Scarborough Fair: A Song History

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"Scarborough Fair" belongs to an old family of riddle songs that Francis James Child grouped under "The Elfin Knight" (Child 2); the Roud index lists it as number 12. The family can be traced to an undated broadside generally placed in the 1670s.[1][2] The Traditional Ballad Index judges the familiar herb refrain to be a later addition, though one already linked to the song in Gammer Gurton's Garland (1784). The fair that gives the song its name is older still: the Ballad Index cites a royal charter granted to it in 1161.[1] In 1891 the collector Frank Kidson reported a version that he said had been heard from a street singer in Whitby, Yorkshire, some decades earlier.[3]

Photochrom of Scarborough's South Bay from the cliff path, about 1890-1900

Scarborough, South Bay, Yorkshire, England. Photochrom print, Detroit Publishing Co., about 1890–1900. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. The seaside town whose medieval fair gave the song its name.

The variant behind the famous recordings goes back to Mark Anderson, a retired lead miner of Middleton-in-Teesdale, from whom Ewan MacColl noted the song in 1947. MacColl and Peggy Seeger later printed it in their songbook The Singing Island (1960).[2][4] Martin Carthy, who probably learned it from that book, recorded it with his own guitar arrangement on his first album in 1965.[2][3] Paul Simon took up Carthy's arrangement, and Simon & Garfunkel made it the title track of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme in 1966.[3]

The song's success led to a long rift. According to a 2010 Yorkshire Post profile, Simon was widely believed to have kept the earnings, and the two did not speak for many years; Carthy later learned that the royalties had gone to a publisher rather than to Simon. The two made peace, and Simon afterwards invited Carthy to sing the song with him on stage in London.[5]

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Sources

  1. Traditional Ballad Index: "The Elfin Knight [Child 2]".
  2. Just Another Tune (Jürgen Kloss): "Scarborough Fair" / "The Cambric Shirt".
  3. Mainly Norfolk: "Scarborough Fair / The Elfin Knight".
  4. Folkinfo (Mainly Norfolk): "Scarborough Fair (Singing Together version)".
  5. Yorkshire Post: "Nice folk, but no fair deal".