Sweet is a compact, broad dwarf with a farmer's thick forearms and the steady, forward-leaning gait of someone accustomed to hauling a plow. He plants each boot as if testing the ground for roots, favoring his left side when standing still, then moves with startling speed when riled. His reddish-brown beard is divided into two blunt braids and usually smells faintly of lanolin, woodsmoke, and pig feed. His nose is wide and ruddy, his cheeks weather-creased, and his eyes have the watchful look of a hunter who expects the hedgerow to move. The hem of his clerical-looking vestments is muddy almost every day. The unexpected detail: a little brass bell, polished nearly smooth where a thumb has worried it, is sewn inside his collar. He claims it is a holy relic; he rings it to summon his piglet for supper.

Sweet can be warmly generous and quick to laugh, yet a careless insult may send him into a blustering rage. He is patient with animals and children, but impatient with anyone who questions the Hogfather. After an outburst he often feels sincere shame and tries to repair the harm, though he may explain himself too much. When frightened, he gets brisk and practical; when embarrassed, he becomes louder.

Sweet grew turnips, barley, and stubborn boars on a small farm outside a village whose modest shrine was dedicated to the Hogfather. He was a reliable neighbor, a keen hunter, and a volunteer who mended the shrine roof and kept its pantry stocked. During a winter hunt, a huge boar drove him into a ravine and struck him hard enough to leave him unconscious. In the dark, he saw a vast, tusked figure in a mantle of steam declare him the Scion of Swine. He woke with a tiny piglet licking blood from his sleeve. Sweet named it Button and carried it home inside his coat. Since that day, his feelings have come hard and fast: a slight can become a furious sermon, while kindness can make him weep into his beard. He insists the vision made him a priest, though he has no clerical training or magic. He is, in truth, a level-one ranger with a hunter's eye and a farmer's practical knowledge. His proselytizing has earned him enemies, including a market reeve whose stall Sweet overturned during an argument about slaughterhouse tithes. Sweet keeps moving partly to spread his faith and partly because staying put has become uncomfortable. He sends small parcels of seed and money to his sister, who still tends the farm and does not believe a word of his vision.