Yan tan tethera

Importance of keeping count

In order to keep accurate records (e.g. of birth and death) and to alert instances of straying, shepherds must perform frequent head-counts of their flocks. Dating back at least to the medieval period, and continuing to the present in some areas like Slaidburn, farms were granted fell rights, allowing them access to common grazing land. To prevent overgrazing, it was vitally necessary for each farm to keep accurate, updated head-counts.

Though fell rights are largely obsolete in modern agriculture except in upland areas, farms are often subsidised and taxed according to the quantity of their sheep. For this reason, accurate counts are still necessary, and must be performed frequently.

Generally, a count is the first action performed in the morning and the last action performed at night. A count is made after moving the sheep from one pasture to another, and after any operation involving the sheep, such as shearing, tagging, foot-trimming, mulesing, etc., although sheep are far less likely to stray while being moved in a group than when grazing at large on open ground.

Origin and usage

Sheep-counting systems ultimately derive from Brythonic Celtic languages, such as Cumbric, although Tim Gay writes: “They [sheep-counting systems from all over the British Isles] all compared very closely to 18th-century Cornish and modern Welsh”. It is impossible, given the corrupted form in which they have survived, to be sure of their exact origin. The counting systems have changed considerably over time. A particularly common tendency is for certain pairs of adjacent numbers to come to resemble each other by rhyme (notably 1 and 2, 3 and 4, 6 and 7, or 8 and 9). Still, multiples of five tend to be fairly conservative; compare bumfit with Welsh pymtheg, in contrast with standard English fifteen.

Like most Celtic numbering systems, they tend to be vigesimal (based on the number twenty), but they usually lack words to describe quantities larger than twenty; though this is not a limitation of either modernised decimal Celtic counting systems or the older ones. To count a large number of sheep, a shepherd would repeatedly count to twenty, placing a mark on the ground, or move his hand to another mark on his crook, or drop a pebble into his pocket to represent each score (e.g. 5 score sheep = 100 sheep).

Their use is also attested in a knitting song from Yorkshire.

In popular culture

The English composer Harrison Birtwistle (born 1934) composed a chamber opera entitled Yan Tan Tethera (subtitled "a mechanical pastoral") in 1984 with a libretto by the poet Tony Harrison. It is based on a folk tale about two shepherds, and includes sheep being counted using 'Yan Tan Tethera' and the rival 'One Two Three' system.

Yan Tan Tethera is the name of a book by David Herter related to his first novel, Ceres Storm.

In the Broadway musical The Music Man, Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn, the mayor's wife, uses a different version of the Yan Tan Tethera ("Een Teen Tuther Feather Pip!") in the "Indian Tongue" of her "spectacle" with the schoolchildren.

English chansonnier Jake Thackray wrote, performed and recorded a song about a shepherdess, entitled Old Molly Metcalfe, with the refrain Yan Tean Tether Mether Pip she counted. In the introduction to the song he describes how Swaledale sheep farmers "count their sheep in a curious fashion," and gives the entire sequence from 1 to 20.

In Finnegans Wake, James Joyce quotes the counting rhyme onus, yan, tyan, tethera, methera, pimp.

In The Mating of Lydia, by Mrs Humphrey Ward, the following counting rhyme is quoted as being from the northern dales: "Yan—tyan—tethera—methera—pimp—sethera—lethera—hovera—dovera—dick—Yan-a-dick—tyan-a-dick—tethera-a-dick—methera-a-dick—bumfit—Yan-a-bumfit—tyan-a-bumfit—tethera-a-bumfit—methera-a-bumfit—giggot"

In Terry Pratchett's novel The Wee Free Men the heroine, Tiffany Aching, is called "little jiggit" by her grandmother, a female shepherd, as Tiffany was her twentieth grandchild; also, the titular race of sheep-stealing pictsies, use the "yan-tan-teth'ra" sequence for counting off. The "yan tan teth'ra" system of counting is said to be used for "important things," such as sheep and grandchildren. (They also use it for groups counting in unison before lifting heavy objects, but usually those are sheep or kine they're stealing.)

In a novel by Bernard Cornwell, Azincourt, the central character is an English archer, preparing for battle in 1415. He "turned to count his men. He did it in the old way of the country, like a shepherd counting his flock, just as his father had taught him. Yain, tain, eddero, he counted and got to bumfit, which was fifteen, and looked for the extra man and saw two. Tain-o-bumfit?"

In Garth Nix's novel Grim Tuesday, Grim Tuesday splits his Dawn, Noon, and Dusk servants into seven parts named Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Pits, Sethera and Azer.

The nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock's title is a form of the "8 9 10" of the series.

Joan Aiken's children's book The Cuckoo Tree features ten "Gentlemen" named Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Pip, Sethera, Wineberry, Wagtail, Tarrydiddle and Den.

The children's album Fiddle Up a Tune by Eric Nagler features a song "Yan Tan Tethera," whose eponymous phrase begins an incantation used to calm leprechauns: "Yan tan tethera, one two three: All you little ones, let us be. Hevapin sethera, four five six: Lay down your magic fiddlesticks."

The Bad Shepherds, a band featuring TV comedian Adrian Edmondson, released an album entitled Yan, Tyan, Tethera, Methera in April 2009. It consists mostly of punk songs performed in the folk style.

The folk string quartet Methera have numbered their albums YAN001, TAN002, and TET003.

In the second series of Catweazle, the eponymous character counts using a form of Yan Tan; this is part of the writer Carpenter's detailed research into historical accuracy for his 1066 wizard character.

In Postcards, a 1992 novel by Annie Proulx, a character recalls the way her grandfather counted sheep as "Yan. Tyan. Tethera..."