Scarborough Fair Cover In Middle English BARDCORE

[@silenthunteruk]

Waiting for the vowels to get a shift on.

[@Beorthere]

Blame the French for ruining English.

[@ak5659]

My brain will sit quietly and listen all day to someone wax poetic about the different classes of strong verbs. Mention shifty vowels just once and my brain is screaming in panic and running for the door. I've no idea why...........

[@GaryJohnWalker1]

Ahhh, you southerners

[@jjjackson5183]

Thou mus go ta Londen

[@jjjackson5183]

​@ak5659 😂

[@tanfosbery1153]

A hauntingly beautiful rendition of this English folk song

[@yuriyyashkir8795]

I sing this as one of my bedtime songs to my children. Thank you friend, for giving me a better version to confuse them with!

[@AndrewEdwardBailey]

Perhaps it will bring them nice dreams.

[@RBS.23]

We all seem to be doing that! My daughter sings back to me now, that and the Futhorc chant.

[@alexanderwhittaker5855]

Nice to see you posting so soon again! Your 2024 songs have all been great successes in my opinion. I hope you have similar success in 2025!

[@dustymumbles1716]

The tears for fears one went hard

[@desmondmurray5160]

Tapadh leat mo charaid.....

[@SirBolsón]

Therapist: "It’s okay, phonetically accurate English can't hurt you!" Phonetically accurate English:

[@LuckyOtter_WorldBuilding]

to be fair, there is alot of random poinless E's stroon about doing nothing, (like the first E in Treue), even morE than in Modern English

[@SirBolsón]

@LuckyOtter_WorldBuilding And it's barely intelligible to us...

[@mikewaters2126]

Just wait until you discover old english

[@SirBolsón]

@mikewaters2126 Auld Englisc is the GOAT! Make England Anglosaxon Again! ✊🏼🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@rubeniscool]

@LuckyOtter_WorldBuilding looks like it's a later form of middle english, but go back even 50 years from this pronunciation and you would indeed be pronouncing all the letters lol Where Treue would indeed be spoken as "Tre-u-e". People ended up just.. saying it fast enough that the e and u merged to make "Treow", then "Tru" In terms of spelling though, you have dutch/flemish printers to blame once the printing press started to become popular in Britain. It's a case of "well they spelt it this way here, so it must be the same for this word right? I dunno, I don't care I'll just put a bunch of e's and u's and gh's around, I don't speak english I just do what I'm told" combined with "Uh oh, I made an oopsie, but no one will notice right, right?". And that's essentially the short version of the Standardisation of English throughout the 16th and 17th centuries lol.

[@allanwidner9276]

There's a version of this written in some old songbook where she replies with an equally ridiculous list of tasks for him - then wraps up with "and then he shall have his shirt".

[@ondrejurban2634]

That´s how the czech version goes! And it ends with basically "yea, we should drop this, we don´t even want each other anymore."

[@Excession-h6e]

You have to admit, our ancestors had style. I've never been told to FO so eloquently. Where I come from, the most poetic and polite version of this was: 'sling yer ook, anka'.

[@robertchrisneydixon3478]

Ridiculous? You should put yourself into the contexto

[@robertchrisneydixon3478]

Ridiculous? You should put yourself into the context and mindset of 14th Century England!

[@Excession-h6e]

@@robertchrisneydixon3478 it is still ridiculous.

[@Phillip_Mahoney]

I appreciate you putting lyrics in both languages, cool to see how much languages have changed. Keep it up my guy, Omnus Optant Mundum Regere was a banger and so was this!

[@troodon1096]

Of all the ones you've done, this is the one that most sounds like it was already meant to be this way in the first place. The one thing I've always noticed about Middle English is, if you can get around the pre-vowel shift era, it's like 90% understandable to a Modern English speaker.

[@letusplay2296]

I'm completely unlearned in middle English but Chaucer is pretty readable if you've read some Shakespeare

[@edmondgreen7970]

Yeah but just picture trying to understand someone speaking fast like normal and not slow as in the song.

[@liviemillie6455]

Ahhhh what an awesome Christmas present. I love Middle English (In fact was proud I could easily pronounce it all here) and have always loved this song. Thank you for what you do and Merry Christmas!!

[@HarveysWorldOfRandomness-n7u]

It's similar enough to modern English that I can pretty much understand most of it even without the lyrics shown. Old English however is another thing and I find it all the more interesting.

[@SirBolsón]

"The English language is nobody's special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself." - Derek Walcott. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧📖 Edit: whilst yes, English is the primary languages of ethnicities such as Englishman, Scots and their American descendants, it is the current lingua franca of the world and therefore is the property of the many, whether in imagination or speaking with others.

[@elibunches6044]

🇺🇲

[@quentingilanian8045]

Not really, it belongs to English civilization (the British Isles, North America, and Australia/New Zealand) and mostly to the chief parts of that civilization (England and America).

[@williamdalzell1553]

And it takes whatever words and phrases it likes from other languages. And stores them in the British Museum.

[@croatianwarmaster7872]

Nah, It belongs to the English folk, Teutons who took over Britland back in the 400-500s. The tongue is called English after an ethnic group. And of course to the english diaspora (lowland scotsmen, americans, canadians, australians, new zealanders).

[@chevronlily]

I love this song. I actually translated it into Quenya elvish once and it sounded great. I'd listen to this in basically any language.

[@DepDawg]

🤩 that sounds amazing

[@MortenNilsen-i2g]

I doubt it could survive in old English. 😎😎 {Certified Old Curmudgeon}

[@mcp613]

Its always a good day when we get more middle/old english songs

[@paulmoore7064]

I still remember the opening lines of "The Canterbury Tales" We had to recite them aloud in Middle English when I was in high school.

[@MortenNilsen-i2g]

Do you think that that high school is still teaching Chaucer? 😎😎 {Certified Old Curmudgeon}

[@RBS.23]

They did when I went through school about 20 years ago. However, it was briefly looked at in Middle English and the rest was modern. I imagine by now it will have been replaced by something deeply inferior.

[@ColCam]

This is one of my favorite songs!!!! Love you guys! ❤

[@ragingjaguarknight86]

You've outdone yourself again, Miracle Aligner. Chaucer would be proud. 👏 🥲 The instrumentation is on point, too.

[@kevinmalone7167]

Wait, who the heck had the temerity to copywrong this!? A cover of a folk song? That's frickin' insane! Love your work, regardless, Miracle.

[@kittykatz8469]

I’ve wanted this for so long!! So excited.

[@DailyStruggles-pg9js]

Thank you for posting this, you brought me straight back to my childhood when we sang this in the school choir.

[@Hug_the_Bunny]

This song is very scar-t, very Borough-y, and very fair-y.

[@Rua-Bnuuy_the_Possessed]

Did someone say FAERIES?!?

[@wilfredrowanserilo3234]

one last song before 2025. What a year, and what a song to close it on.

[@imgvillasrc1608]

Someday, I hope there's a Middle English version of "I goes to fight mit Sigel" Turning a Denglisch song into Middle English would be hilarious!

[@blugaledoh2669]

I will like earlier Middle English.

[@gianz73]

Absolutely amazing! It takes me back to my studies of Germanic philology, history of the English language in its various stages, grammar/pronunciation and archaeology/literature. I was so in love with the subject that my professor asked me to go for the PhD and become her assistant. But I was in love with a girl from Lower Saxony (!) and move to that area, were I had the chance to live for a few years and properly learn German (and listen to everyday Plattdeutsch being spoken). No wonder I became a translator...

[@akmayernick3722]

Wow I've never been this early! Nice pick for a song, the language is both similar and foreign

[@perrydowd9285]

The harmony in the background is Paul Simon's Cantangle which he combined with Scarborough Fair to produce Scarborough Fair/Cantangle in 1966. Technically it's a cover of Scarborough Fair/Cantangle by Paul Simon and not public domain.

[@karablak-je6ed]

Two ideas: 1) 50 cent's "P.I.M.P." in medieval latin but it's "P.A.P.A." and it's inspired by Rodrigo "Alexander VI" de Borja. 2) Beastie Boys' "No sleep till Brooklyn" in ancient Greek appropriate to Alexander, but instead of Brooklyn it's India.

[@PeterDanielBerg]

no sleep til babylon

[@DannyBeans]

How about "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" in Ottoman Turkish?

[@karablak-je6ed]

@@DannyBeans Ottomans didn't change it's name to Istanbul though, they kept calling it Konstantiniye. It only got renamed after the revolution.

[@mimisezlol]

Funfact! All know variants of Scarborough fair, including the Scottish Ballad The Elfin Knight, post date middle English by at least 2 centuries.

[@michellebyrom6551]

You mean this is the original and all other covers can be dated no earlier than the Tudors? Interesting.

[@mimisezlol]

@michellebyrom6551 no, sorry for being unclear; the earliest variant is The Elfin Knight. What this means is that the_miracle_aligner needs to do an old Scots cover of it.

[@FredKaffenberger]

Funny that The Elfin Knight turns up in publication so close to John Donne's "Song" which also pairs true love with impossible tasks

[@mimisezlol]

@@FredKaffenberger true love and impossible tasks is probably older than the English language itself.

[@samarnadra]

​@@mimisezlol the myth of Amor and Psyche is from Greco-Roman times

[@dr.plutonus1496]

I was born & brought up in Scarborough. This is lovely 😊

[@nbenefiel]

When I was a kid, my dad used to read me Chaucer in Middle English. By the time I read Canterbury Tales in college it was second nature.

[@crwydryn]

Fascinating to think my Ancestors spoke thus and probably wouldn't understand me today!

[@potatoegirl31]

pre Great Vowel Shift English, sounded soooo delightfully SCOTTISH! 😄

[@michellebyrom6551]

Simon Roper has just posted the beginning of the Lords Prayer in every century starting with 1124. Religious or not, its commonly known for convenient, easy comparison. I believe you'd enjoy it.

[@noodledaddy3234]

Man I love this channel

[@thrashpondopons8348]

What a cool way to end the Year on! Thank You TMA! Good Luck in the New Year!

[@SirBolsón]

“I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected legend…which I could dedicate simply to England...” - JRR TOLKIEN 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

[@fransua21]

I love when you upload so I also get to watch again the old videos. And all star is simply magnificient

[@meaganbailey5672]

Well I've found the song i'll be obsessed with for the next three or four months, thank you :3

[@cavok84]

I’ve listened to this 50 or so times already

[@podchmielony6858]

Brooo that's like the perfect upload I love this song so much!

[@synapsepi9257]

This is just such a lovely rendition. Thank you and all who worked on it

[@jimmyc3238]

Beautifully done!

[@astrocupid3345]

So glad to see you've uploaded

[@user-noZTrains001]

Very beautiful, early to middle age ..? I love it thank you 👍

[@biscoitond4656]

Not me crying because this is one of my favorites songs, thank you!🥺💜

[@thebrowneyesofmandalore]

This is super cool and very impressive. I love this song and love it even more healing it in an older fashion. It makes it even better. Thank you!

[@Sseltraeh89]

It's always a good day when the_miracle_aligner releases a new song

[@seronymus]

It's like this cover was tailor-made for a special friend of mine (who hates it from childhood from being overplayed, but I digress - this is a fresh coat of paint). Beautiful and soothing. Merrie Christ-masse!

[@Spark_Chaser]

"Oh, this is such a beautiful love song." No. No it isn't. He's tasking her with the impossible. He's saying, in very clear terms, "Whatever it is you think we have, it isn't happening. Move on."

[@willmfrank]

In the complete song (it goes on for verse after verse) she sets him a few impossible tasks of her own (can't think of any examples off the top of my head right now; sorry. I do remember the last verse "And when you've done and you've finished your work...Then come to me for your Cambric shirt. And then you'll be a true love of mine.") so they're both saying basically "I'll take the other one back when Hell freezes over."

[@Mirin_the_Witch]

I always had great fun trying to figure out how to actually do that stuff. For example, if you do some weird stuff with a loom, I think you'd be able to get a seamless shirt, and you could even weave in embrodiery-like decoration without a single stitch.

[@taicanium]

@@Mirin_the_Witch It is possible, but requires absolute mastery of the loom. Your day-to-day housewife in the 1400s was not going to accomplish it.

[@markbooth1117]

I love Scarborough Fair as a tune whether that be the S&G version or even the slightly classical version by Sarah Brightman, but that was cool to put it in Middle English.

[@johnwayne8494]

Good stuff my man

[@davidronin1536]

This hits deep. Thank you.

[@helmaschine1885]

I adore how some words become more mutually clear between us germanic languages the further back we go. As a swede, so many sound like swedish to me 😂 Myn & strand are the exact same for the words mine and shore

[@MattChambers-l8k]

The line 'Parsley, sage. rosemary and thyme' was added by Simon and Garfunkel.

[@avb3479]

No it wasn't. It is in Martin Carthy's version, which Simon used as the base of his version, and in some older written versions.

[@michaelwalter3399]

This song has been traced back as far as the 14th Century, and may even be older.

[@MlorenDraymeer]

Please do another song in Orrm's English, I really like the way it sounds in your cover of Running up that hill.

[@Astro_Guy_1]

Really one of the best music youtubers out there. Also, I absolutely love Space Cadets! I'm definetly excited to see what you continue to get up to in the coming years.

[@Aureus_]

Never heard this song but now it is a new M.A Favourite of mine!

[@ansfridaeyowulfsdottir8095]

Simon and Garfunkel covered it decades ago. {:o:O:}

[@Kintsugi23]

This is gorgeous

[@keithelliott3771]

One of first folk songs to include fairie lovers and unachievable tasks... Themes in most English Folk ie listen to Steeleye etc

[@deirdrecaskenette5473]

I was delighted (as a Simon & Garfinkle fan) to find the lyrics in my dad's Oxford book of light verse.

[@aliceharper707]

This is amazing!!

[@EdwardHaas-e8x]

Great! The original song always had a medieval minstrel vibe to me anyway so very appropriate! 😊

[@pricklypear7516]

It had that vibe because Simon and Garfunkel resurrected this very old English ballad and made it popular (again). The first written record we have of it is from the 17th century, but its origins probably are, indeed, medieval.

[@EdwardHaas-e8x]

@pricklypear7516 That makes a lot of sense.

[@argenieuwenhuijzen2557]

Nice use of the ‘Dutch G’ in Skarburugh (Schaarburg?) and the English then still used to ‘woon’ somewhere instead of live. :-)

[@modelermark172]

This was beautiful. Thank you for taking the time and effort to make this for us! 469th Like.

[@AndrewEdwardBailey]

It just works so very well. Excellent.

[@orchardhouse9241]

I love this.

[@Official-TobiFilms]

Hey the mirical aligner? Could you make a cover of "See you again" In classical Latin? That would be so cool! 😄😁

[@coolmikefromcanada]

i got this mixed in my head with the derby ram still lovely

[@normanberg9940]

Stunning

[@HockeyMetalRPG]

I'm using this as background music for my next D&D Adventure.

[@lamusicameencanta7770]

Ah yes. One of my few favorite songs up here.

[@tiancai7177]

This method would work really well with John Barleycorn (if not done already). The song, with Pagan undertones, has deep roots so some version would have existed in the Middle Ages. The modern version by Steve Winwood is the benchmark.

[@MortenNilsen-i2g]

Very well done! 😎😎 {Certified Old Curmudgeon}

[@BR2225_]

Thanks this one is a banger!!!!❤

[@skyintatters]

The song is traditional but Simon plagiarized the arrangement from English folk singer Martin Carthy and the record didn't say the song was traditional, so it looked like Simon and Garfunkel created it themselves and many still think so.

[@DevonExplorer]

That was really lovely. Although if I was that young lady in Scarborough I would tell him to get lost. (I was going to be clever and write get lost in middle english, but unfortunately it was the same as ours, apart from a different letter for T, which I haven't got on my keyboard).

[@Rua-Bnuuy_the_Possessed]

Ooo, I love this! I'd figure this song would be good in a Celtic language, but this also works I think. Idk, I hadn't yet researched into whether Scarborough Fair is traditionally Celtic or if it's Anglo-Saxon/English.

[@toddberkely6791]

why would it be celtic?

[@DannyBeans]

According to legend, it was written by Henry VIII. Probably not true, but that's the general time and place it probably originated from.

[@willmfrank]

@@DannyBeans I wonder, though, if Henry composed the music, of if he simply wrote new lyrics to an existing melody...or if, as you say, any of it is true at all.

[@zs4853]

Check out 'The Elfin Knight'. It's a Scots (southern Scottish, so not Celtic), probably older version of the ballad. I like Ewan MacColl's performance. Scarborough Fair/Elfin Knight is a traditional Scots and northern English ballad. Very unlikely to be written by a king. Elfin Knight seems thematically related to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

[@DannyBeans]

@@willmfrank Yeah, about that . . . it's completely untrue, because my dumb ass conflated it with the myth of "Greensleeves." As far as I can tell, there's no such legend about "Scarborough Fair."

[@ulquiorraneliel2]

Increíble cómo siempre

[@rossdavies8250]

I am not sure how much truth there is in it, but I read somewhere that this song was originally a mnemonic for making a love potion.

[@seaborgium919]

my favorite part are the words that are the same. and i do mean that genuinely. Some of our words are almost a thousand years old.

[@10hawell]

Imagine going back in thyme, singing it, comming back and there's a 1000 verses made by bards over the years.

[@gabriellehitchins9182]

Don’t have to imagine it this song has at least 3 versions and hundreds of verses existing

[@elias.t]

lmao, this song already has versions traced back to 1670 and it's probably even older. Maybe some bard already sang it exactly as in this video, for all we know.

[@Dowlphin]

From what I could gather, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme are herbs that were used to treat the Bubonic Plague. This will be relevant for the meaning of the lyrics. Allegedly the same herbs were also used for abortion / contraception. P.S.: Maybe thyme would have sufficed, since they say it heals all wounds.

[@DannyBeans]

That line's only been definitively dated to the 19th century, though.

[@wherami]

One of my favorite songs all my life

[@powellmountainmike8853]

I believe that the final E was pronounced in middle English. (English Major who studied both Old English and Middle English)

[@TenorCantusFirmus]

Considering the tune is believed to have a Renaissance or Late-Medieval origin, this is perfect. The company of Caucher's "Canterbury Tales" might have sung it. Are you ever going to consider doing something in Old Italian (the likes of the Language of Dante, 14.th Century)? It might be interesting to cover some famous Italian song using it.

[@theoremus]

I like the pronunciation of Middle English.

[@soumajitsen1395]

Awesome cover - the dissonance between Modern and Middle English was a bit jarring to me, I just realised that English is a lovechild of Germanic and Romance languages. Great job, once again! Wish you a Happy New Year in advance! P.S.: Are those links in the description still functioning?

[@JohnJohnson-cn9fh]

great stuff,love this........................jpj

[@cavok84]

Man your recent songs have been amazing! Did you stop giving a date range on the language due to the difficulty in narrowing down a specific dialect? Just curious. Either way, I absolutely love your songs. I think my gf is over you though 😂

[@jakedee4117]

So beautiful, so sad.😍😢

[@johnsmith8906]

This is amazing!!!!

[@hiccups55]

Medieval song indeed👍

[@davytomei8734]

I love these. Please do Grateful Dead song St Stephan next please

[@Nocturnalday]

If you ever do a cover of an Epic the Musical song, I would like to suggest "Thunder Bringer" in Attic Greek. It's my favorite, so I think it would also sound really cool like that

[@CrustalScatter]

Wow it's only been 12 days and you now uploaded great content

[@salimosman8188]

My favourite song 🎵 ❤

[@mason8064]

i am fundamentally requiring a song sung in Gothic at one point or another. big fan of these recent songs!!!

[@janegreen9340]

B-H- he doesn’t want much does he? We’ve always been good at multitasking but really!

[@recurvestickerdragon]

this is how I've always imagined the song

[@edspace.]

This is quite an interesting one since if it were just the writings it would be harder to understand but when sung it actually sounds pretty clear to me. Granted my British roots are in England and Scotland or to be more precise the Highlands, Isle of Mann, Lancashire and the West Country but it sound more like an accent shift to my hearing.

[@MarttiSuomivuori]

So many ways to say "never!"

[@SirBolsón]

MERRY CHRISTMAS 🍻 🎄