Mr Zimmerman did indeed learn Scarborough Fair from the singing of Martin Carthy - by taping it in the Troubadour. Paul Simon was forever asking MC to sing ScarborO Fair and I seem to remember that it was Davy Graham's sister who showed him the chords. Though in defence of PS, you have to acknowledge that it was a pretty neat idea to combine the tune with Canticle.

As for the song's collection on the North Yorkshire coast, that slapper Lucy Broadwood (she of the notoriously hard-to-tune piano-making family) got it from William Moat in probably just as patronising manner as Kate Lee extracted her "lower-class finds". Robin and Barry Dransfield got in from John Sheridan, an Irish singer living in Harrogate, in 1962 as I said but I can't say if this was a connection or a coincidence.