[Songs from the Collection of W. P. Merrick]
by W. P. Merrick, Lucy Broadwood, Frank Kidson, J. A. Fuller Maitland
Journal of the Folk-Song Society, Vol. 1, No. 3, Songs from the Collection of W. P.Merrick (1901), pp. 66-138
2. -Sing Ivy
My mother she gave me an acre of land,
Sing Ivy, sing Ivy.
My mother she gave me an acre of land,
Shall I go whistlin I - vy?
I ploughed it with a ram's horn,
Sing ivy, sing ivy.
I ploughed it with a ram's horn,
Shall I go whistling ivy?
I sowed it with a peppercorn&, c.
I harrowed it in with a bramble, &c.
I harrowed it in with a bramble bush, &c.
I reaped it with my penknife, &c.
I housed it in a mouse's hole, &c.
I threshed it with a beanstalk, &c.
I wimm'd it with a fly's wing, &c.
I measured it with my thimble, &c.
I put it on the cat's back, &c.
The cat she carried it to the mill, &c.
The miller swore he'd take a toll, &c.
The cat she swore she'd scratch his poll, &c.
This nursery song is stated to have been sung by a little boy at Petworth, Sussex, about fifty or sixty years ago.-W. P. M.
The above rhyme occurs in many collections of children's songs, such as J. 0. Halliwell's ' Nursery Rhymes of England,' 'The Merry Go-round,' &c. In these works the words begin:
My father left me three acres of land.
The piece is of the same paradoxical character as the early ballad ' The Elfin Knight,' in its various versions, as 'The Bridegroom's Darg,' &c. More closely allied is 'Scarborough Fair,' versions of which may be found with airs in Kidson's 'Traditional Tunes' and ' English County Songs,' and as ' Whittingham Fair' in 'Northumbrian Mlinstrelsy.'-F. K.