Beginners’ Guides:
Fun with Folk

Acre Of Land

The word 'ivery' in this song is a dialect pronunciation of the word 'ivy'.

 My father left me an acre of land

There goes this ivery,

My father left me an acre of land,

And a bunch of green holly and ivery.

I ploughed it with my ram’s horn,

I sowed it with my pepper box,

I harrowed it with my bramble bush,

I reaped it with my little penknife,

I sent it home in a walnut shell,

I threshed it with my needle and thread,

I winnowed it with my handkerchief,

I sent it to mill with a team of great rats,

The carter brought a curly whip,

The whip went pop and the waggon it stopped.

 Additional Online Resources

• Audio recording sung by Paul Sartin and the children of Anton School in Andover
• The Full English project developed various supporting resources for this song available for download.