Keeping in mind the available lore, here is one possible translation: He also passes along a little metaphorical token of his feelings in the form of the bouquet: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme. Of course she can’t prove her love, not on these terms, but this fact is lost on our hero. He tells her that her chances of getting him back are nil unless she can prove her love for him by doing impossible tasks. Our hero is in denial of these basic facts, and when he hears that his best friend is coincidentally going to Scarborough Fair, he gives him a message to pass on to her. She is no longer interested in him, and has in fact left him for another. So, given this new information, one might perhaps construct a scenario such as the following: But more importantly, it is said to provoke lust and love. The herb has been associated with witchcraft in England and also with death since ancient times. “Sow parsley, sow babes,” was an old expression. Parsley: It was once said that only witches and pregnant women could grow this herb.But it also has the meaning of remembrance, as Shakespeare noted in Hamlet, “There’s rosemary for remembrance.” Often used in love potions, it is also said to attract elves. The plant was used in wedding ceremonies in place of rings as a sign of fidelity, and carried by newlyweds and wedding guests as a charm for fertility. Rosemary: Was once held to represent love and faithfulness.It was also used magically to honor weddings and to ensure domestic harmony. Sage: Sage was once used to help childless couples conceive, and is associated with wisdom and longevity in plant lore.A woman wearing thyme was once thought to be irresistible. A more upscale lady of Medieval times would embroider a flowering thyme sprig along with a visiting bee as a token to be given to a favored knight. Thyme: Girls once used thyme sprigs in ceremonies to discover the identity of their true loves.Looking deep into the magical lore currently available online, the modern herbalist discovered much about parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme that she did not previously know. Begging the question of why she’s in Scarborough Fair to begin with if she likes him even a little bit. In short, it seems like all she has to do if she wants him back is perform a few garden-variety, herculean tasks of the sort usually doled out by Zeus or unusually mean witches. Pondering this question, the modern herbalist noticed that in between all this dictatorial preaching was the refrain, “parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.” Aha! Perhaps there is the clue to his meaning.Īnd I must know she’s a true love of mine. Does he love her, or is he kissing her off? Have her make me a cambric shirt, indeed.

So much for the idea that this is a straightforward love song. In this message, he instructs her to perform 5 impossible tasks as prerequisites to getting him back – everything from sewing a shirt with no seams to finding him some land between the sand and the sea. Nevertheless, we as herbalists are in a prime position to figure it out.įirst, the hero of the song gets a third party to take a lengthy message to his ex-lover who lives in another town. What seems on the surface to be a perfectly innocent folk song turns out to be riddle of devilish complexity. So begins the old Simon and Garfunkel song “Scarborough Fair,” borrowed from the Elizabethans, and a fine lot they were.

Rosemary and thyme