When a British Kingdom was finally conquered, harsh new masters imposed their will on a subjected population. When the conqueror was a Saxon King and his warband, they usually brought in their own people and settled them in new villages, sometimes driving out or exterminating many of the native British folk. But up in the remote hills, on the sheep farms, where the newcomers didn’t want to settle and where it was hard to get a living out of the land and there was little worth stealing, life went on as normal and folk carried on the way they always had.
In these remote areas, the old British Celtic languages hung on for many generations, slowly dying out as words became redundant and the races intermarried and the influence of the new comers and their new language spread even to these lonely farms. It is impossible to know how long Celtic speech persisted in these conquered areas, although the Celtic place-name cluster around Wigan for example, or around Leeds in the ancient British Kingdom of Elmet, suggests there may have been pockets in which the language survived for a considerable time. There is a persistent rumour that a group of people survived in the Fenlands till the mid 1700’s who spoke a form of Welsh as their first language. However, words that had a practical use in the lives of these farming folk managed to survive in the general dialect of the region and the best example of these survivals is the ancient counting systems still used in many parts of upland England and Scotland.
These are usually the areas where the British Kingdoms of the Celts hung on during the Anglo-Saxon and Norse invasions of England and indicate that a proportion, at least, of the population of the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms were Celtic survivors from those ancient Kingdoms. If the indigenous peoples had been killed or driven away, then these counting systems would have been Germanic or Norse rather than Celtic. The invaders may have changed the names of settlements and places but wherever the old peoples survived they retained their counting systems.
The areas concerned are often remote from each other and there are naturally differences in the use of these systems but some areas, such as Cumbria and Yorkshire or the Derbyshire Dales, there are different counting systems in adjacent valleys, indicating just how isolated from each other these communities were in that difficult terrain. These systems are primarily used to count sheep on the upland farms and remote valleys. The rest of the language may have faded away over time but these old practical ways of counting have survived everything time has thrown at them.
An interesting area of survival is that of Lincolnshire. Traditionally this was one of the earliest Saxon Kingdoms, that of Lindsey, a small Kingdom that eventually became a buffer state between Mercia and Northumbria and which constantly changed hands between these powerful neighbors and it was one of the first areas to be intensively settled by the Danes when they conquered the region. Given the long period of Saxon domination in this area and the very heavy Danish settlement and influence, it is somewhat surprising to find that a Celtic counting system has survived to modern times and that it has changed very little from those used in other areas of Upland Britain.
All these counting systems share certain numbers but none are the same across all numbers.
For example one to ten in Lincolnshire is:
Yan, Tan, Tethera, Pethera, Pimp, Sethera, Lethera, Hovera, Covera, Dik
In Borrowdale, Cumbria, one to ten is:
Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera, Pimp, Sethera, Lethera, Hovera, Dovera, Dick
While In Swaledale, Yorkshire, it is:
Yan, Tan, Tether, Mether, Pip, Azer, Sezar, Akker, Conter, Dick
In Ayrshire, Scotland:
Yinty, Tinty, Tetheri, Metheri, Bamf, Leetera, Seetera, Over, Dover, Dik
There are obvious similarities in all of the systems, indicating a common linguistic root but some numbers are quite different. For example three in Nidderdale, Yorkshire is Eddero (Bowland, Lancashire is Eddera) while in most of the others Three is a variant on Tethera.
Over 25 different areas and regions in Northern Britain have these ancient counting systems in use, independent of any common Celtic language or recent Celtic influence and each of them have unique elements. The locations and areas include: Keswick, Westmorland, Eskdale, Millom, High Furness, Wasdale, Teesdale, Swaledale, Borrowdales, Ayrshire, Bowland, Derbyshire, Derbyshire Dales, Weardale, Tong, Kirkby Lonsdale, Wensleydale, Lincolnshire, Rathmell, Nidderdale, Wharfedale, Coniston, Eskdale, Westmorland
Modern times and the movement of people away from these areas may well see the final demise of these old counting systems and the Celtic language influence on these remote areas may finally come to an end after several thousand years. For now, they still exist and we should be aware of them, their origins and the traditions of the ancient peoples that they preserve.
Tony Lucas has spent many years in the travel and tourism market, has travelled in many parts of the world. He has lectured and worked freelance for many of the major Hotel corporations. He writes extensively on all matters to do with Britain and tourism in the British Isles.
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