Buy Your Own Shirt

I've been on a Irish/ Celtic music kick all day. This doesn't happen as often as it used to XD

I have a considerable collection in my iTunes library, though finding more has been rather difficult. I'm not sure what the count is off the top of my head, but I'd guess I have somewhere around 200 Irish/Celtic songs. [EDIT] - 158 in fact.

People generally have two reactions when I tell them about my taste in music:

1. "ME TOO!" :DDD
2. "Eh?"

For the most part, I prefer instrumental pieces:

 

 (This was my favorite song for... quite a while actually. At least year.)

But I've been building a greater appreciation for songs with actual lyrics in the past few years. And there are even some more modern bands I've come to love:

I dunno; I've always found something really appealing in how ancient and timeless Celtic music sounds. I enjoy the more modern stuff too, but it just doesn't evoke the same imagery of castles half hidden in the fog and acres of green as far as you can see. There's something tribal and evokative in the atmosphere it creates for me.

Which doesn't really segue into the story idea I've had floating around, but it's close enough.

Everyone always thinks of the Simon & Garfunkel song, but Scarborough Fair has very old roots, dating back to at least the 1600's, if not even earlier. And to be honest, the S&G version is one of my least favorites :/ The original version has possible connections to a Child Ballad called The Elfin Knight (Child #2) and was likely meant to be sung as a duet - most are familiar with the three tasks the man sets in his verses, but there are versions in which the woman answers back with three taks of her own. That's what I'm interested in.

I have seen a novel length version called Impossible by Nancy Werlin, but while it did have it's moments, I didn't care for the story as a whole. The idea of incorporating a family curse was a neat one and gave the plot a sense of urgency (no spoilers there; it's all on the back cover), but I could have seen it going in an entirely different direction. Honestly, a curse seems kinda unnecessary.

The tasks:

1. Make a cambric shirt without using any needle work.
2. Wash it in yonder well, where never spring water or rain ever fell.
3. Dry it on yonder thorn which never bore blossom since Adam was born.

The response:

1. Buy an acre of land between the salt water and the sea strand.
2. Plot it with a ram horn and sow with one peppercorn.
3. Shear it with a sickle of leather and bind it up with a peacock feather.
4. Thrash it on yonder wall and never let one corn of it fall.

THEN he can have his cambric shirt.

Maybe it's me, but I have a rather hilarious image of a fantastic love/ hate relationship between these two XD I like the idea of proving your love with small tasks and having them get bigger and bigger and more and more impossible and doing them all anyway while the other party foams at the mouth with rage.