Email from Elizabeth Block, a longtime resident of Toronto:

Your (Digital Tradition) entry for this song says

Whether the Scarborough referred to is the one in the British
Isles or the wasteland near Toronto (known locally as Scarberia)
we don't know.


We DO know. It's Scarborough, Ontario, now part of Toronto, but in 1840 it was farmland. There might have been a little village there, but nothing more. Scarborough, UK is not three thousand miles "frae hame," and it's not in Canada.
Yeah, we do sometimes call it Scarberia. "What's the difference between Scarborough and yogurt? Yogurt contains active culture."

At least you didn't say it was written by Stan Rogers!

Elizabeth

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Here's the Traditional Ballad Index entry for this song:

Scarborough Settler's Lament

DESCRIPTION: "Away wi' Canada's muddy creeks And Canada's fields of pine. Your land of wheat is a goodly land, but ah! it isna mine!" The Scottish settler thinks back with sadness to the home he left behind -- but awakes in Canada, "three thousand miles 'frae hame.'"
AUTHOR: Sandy Clandenning
EARLIEST DATE: 1960
KEYWORDS: emigration homesickness Canada
FOUND IN: Canada
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Fowke/Mills/Blume-CanadasStoryInSong, pp. 94-95, "A Scarborough Settler's Lament" (1 text, 1 tune)
Fowke/MacMillan-PenguinBookOfCanadianFolkSongs 29, "The Scarborough Settler's Lament" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT, SCARSET*
Roud #4521
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Spancil Hill" (theme)
cf. "That Dear Old Land" (theme)
cf. "The Glenshesk Waterside" (theme)
cf. "Farewell to Sweet Glenravel" (theme)
cf. "Och, Och, Eire, O!" (theme)
cf. "The Call of Home" (theme)
cf. "A Shamrock from Tiree" (theme)
cf. "Farewell to the Banks of the Roe" (theme)
cf. "Banks of the Roe" (theme)
cf. "The Shamrock Shore (The Maid of Mullaghmore)" (theme)
cf. "Maguire's Brae" (theme)
cf. "Sweet Loughgiel" (theme)
cf. "Juberlane" (theme)
cf. "Glen O'Lee" (theme)
cf. "Sweet Glenbush" (theme)
cf. "The Hills of Donegal" (theme)
cf. "O, Derry, Derry, Dearie Me" (theme)
cf. "Cloughwater/The Shamrock Shore" (theme)
cf. "The Little Old Mud Cabin on the Hill" (theme)
cf. "Norah McShane" (theme)
cf. "Bonnie Lyndale" (theme)
cf. "The Song of the Emigrant" (theme(
NOTES [35 words]: Sandy Clandenning settled in Scarborough (near Toronto) in 1840. He set these words to the first half of the tune "Of A' the Airts the Wind Can Blaw." It has also been sung to "The Irish Emigrant's Lament." - RBW
File: FMB094

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