The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #11483   Message #2391820
Posted By: GUEST,Tom Hawley
18-Jul-08 - 01:06 AM
Thread Name: Yan Tan Tethera - more words in the count?
Subject: RE: Yan Tan Tethera - more words in the count?
I had never heard of such a thing until yesterday. In Harry Ricketts' biography of Rudyard Kipling, it is related that Mr Kipling and others are walking about and hear a shepard counting "een, teen, tethera, fethera, fib, hater, slater, quoter, diver, dig."

The others took it as nonsense words, but Mr Kipling identified it as "Saxon numerals."