Talk:Yan Tan Tethera

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When I was a child (I am now in my seventies) my Scottish grandmother taught me a nonsense rhyme which I am sure is, at least in part, a garbled version of a traditional sheep count. It went: Eenty Deenty Tithery Mithery Bampf Aleery Over Dover Ram Stam Toosh

I'm pretty sure that everything after bampf is nonsense, but that the first five are recognizably variants of one, two, three, four, five. gwynflynn 03:45, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

Hovera, Dovera were 8 and 9 in the Keswick area (and similar words were used in the Nidderdale area). There is a German counting song which begins "eene, deene ...." Does anyone know the rest? These are not nonsense, they are the old Celtic numbers preserved in children's rhymes, sheep-counting and knitting, but the words have been morphed to sometimes unrecognisable forms in some areas. Only in Wales are the numbers still regularly used, though they are preserved throughout Cumbria and the Yorkshire Dales, even as far south as Lincolnshire, and as far north as the Scottish borders. Does anyone recognise similar numbers in Manx or Cornish? Only "yan" is still in everyday use in normal conversation (as far as I know). dbfirs 12:25, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Fell rights

Fell rights are certainly still in use in the area where I live. I think they are standard practice throughout the Pennines and Cumbria. Does anyone know? (I struggle to find published references, but I could cite legal documents.) Perhaps it would be better to delete the short paragraph which mentions obsolescence - it doesn't really add to the article. What does anyone else think? Dbfirs 07:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)