Scarborough Fair" (Roud 12, Child 2) is a traditional English ballad.[1] The song lists a number of impossible tasks given to a former lover who lives in Scarborough, North Yorkshire.

The lyrics of "Scarborough Fair" appear to have something in common with a Scottish ballad titled "The Elfin Knight",[4] collected by Francis James Child as Child Ballad #2,[5] which has been traced as far back as 1670. 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&quot ; 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&quot .

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarborough_Fair_(ballad)