Yan tan tethera

Sheep-counting systems ultimately derive from Brythonic Celtic languages, such as Cumbric; Tim Gay writes: “[Sheep-counting systems from all over the British Isles] all compared very closely to 18th-century Cornish and modern Welsh".^[2] It is impossible, given the corrupted form in which they have survived, to be sure of their exact origin. The counting systems have changed considerably over time. A particularly common tendency is for certain pairs of adjacent numbers to come to resemble each other by rhyme (notably the words for 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 6 and 7, or 8 and 9). Still, multiples of five tend to be fairly conservative; compare bumfit with Welsh pymtheg, in contrast with standard English fifteen.

Like most Celtic numbering systems, they tend to be vigesimal (based on the number twenty), but they usually lack words to describe quantities larger than twenty; this is not a limitation of either modernised decimal Celtic counting systems or the older ones. To count a large number of sheep, a shepherd would repeatedly count to twenty, placing a mark on the ground, or move a hand to another mark on a shepherd's crook, or drop a pebble into a pocket to represent each score (e.g. 5 score sheep = 100 sheep).

In order to keep accurate records (e.g. of birth and death) and to be alert to instances of straying, shepherds must perform frequent head-counts of their flocks. Dating back at least to the medieval period, and continuing to the present in some areas like Slaidburn, farms were granted fell rights, allowing them access to common grazing land. To prevent overgrazing, it was vitally important for each farm to keep accurate, updated head-counts. Though fell rights are largely obsolete in modern agriculture except in upland areas, farms are often subsidised and taxed according to the quantity of their sheep. For this reason, accurate counts are still necessary, and must be performed frequently.

Generally, a count is the first action performed in the morning and the last action performed at night. A count is made after moving the sheep from one pasture to another, and after any operation involving the sheep, such as shearing, tagging, foot-trimming, mulesing, etc., although sheep are far less likely to stray while being moved in a group rather than when grazing at large on open ground.

Their use is also attested in a "knitting song" known to be sung around the middle of the nineteenth century in Wensleydale, Yorkshire, beginning "yahn, tayhn, tether, mether, mimph".^[3]

The counting system has been used for products sold within Northern England, such as prints,^[4] beers,^[5] alcoholic sparkling water (hard seltzer in U.S.),^[6] and yarns,^[7] as well as in artistic works referencing the region, such as Harrison Birtwistle's 1986 opera Yan Tan Tethera.

Jake Thackray's song "Old Molly Metcalfe"^[8] from his 1972 album Bantam Cock uses the Swaledale "Yan Tan Tether Mether Pip" as a repeating lyrical theme.

The word yan or yen for 'one' in Cumbrian, Northumbrian, and some Yorkshire dialects generally represents a regular development in Northern English in which the Old English long vowel /ɑː/ <ā> was broken into /ie/, /ia/ and so on. This explains the shift to yan and ane from the Old English ān, which is itself derived from the Proto-Germanic *ainaz.^[9][10] Another example of this development is the Northern English word for 'home', hame, which has forms such as hyem, yem and yam all deriving from the Old English hām.^[11]

Note: Scots here means "Scots" not "Gaelic"

• Counting-out game

• Rawnsley, Hardwicke Drummmond (1987) "Yan tyan tethera: counting sheep". Woolley: Fleece Press ISBN 0948375175

• Breton numerals
• Carol Justus's use of this numbering system to explain pre-decimal counting systems
• The Sheep Counting Score – By Walter Skeat, 1910
• Modern Welsh decimal system and older vigesimal system in full