Wannaskan Almanac for Tuesday, April 5, 2022 It isn't about Thyme

Most people know a melancholy song called "Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme".  Unfortunately for those people (including myself until recently) they are wrong.  There is no song by that name.  The real name of the song is "Scarborough Fair".  

Simon and Garfunkel released Scarborough Fair in the early 1960's.  The song is a traditional English folk song from the Middle Ages.  It describes an old fair in Scarborough, Yorkshire. This was a market fair consisting of traders, merchants and other vendors.  It started sometime in the 14th century and continued to take place until the 18th century.

If you think that the song describes some secret recipe involving parsley...etc...you would be wrong.  It is a love song.  The lyrics of Scarborough Fair describes unreciprocated love. The longing for returned love is felt throughout the song, creating a perfect medieval love story in the process. A young man gives some impossible tasks to his lady with the condition that she would have to finish those to be able to come back to him. In return, the lady also requests equally impossible things from the man, with the condition that she would complete her tasks when he would complete his.

There are many different versions of the song.  One has the young man asking his lady to sew a cambric seamless shirt, which is simply not feasible because cambric was a light fabric utilized for making lace and needlework. Then he asks her to search for a dry well to wash the shirt. The lady’s tasks for the man include finding an acre of land between sand and sea, to plant peppercorn in it after plowing with a ram’s horn, and the crafting of a leather sickle with peacock feathers. 

Artist portrayal of Scarborough fair

Some interesting facts about the song:

• It was included in the movie "The Graduate" starring Dustin Hoffman.  
• Some experts have the theory that the song is meant as a riddle for the composer’s lover.
• Some people think the young man is actually dead as the four herbs of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme were once associated with death.
• The four herbs are actually ingredients for a love potion used by witches in medieval times.
• The line listing the herbs could also be simply to accommodate a line forgotten over time, and therefore not mean anything at all. The herbs did have importance at the time the song was made though.

To be honest I liked the song a lot more before I realized it was about more than spices.  It did make me think though.  I wondered how often I demand the impossible from those in my life.  That shopping list of expected perfection seems to be for everyone except...me.  I think I will listen to that song again and let some of my unreal expectations go.  Perhaps they will end up in Scarborough Fair...traded for a pinch of parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.