My Mother said, I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood.
If I did, she would say;
‘Naughty girl to disobey!Your hair shan’t curl and your shoes shan’t shine,
You gypsy girl, you shan’t be mine!
And my father said that if I did,
He’d rap my head with the teapot lid.My mother said that I never should
Play with the gypsies in the wood.
The wood was dark, the grass was green;
By came Sally with a tambourine.I went to sea – no ship to get across;
I paid ten shillings for a blind white horse.
I upped on his back and was off in a crack,
Sally tell my mother I shall never come back.
