Scarborough Fair
"Scarborough Fair" is a Northern English ballad in which a singer sets a former lover a list of impossible tasks. Its roots go back to a Scottish ballad printed around 1670, and its haunting tune became world-famous in 1966.
- Origin
- Northern England; related to the Scottish ballad "The Elfin Knight"
- Catalogue
- Roud 12; Child ballad 2 family
- Oldest relative
- "The Elfin Knight", traceable to about 1670
- Best-known tune
- Collected by Ewan MacColl from retired lead miner Mark Anderson in 1947
- Mode
- Dorian
What the song is about
The singer asks someone travelling to Scarborough Fair to carry a message to a lost love: she will be "a true love of mine" again only if she performs a string of impossible tasks, such as sewing a shirt without a seam or needle and finding an acre of land between the sea and the shore. In older versions the tasks go back and forth between two voices, each setting the other something that cannot be done.
The famous refrain of herbs (parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme) appears in 19th-century versions. Its meaning is argued over; it may simply have been a pleasant-sounding line that singers kept.
History
The song grew out of "The Elfin Knight", a ballad of magical riddles between lovers that can be traced to around 1670. By the 19th century, English versions named Scarborough, the North Yorkshire market town. John Lomax recorded a version in 1939, and commercial recordings followed in the 1950s.
The tune most people know came from Mark Anderson, a retired lead miner from whom Ewan MacColl learned it in 1947. Martin Carthy recorded it on his 1965 album after finding it in MacColl and Peggy Seeger's songbook.
Simon & Garfunkel and the Carthy dispute
Paul Simon learned Carthy's arrangement in London in 1965. He combined it with "Canticle", a reworking of his own earlier anti-war song, and Simon & Garfunkel released "Scarborough Fair/Canticle" on Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme in 1966. The credit named only Simon and Garfunkel, leaving out Carthy, which caused a long rift. It ended in 2000, when Simon and Carthy performed the song together at the Hammersmith Apollo in London.
We describe this song rather than print its words: the versions most people know come from later recordings and arrangements.
Chords in A minor
Play it slowly in 3/4. The Dorian sound comes from the D major chord inside an A minor song.
| Am | Am | G | Am | | C | Am | D | Am | | Am | C | G | G | | Am | G | Em | Am |
Fingerpicking suits it best. On dulcimer or tin whistle, the melody sits comfortably in the Dorian mode.
More ballads: Barbara Allen · The Water Is Wide · all folk songs