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Jake Thackray 'Molly Metcalfe'

TallPiler · 201.1K views · 2009-07-28 · 4:05

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Overview

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.

On Hacker News

HN recommends it in threads about sheep-counting systems as the famous song that explains them.

Recommended by 2 HN people across 2 months · HN mentions 2013–2024

Topics

Music performance & songsLanguage & linguistics
Search by tags
jake thackrayyan tan tetherafolk songcounting systemsbritish folk

What people said

nkurz · 2022-12 · Recommendation

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': [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?

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I_complete_me · 2022-12 · Recommendation

Here's Jake Thackray singing a song with this in it. Wonderful stuff. [VIDEO] . Edit: Just noticed this is referenced in the article. Sorry.

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nkurz · 2022-01 · Recommendation

Have you seen the famous folk song that starts with an explanation of these? Jake Thackray 'Molly Metcalfe' [VIDEO]

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Sources

Video by TallPiler, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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HN Library: HackerTube export (2026-10-31) and open-index/hacker-news. Upstream summaries and classifications may contain AI errors.

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