Scarborough Fair Sheet Music Piano Sheet Music

Lyrics Scarborough Fair Traditional

Scarborough Fair

Are you going to Scarborough Fair:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.

On the side of a hill in the deep forest green.
Tracing of sparrow on snow-crested brown.
Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

Tell her to make me a cambric shirt:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Without no seams nor needle work,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

On the side of a hill in the sprinkling of leaves.
Washes the grave with silvery tears.
A soldier cleans and polishes a gun.
Sleeps unaware of the clarion call.

Tell her to find me an acre of land:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
Between the salt water and the sea strands,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

War bellows blazing in scarlet battalions.
Generals order their soldiers to kill.
And to fight for a cause they have long ago forgotten.

Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
And gather it all in a bunch of heather,
Then she’ll be a true love of mine.

Are you going to Scarborough Fair:
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.
Remember me to one who lives there.
She once was a true love of mine.

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“Scarborough Fair Sheet Music” It is a traditional English song, author unknown. The name Scarborough Fair, refers to Scarborough Fair, which in medieval times represented one of the largest commercial reference points in England.

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 about the Great Plague of the late Middle Ages.

The lyrics of “Scarborough Fair” appear to have something in common with an obscure Scottish ballad, “The Elfin Knight” (Child Ballad #2) by Francis James Child, which has been traced as far back as 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 that he must first perform (“I have an aiker of good ley-land / Which lyeth low by yon sea-strand”).

The melody is in Dorian mode and is very typical of the middle English period.
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 the traditional English fair, “Scarborough Fair” and the refrain “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme” date to 19th century versions and the refrain may have been borrowed from the ballad Riddles Wisely Expounded, (Child Ballad #1), which has a similar plot. A number of older versions refer to locations other than Scarborough Fair, including Wittingham Fair, Cape Ann, “twixt Berwik and Lyne”, etc. Many versions do not mention a place-name and are often generically titled (“The Lovers’ Tasks”, “My Father Gave Me an Acre of Land”, etc.).

Source Wikipedia

Traditional Sheet Music
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