BalladEnglishtraditional; this version printed 1916
Scarborough Fair
Scarborough Fair is a traditional English ballad in which a singer sets a former lover a series of impossible tasks. It descends from the old Scottish ballad The Elfin Knight, and its refrain of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme is one of the best-known lines in English folk song.
- Written by
- Traditional
- In the video
- Martin Carthy
- Context
- Traditional English ballad, a descendant of "The Elfin Knight" (Child 2); text from Cecil Sharp's One Hundred English Folksongs (1916)
- Year
- traditional; this version printed 1916
- Language
- English
Scarborough Fair lyrics
Seven verses as printed in Sharp's 1916 collection. Lines written for modern popular recordings are not included.
Where are you going? To Scarborough Fair? Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, Remember me to a bonny lass there, For once she was a true lover of mine.
Tell her to make me a cambric shirt, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, Without any needle or thread work’d in it, And she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to wash it in yonder well, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, Where water ne’er sprung nor a drop of rain fell, And she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to plough me an acre of land, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, Between the sea and the salt sea strand, And she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to plough it with one ram’s horn, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, And sow it all over with one peppercorn, And she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, And tie it all up with a tomtit’s feather, And she shall be a true lover of mine.
Tell her to gather it all in a sack, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, And carry it home on a butterfly’s back, And then she shall be a true lover of mine.
The story behind Scarborough Fair
The riddle-ballad of impossible tasks is very old: Francis James Child printed many versions under the title The Elfin Knight (Child Ballad No. 2). Over time some English variants named a market fair as the setting, and the Yorkshire port of Scarborough, which held a long trading fair in the Middle Ages, became the best-known.
Folk-song collectors in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries noted several Scarborough Fair versions from singers in northern England. The text here is the one printed by Cecil Sharp in One Hundred English Folksongs (1916).
In the 1960s the English folk singer Martin Carthy performed his own arrangement, which became the basis of many later recordings. This page carries only the traditional words, not lines added in modern popular recordings.
What Scarborough Fair means
Each verse sets a task that cannot be done: a shirt made without needle or thread, washed in a dry well, an acre ploughed between the sea and the shore with a ram's horn and sown with a single peppercorn. Only if she manages all this will she be his true love again.
The impossibility is the point. In older versions the challenge is answered by equally impossible counter-tasks, a battle of wits between two lovers. Here the list reads as a gentle, wistful way of saying the relationship is over.
The herb refrain may simply be a rhythmic burden, though many listeners hear in it the old associations of these plants with remembrance, love and faithfulness.
Quick facts
- The song descends from "The Elfin Knight", Child Ballad No. 2.
- Cecil Sharp printed this version in One Hundred English Folksongs (1916).
- Scarborough, in Yorkshire, held a large trading fair from the Middle Ages.
- Martin Carthy's 1960s arrangement shaped many later recordings.