93 



But yet it has often occurred to me when I have crossed that pass, 

 in my wanderings to and from Cumberland, how likely it was that 

 in this same Dunmail Raise, that Dun was a hill fort, which is its 

 meaning in Celtic, and that mail were the meols or mounds or 

 cairns which are scattered about at the head of the pass. Raise is 

 Norse for stone heap or mound, and is very commonly found in 

 the Lake district. 



Thus far I have, I think, adduced evidence to show that a 

 Celtic element exists in the proper names of Lakeland. I cannot, 

 however, follow it up as I tried to do in the Norse by showing 

 that we still have many unmistakeable Celtic words as a part of 

 our spoken dialect — for certainly what few Celtic words we have 

 are not peculiar to the dialect of the Lake country, and are there- 

 fore no evidence that a Celtic dialect and occupation continued 

 here after it had disappeared from the districts around. 



And yet a singular testimony to the Celt has in this neighbour- 

 hood been opened out, and partially investigated during the past 

 fifteen or sixteen years. I allude to what have been termed the 

 Celtic or Cymric Numerals. It really is in somewhat varied forms 

 but the same in all its essential and distinctive features the Celtic 

 or Cymric score, which is ascertained to have been formerly well 

 known and extensively used in all parts of Lakeland for sheep- 

 scoring and other purposes. Mr. Ellis,* who was then President 

 of the Philological Society, took up the matter ; and it is chiefly 

 owing to his careful and exhautive treatment of it, that such 

 important results have been obtained. I very readily admit, 

 therefore, that he was the pioneer in the subject, but the investi- 

 gation of the Numerals, so far as Lakeland is concerned, has 

 been in a great measure left in my hands. I need not read you 

 lists of those numerals, as you will find in the extract I have given 

 from the Transactions of the Philological Society of England, four 

 lists which I obtained from the Lake District. 



" Mr. Ellis sums up his remarks about them as follows : — "The Score is a 

 real system of counting, which was possibly widely known two or three hundred 

 years ago, but which was rare even fifty years ago, though it is not yet quite 

 forgotten." 



