Scarborough Fair a traditional English ballad.

my dad Brian fisher and his friend plays the song Scarborough Fair. transponded from sheet music as they go. 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").

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.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• fishers
• brian
• fisher
• bill
• sabine
• Scarborough
• Fair
• traditional
• English
• ballad.

[seaxwielder]

I like the instruments used,even with the cello being slightly off key.

It works!

[snookumsjack]

Thank you-enjoyed it very much.

[flamedady]

Thanks, but it was really a one-off, we , in the past concentrated on Trumpet +Tuba, and have got some great things, all I have to do is Upload them? Help, tell me how, PLEASE

[Rhiannonbirds]

sounds good!

[flamedady]

Yes, sorry, we were using an older type of camcorder, which we had no controll over

[flamedady]

This was a one off, we just picked a tune and went for it, playing from memory.

[InfernalSeraphim]

pretty cool...do agree wid the guy below:D

[bloodocean07]

nice song

the battery and play and lp and time its annoyin and gets in the way