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As well as being one of Simon & Garfunkels biggest hits, Scarborough Fair is a traditional English fair, as well as a traditional English ballad.

The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform for him a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam and then washing it in a dry well, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back.

Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished.

As the versions of the ballad known under the title "Scarborough Fair" are usually limited to the exchange of these impossible tasks, many suggestions concerning the plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is a song about the Plague.

In fact, "Scarborough Fair" appears to derive from an older (and now obscure) Scottish ballad, The Elfin Knight (Child Ballad #2), which has been traced to 1670 and may well be earlier. In this ballad, an elf threatens to abduct a young woman to be his lover unless she can perform an impossible task ("For thou must shape a sark to me / Without any cut or heme, quoth he"); she responds with a list of tasks which he must first perform ("I have an aiker of good ley-land / Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand"), thus evading elfin rape.

As the song spread, it was adapted, modified, and rewritten to the point that dozens of versions existed by the end of the 18th century, although only a few are typically sung nowadays. The references to "Scarborough Fair" and the refrain "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" date to nineteenth century versions, and the refrain may have been borrowed from the ballad Riddles Wisely Expounded, (Child Ballad #1), which has a similar plot.

Much thought has gone into attempts to explain the refrain "parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme", although, as this is found only in relatively recent versions, there may not be much to explain. The oldest versions of "The Elfin Knight" contain the refrain "my plaid away, my plaid away, the wind shall not blow my plaid away" (or variations thereof), which may reflect the original emphasis on the lady's chastity. Slightly younger versions often contain one of a group of related refrains:

Sober and grave grows merry in time
Every rose grows merry with time
There's never a rose grows fairer with time

These are usually paired with "Once she was a true love of mine" or some variant. "Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme" may simply be the result of an attempt to fill in forgotten portions of one of the above, or the herbs might be a {mondegreen} of the original.

In "Scarborough Fair" the herbs may be a veiled message for the girl where the man is explaining why she should come back to him (if she overcomes the five impossible tasks):

parsley: I'm yours.
sage: I'm dependable.
rosemary: Remember me.
thyme: I want you to bear my children.

On the other hand, elaborate theories have been proposed concerning the symbolism of these herbs. Parsley, used to this day as a digestive aid, was said to take away the bitterness, and medieval doctors took this in a spiritual sense as well. Sage has been known to symbolize strength for thousands of years. Rosemary represents faithfulness, love and remembrance, and the custom of a bride wearing twigs of rosemary in her hair is still practiced in England and several other European countries today. Thyme symbolizes courage, and during the medieval era, knights would often wear images of thyme on their shields when they went to combat. The speaker in the song, by mentioning these four herbs, wishes his true love mildness to soothe the bitterness which is between them, strength to stand firm in the time of their being apart from each other, faithfulness to stay with him during this period of loneliness and paradoxically courage to fulfill her impossible tasks and to come back to him by the time she can.

Also, Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are the ingredients of a love spell that was very popular in the Middle Ages.

Another theory considers the magical significance of the herbs. Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme have all been closely associated with death and used as charms against the evil eye. In The Elfin Knight (of which Scarborough Fair is a version), an elf sets impossible tasks to a maid, and her replies determine whether she will fall into his clutches or not. Francis Child suggested that the elf was an interloper from another ballad, Lady Isabel and the Elf-Knight, and that he should rightly be a mortal man, but as Ann Gilchrist points out, "why the use of the herb refrain except as an indication of something more than mortal combat?". Sir Walter Scott in his notes on Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border recalled hearing a ballad of "a fiend... paying his addresses to a maid but being disconcerted by the holy herbs she wore in her bosom", and Lucy Broadwood goes so far as to suggest that the refrain might be the survival of an incantation against such a suitor (which would fit well with the plot of "The Elfin Knight").

An interesting connection between all of the herbs mentioned in the refrain of Scarborough Fair is that they are all contraceptive and abortifacient plants, members of the mint family. The insertion of these plants into a ballad about love, ploughed fields, and a thorn tree which never blossoms may have been a way for people to remember the names of commonly available antifertility herbs at a time when many people, especially women, were illiterate.

The arrangement made famous by Simon and Garfunkel's Scarborough Fair/Canticle originated in the late 20th century.

Paul Simon learned it in 1965 in London from Martin Carthy and set it in counterpoint with Canticle, a reworking of Simon's 1963 song "The Side Of a Hill" with new, anti-war lyrics.

It was the title track of the 1966 album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme, and was released as a single after featuring on the soundtrack to The Graduate in 1968.

The copyright credited only Simon and Garfunkel as the authors, causing ill-feeling on the part of Carthy, who felt the "traditional" source should have been credited.

This rift remained until Simon invited Carthy to duet the song with him at a London concert in 2000.

Prior to Simon's learning the song, Bob Dylan borrowed the melody and several lines from Carthy's arrangement to create his "Girl from the North Country," which appeared on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan and Nashville Skyline.

Some people know the version of this song done by Sarah Brightman. Though she omits most of the lyrics that are given above, the lyrics that are in her song are reproduced here accurately.

Legacy

Other artists who have performed the song include but are not limited to: Delfonics, Vicky Leandros (who also recorded a French, German and Greek version), Brian Klauss (on his self-produced album Folksinger), Hannah Fury, Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, Wes Montgomery, Al Di Meola, Herbie Hancock, Nana Mouskouri, Queensrÿche, Martin Carthy, Marianne Faithfull, Harry Belafonte, Roger Whittaker, Frank Underwood, Midori, Medwyn Goodall, Johnny Dean, Urban Trad, the Mediaeval Baebes, Triniti, Hayley Westenra (with Celtic Woman),Bert Jansch, K.I.A., Luar na Lubre, Mägo de Oz (whose Spanish version carries the title "Duerme... (canción de cuna)"), Aya Matsuura, the Italian singer and composer Angelo Branduardi and, most recently, a young Japanese artist named Yuki Otake (whose version starts each stanza with the English lyrics, most of which are listed above, and then finishes with a Japanese translation).

Lesley Garrett performed a traditional / Celtic style version of the song, with male background vocals on her 2002 album The Singer.

Two interpretations of Scarborough Fair: "Scarborough Street Fair" and "Michael's Scarborough Fair" (an instrumental), appear on the soundtrack to the adult animated film Heavy Traffic, along with the Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66 version.

It also seems to have heavily inspired the Stone Roses song "Elizabeth My Dear", whose melody is very similar.

The song was also recorded by the Dutch band Brainbox, Sea Level, the Allman Brothers Band offshoot formed by Chuck Leavell, Jai Johanny Johanson, Lamar Williams and Jimmy Nalls recorded an instrumental version on their 1977 debut album. It was also recorded by British singer Amy Nuttall from her debut album Best Days. Carly Simon included the tune on her 2007 album Into White.

In the Anonymous Rex series of books by Eric Garcia, the main characters (who are all heavily-evolved dinosaurs) are addicted to common herbs such as parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. As main character Vincent Rubio comments, for them, "Scarborough Fair" is the ultimate drug song.

The traditional carol "We Three Kings" holds the same meter as "Scarborough Fair", with slightly different syncopation. The two songs can be sung to each others' tunes.

While the version of the melody depicted above is in a minor key, some versions are in Dorian mode, recognizable by the raised 6th tone (the "RY" of "Rosemary" in "parsley, sage, rosemaRY and thyme...").

Besides the many things the "parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme" symbolized above, many use this set of herbs in spaghetti sauce.

A version of this song was used on The Muppet Show featuring Paul Simon. In it, Miss Piggy sang the "parsley sage rosemary and thyme" part, as her character in the fair scene was apparently hocking it (i.e., selling the herbs to get out of debt.)

Some versions of the song begin "Where are you going..."

In Futurama, "Cylon and Garfunkel" sing this song in a benefit concert for broken robots.

The song appears briefly in the 2003 movie "Lost in Translation" when Bill Murray is at the bar; and it's performed by Catherine Lambert.

In the Sangreal Trilogy by Jan Siegel, a version of the Elfin Knight legend is used to motivate the character of Caliban. The Scarbarrow is a hill which would open on certain nights of the year and the fairyfolk would steal the souls of the dead. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are herbs to shield the graveyard inhabitants from the charms of the fae.

The theme for Kagome from the anime series InuYasha contains portions of the melody of "Scarborough Fair."

The first verse of Scarborough Fair appears in The Mighty Boosh Series 1 episode 7: Electro as the song of Vince Noir and Leroy's GlamFolk band.

In the online RPG Kingdom of Loathing, Sauceror characters are labeled as "Parsley Enchanters", "Sage Sages", "Rosemary Diviners", and "Thyme Wizards" in levels 3, 4, 5, and 6 respectively.

In the Homestar Runner Strongbad E-Mail "do over", Strong Bad hits Homestar over the head with a keyboard while saying "Don't you ever dress up as the cheat again! Parsley, Sage, Rosmary, and Thyme!".

The song appears in the movie the Graduate (1967) starring Dustin Hoffman.