posted
So I wonder, do the riddles posed in Scarborough Fair have traditional solutions? I've got some ideas, but I'm wondering if there is a more obscure song with the answers in it, or something of that sort.
quote:Make me a cambric shirt / without no seam or needlework
Can one knit in the cambric pattern, perhaps? Or set up a loom that will weave a tube?
quote:Wash it in yonder dry well / that never sprang water nor rain ever fell
Straightforward. Just fill the well yourself, using a bucket.
quote:Hang it from yonder dry thorn / that never saw blossom since Adam was born
Not clear if 'yonder' refers to a specific thorn, or if you're supposed to find one. If the latter, fairly simple: Make one of metal. Certainly no iron ever blossomed, right?
Now the like courtesies:
quote:Find me an acre of land / between the salt water and salt-sea strand
Simple enough. All dry land is between salt water (going east) and salt-sea strand (going west)!
quote:Plough it with a sheep's horn / and sow it all over with one pepper-corn
Make a metal horn, the musical instrument, and gift it to a sheep; then use it as a plowshare. Grind up the pepper and mix it with a barrel of sand. I seem to recall the latter occurring in some fairy tale or other.
quote:Reap it with a sickle of leather / and gather it up in a rope made of heather
Well, how hard can it be to reap a nonexistent crop? Nor would you need a very long rope to gather it up!
Really, the man's tasks seem rather simple. I'm a bit puzzled by the cambric shirt, though.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Make me a cambric shirt / without no seam or needlework
All you need is a certain amount of cambric fabric and then some other way to fasten it in strategical places. You could use metal tacks, for example. Probably wouldn't be very comfortable to wear though.
quote:Reap it with a sickle of leather
Assuming that there is a something to reap, this should be possible. It should be possible to treat leather in such a way as to make it hard as steel.
Posts: 1100 | Registered: Apr 2008
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
