Please note that this book is no longer available directly from the Fleece Press.

Yan, Tyan, Tethera: Counting Sheep, by H. D. Rawnsley
With wood engravings by Kathleen Lindsley

In 1987, the Fleece Press was based in the little village of Woolley, West Yorkshire. Such a b-ewe-tiful coincidence couldn’t be left unacknowledged, and so this miniature accordion-fold became book number bumfit for the Fleece Press. Being a shepherd from Borrowdale, you are familiar, no doubt, with the term bumfit, but to translate, for those of you from Westmorland we mean mimph, and for the rest of you fifteen.

This tiny edition, rammed full of ovine wood engravings from the wonderful Kathleen Lindsley, is a short pastoral of the ancient counting system used by Lake District shepherds to count their flocks, as detailed in the writings of H. D. Rawnsley. In fact, the specific version provided in YTT is from Borrowdale, with variations given for slight geographical changes as you move into Westmorland or Eskdale. Of course, it is not only these small areas that have their own specific systems; many regional versions once existed across the UK and the shear number of them and their relative differences is quite un-baa-lievable.

In Borrowdale, of course, shepherds counted one, two, and three sheep with Yan, Tyan, Tethera, and it is this that gives us the playful title of the book. It is a book that fits the Fleece Press brand proudly, spinning a small, joyous yarn for a reader who has chosen to tread a path less travelled. The only possible cause for lamb-ent is the tendency for counting sheep to send one to sleep!

This book was published in 1987, in an edition of 275, priced at £26.