TallPiler
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2013–2024
4:05 · 201K views · Jul 28, 2009
Jake Thackray performs the folk song Molly Metcalfe, which opens with an explanation of the traditional northern English sheep-counting system (yan, tan, tethera). It is a short, witty piece of British folk songwriting.
HN recommends it in threads about sheep-counting systems as the famous song that explains them.
6 comments from Hacker News
It's fair game, since it didn't get much discussion, but if you click on 'past' in the list of links below the title, you'll see a couple times this has already been posted. But since it's here again, I'll again recommend the Youtube video of Jake Thackray singing 'Molly Metcalfe': this video Anyone grow up somewhere where this style of counting is still in use? Or one like it? Or did these die out in the last generation?
Here's Jake Thackray singing a song with this in it. Wonderful stuff. this video . Edit: Just noticed this is referenced in the article. Sorry.
Have you seen the famous folk song that starts with an explanation of these? Jake Thackray 'Molly Metcalfe' this video
Depending on what you are counting, sometimes "wrong" can be historically "right": In Swaledale, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, sheep farmers used to, and some still do; count their sheep in a very curious fashion. Instead of One, Two, Three, Four... they go, thus: (1)Yan, (2)Tan, (3)Tether, (4)Mether, (5)Pip; (6)Ezar, (7)Sezar, (8)Acker, (9)Conter, (10)Dick; (11)Yan-a-Dick, (12)Tan-a-Dick, (13)Tether-a-Dick, (14)Mether-a-Dick, (15)Bumfit; (16)Yan-a-Bum, (17)Tan-a-Bum, (18)Tether-a-Bum, (19)Mether-a-Bum, (20)Jigget. Having reached Twenty, they then take a stone [or make a mark upon the ground or a piece of wood, thus the term 'a score' or 'twenty'] representing the Twenty sheep that they have counted; and if they possess more than Twenty sheep, they go for another twenty: Yan, Tan, Tether, Mether, Pip... Another Twenty, another stone. Yan, Tan, Tether, Mether, Pip... Again,Twenty, again another stone. Jake Thackray 'Molly Metcalfe' 1971 this video
Oh absolutely, if they updated it to be based on modern farming then everyone would have significantly less acreage :D But you'll find that with most imperial measurements; they're based on physical objects or systems of measuring which make less sense today. One of my favourites being the traditional way of counting sheep in the north of England: [LINK] (and here's a great explanation and song by the late Jake Thackeray: this video ).