Yan Tan Tethera

Yan Tan Tethera is a sheep counting rhyme/system traditionally used by shepherds in Northern England and earlier in other parts of England and the British Isles. Until the Industrial Revolution, the use of traditional number systems was common among shepherds, especially in the dales of the Lake District. The Yan Tan Tethera system was also used for counting stitches in knitting. The words derive from a Brythonic Celtic language.

Though most of these number systems fell out of use by 1910, many are still in use. The word yan or yen for 'one' in some northern English dialects generally represents a regular development in Northern English in which the Old English long vowel /á/ was broken into /ie/, /ia/ and so on. 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 hám.