I first learned Scarborough Fair from Ewan MacColl's version on the Riverside LP of Matching Songs of US and UK. It was followed by Peggy Seeger's rendition of The Cambric Shirt which began with the line, "going to Lynn." The second half,the response, begins, "Where are you going, I'm going to Cape Ann..."

Peggy said her version was from the Southern Appalachians. I later found versions of the Lynn/Cape Ann song in Vol.1 of Flanders' Vermont collection.

But what struck me most about Peggy's version was the fact that Lynn and Cape Ann are next to each other on the North Shore of Massachusetts.

This merely a point of interest. I'll leave it to others to determine how and why an old English ballad migrated to New England and then further afield to points West and South - Tom