The Nature of Numbers
Welcome, Mythstitcher! Are you ready to enter the tangled skein of silks which will unravel to take you to twelve mystic and marvellous places, each revealing the magic of the numerical kingdom?
Every number tells its own story. Before there were people to do the counting, numbers existed ... without names, without form, but the creatures of that world knew that more was usually better than less, especially when they were hungry. We might count the seeds on an ear of grass, they just knew when there was more to eat!
When the Gods began to collect precious jewels, the Olde Ones and, at last, those who resemble you – late to the feast – began to keep and trade cows and pigs, sheep and fowl, and even some pale imitations of the Gods' own treasures, oh, then they needed to count!
And numbers?
Well, they began to have spirits of their own!
They adopted names and shapes, characters and cyphers. Some were high and haughty, some lower and less revered, but they all needed to be remembered and recited. And so chants and carols, songs and rounds came to be used to learn and recall them.
Perhaps you have heard "Green Grow the Rushes"? It is a counting song with a history. You may have learnt it at school. I recall the dim mists of time, as the first hunters began to corral and count their kine.
The wild things remember, too. The lone, last flowers of a summer, the wind whispering in the multitude of dried reeds on a cold winter night.
I will be your guide as nature leads on ...
Click on the bee to fly to your first number!
