Poor Molly Metcalfe

Jack Thackray wrote: Shepherdess is a poor word for her! It is a word that gives me a picture of a well set up young woman, with porcelain skin and good teeth, a pretty pinafore and a cleavage. She was none of that, she was more a sheep minder. She had no family and was reared by neighbours and worked for them. She was sent to the moor when it was thought she could look after sheep, get her own food, count properly. This was at the age of seven or eight years - not unknown, that people used to use children like that in those days, and give them a chance, and they still will. Not a lot was seen of her until she was found years later in the way that a farmer will find a missed animal, dead, dying, rotten, rotting, scrap of bone, wisp of wool. It was calculated that she must have been twenty-five, twenty-six. That was the life, one end to another. This, song, Molly Metcalfe, is about her and others like her.

Old Molly Metcalfe counting sheep,
Yan tan tether mether pip she counted
Up upon Swaledale counting sheep
Yan tan tether mether pip she said.

Grow little sheep come hail come snow
Yan tan tether mether pip she counted
Fine warm wool for a gentleman's shoulder blades
Yan tan tether mether pip she said.

Over the heather when the weather is cold
Yan tan tether mether pip she counted
Stiff Molly Metcalfe goes bow leggedly
Yan tan tether mether pip she said.

Grow little sheep come wind come rain
Yan tan tether mether pip she counted
Fine warm wool for a lady's counterpane
Yan tan tether mether pip she said.

On her back in the bracken with frozen bones
Yan tan tether mether pip she counted
Daft Molly Metcalfe singing alone
Yan tan tether mether pip she said.

Grow little sheep come death come dark
Yan tan tether mether pip she counted
No such wool for old Molly Metcalfe
Yan tan tether mether pip she said.