British Ancestry - Articles

'UM COUNTIN'

Where are my guinea, florin, shilling,farthing, even an old penny piece?

Some of these coins are now reckoned as more valuable than the currency of today. We could, in the past, count on the coins in our purses and pockets being worth something. Yet we should not blame the Decimal System. It is by no means as logical as the duodecimal, except that most of us think in terms of the digits of our hands. However, it is not exactly new.

I can recall the shepherds in their long white smocks and corderoy trousers, at Clayton and also at Pyecombe in Sussex where I last heard the full version some thirty or more years ago, counting sheep as they were herded into the pen by a lovely English Colley dog, crying out the countin' as the shepherd named it.

"Um-erum-ship, der-erum-ship, cok-erum, Shu-erum, Sith-erum, Sath-erum, Wineberry, Wagtail, Tarry-diddle, Den" In fact "Den" for ten also means a score, that is twenty sheep going through the hurdles. Each score was recorded on a tally stick. often on the shepher'd own crook stick below the barrel and guide there were nicks to aid the counting.

Counting sheep in other parts of the country was also in tens and the counting was usually chanted. It is said to have come with invading Saxon and Jutish hordes from Europe. In Cornwall and parts of North East, in Wales and Celtic areas such numeration was not unusual either. In some parts the hand was raised on reaching each twenty and fingers shown for each twenty, so an open hand had counted one hundred. Perhaps it was slow but somewhat more reliable than computers that go wrong or have to be checked because someone has been interrupted.

In the Lake district the shepherds can still be heard saying "Yan, Tan, Tethera, Methera, Pimp, Sethera, Lehtera, Hovera, Dovera, Dick, Yan-a-Dik, Tan-a-Dick, Tethera-a-Dick, Methera-a-Dick, Bumfit, Yan-a-Bumfit,Tethera-a-Bumfit, Methera-a-Bumfit, Giggot."

Another form to be found goes, "Onetherum,twotherum,quotherum,seterum, shatherum, wineberry, wigtail, tarrydiddle, den; and then another version, Un, dau, try, perwar, pum, chwe, saith, wyth, naw, and deg.

When ancestral research takes us into the realms of Wills and inventories these and other forms of counting and measuring are not infrequently encountered and skill and knowledge are required to work out what may be intended.
13 January 2005