Out and About

By Puffin

Sheep Counting

I spotted this mural in Kendal today.  The Yan, Taen, Tedderte, Medderte etc is shepherd's sheep counting. But which dialect I wondered?  We live in a quarter of a barn conversion. Each cottage has a name : - Yan, Tan, Tither and Mether- ie 1,2,3,4.  But not the same spelling as you can see here in the Kendal mural.  
Wikipedia reveals that the spelling in the mural comes from Coniston which actually used to be in Lancashire so I'm not sure why they choose it for the mural.   But  I can't actually find the exact spelling of the names of our cottages. The Westmorland dialect should be Yan, Tahn, Teddera and Meddera. Never mind, I have enough trouble spelling Mether to people who want our address. We often get post to "Nether". 
 
And for those of you who are still reading - according to Wiki :- "The words are numbers taken from Brythonic Celtic languages such as Cumbric which had died out in most of Northern England by the sixth century, but they were commonly used for sheep counting and counting stitches in knitting until the Industrial Revolution, especially in the fells of the Lake District."

I hope all you knitters out there are going to swot up on your counting system

Comments
Sign in or get an account to comment.