Nancy Werlin's novel Impossible combines the haunting lyrics of Scarborough Fair and the legend of the Elfin Knight to tell an original and modern story of a girl's struggle to release herself and her unborn daughter from an evil curse. Both elements have roots in British history.
Scarborough Fair and the Ballad
King Henry III of England granted a charter for a fair for the seaside town of Scarborough on January 22, 1253. The Scarborough Fair was to last 45 days, from August 15 to September 29, much longer than any other fair of medieval times. Being such an important event, the fair attracted many tradesmen as well as entertainers and pleasure-seekers from many different areas as far as Norway and Denmark.
"Scarborough Fair" is also the title of a traditional English ballad. The song tells the tale of a young man, who tells the listener to ask his former lover to perform a series of impossible tasks, such as making him a shirt without a seam, adding that if she completes these tasks he will take her back. Often the song is sung as a duet, with the woman then giving her lover a series of equally impossible tasks, promising to give him his seamless shirt once he has finished. As the versions of the ballad known under the title "Scarborough Fair" are usually limited to the exchange of these impossible tasks, many interpretations of the plot have been proposed, including the hypothesis that it is about the Plague. However, the ballad itself seems to be based on an earlier Scottish version, "The Elfin Knight".
The Elfin Knight
"The Elfin Knight" is a traditional Scottish folk ballad. The oldest versions tell the tale of an elf that threatens to abduct a young girl unless she performs a series of impossible tasks. The girl is able to escape the elf by responding with an equally impossible list of tasks of her own. In other versions of the ballad the situation is reversed, with the elf proposing a series of impossible tasks that the woman must complete to become his lover. Her response is to propose her own list of impossible tasks, gaining a supernatural love.
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