| Thief— | “Shepherdy, shepherdy, count your sheep!” |
| Shepherd— | “I can’t come now, I’m fast asleep.” |
| Thief— | “If you don’t come now, they’ll all be gone, |
| So shepherdy, shepherdy, come along!” |
The Shepherd counts the sheep, and missing one, asks where it is gone. The Thief says, “It is gone to get fat!” The Shepherd goes to sleep again, and the same performance is repeated till all the sheep are hidden; the Shepherd goes in search of them, and when found they join him in the pursuit of the Thief.—Oswestry (Burne’s Shropshire Folk-lore, p. 520).
Mr. Northall (Folk Rhymes, p. 391) gives a version from Warwickshire, and says he believes the Shepherd’s dog to be the true thief who hides his propensity in the dialogue—
Bow, wow, wow, What’s the matter now?
A leg of a louse came over my house,
And stole one of my fat sheep away.
The game is played as in Shropshire. The dialogue in the Cornish game is similar to that of “[Witch].” See “[Wolf].”
Shepherds
One child stands alone, facing the others in a line opposite. The single child shouts, “Shepherds, shepherds, give warning.” The others reply, “Warn away! warn away!” Then she asks, “How many sheep have you got?” They answer, “More than you can carry away.” She runs and catches one—they two join hands and chase the rest; each one, as caught, joining hands with the chasers until all are caught.—Liverpool (Mr. C. C. Bell.) See “[Stag],” “[Warney].”
Shinney, or Shinty, or Shinnops
A writer in Blackwood’s Magazine, August 1821, p. 36, says: The boys attempt to drive with curved sticks a ball, or what is more common, part of the vertebral bone of a sheep, in opposite directions. When the object driven along reaches the appointed place in either termination, the cry of hail! stops the play till it is knocked off anew by the boy who was so fortunate as to drive it past the gog. In the Sheffield district it is played as described by Halliwell. During the game the boys call out, “Hun you, shin you.” It is called Shinny in Derbyshire.—Addy’s Sheffield Glossary. Halliwell’s description does not materially differ from the account given above except that when the knur is down over the line it is called a “bye.”—(Dictionary). In Notes and Queries, 8th series, viii. 446; ix. 115 et seq., the game is described as played in Lincolnshire under the name of “Cabsow,” which perhaps accounts for the Barnes game of [Crab-sowl].
In Perthshire it is described as a game in which bats somewhat resembling a golf club are used. At every fair or meeting of the country people there were contests at racing, wrestling, putting the stone, &c., and on holidays all the males of a district, young and old, met to play at football, but oftener at shinty.—Perthshire Statistical Account, v. 72; Jamieson’s description is the same.