utilizing the abundance of volcanic basalt rocks scattered across the Snæfellsnes peninsula. In some areas, these walls are also reinforced with turf to provide better insulation and stability against the fierce Atlantic winds. For locals, the sorting at the rétt is much more than a chore; it is a major social event. People from all over the region, and even city dwellers from Reykjavík, come to help, celebrate the end of summer, and share traditional food and "brennivín" (Icelandic schnapps). While these stone circles stand quiet and empty for most of the year, they represent a thousand-year-old link to the Viking age, when the first settlers brought their sheep to this island and established this same system of communal grazing and gathering.