³ This particular variant of the sheep-score is used here because it happens to be the only one I know. It is from Lancashire. As with all the variants from different parts of England it is a corruption of the ordinary Welsh cardinal numbers. It is sometimes questioned whether these immemorial English uses have come down direct from the Celtic-speaking population of previous to the Anglo-Saxon invasions, or whether they derive from later contacts with the Welsh sheep-trade. For many reasons the latter seems extremely unlikely. Moreover, the association of sheep with Wales is relatively modern, being in part due to Cistercian enterprise in the thirteenth century, and as late as Queen Anne the typical Welsh stock was cattle rather than sheep.