Counting Sheep

I have always been fascinated by the Celtic sheep counting system. Its general use by shepherds in the Lake District is thought to date back to the beginning of the nineteenth century. I asked the late Stan Edmondson of Seathwaite, Borrowdale if he had used it. ‘Well, I have and I haven’t’, but he recalled talking to visitors about it, and of the variations in the different valleys. In Eskdale sethera and lethera became seckera and leckera. In another valley hovera and dovera were changed to hata and slata. One to ten: yan, tyan, tethera, methera, pimp, sethera, lethera, hovera, dovera, dick were the terms used in Borrowdale.

I have a six-hole stone gate stoop in my garden in Keswick, which came from Little Town Farm in Newlands, which I respectfully refer to as ‘sethera’.

In the image the red denotes the ‘pop’ mark on my typographic sheep.

The work reminds me of a hero of mine, Emil Ruder, a Swiss typographer.