Cambrick Shirt- lady (Corn) 1867 Robert Hunt
[My title. From the London magazine Athenaeum. On February 9, 1867 p. 198 as reported by Jurgen Kloss. "The collector of Popular Romances Of England" (Robert Hunt) who had published a book with this title in 1865.
R. Matteson 2018]
Kloss reports: The stanza about the "handless man" clearly doesn't belong in this context. In fact it was first[1] used only in 1843 by George Henry Borrow in his book The Bible in Spain (Vol. 2, p. 312, here at Google Books) and there is no evidence that it ever was traditional in England. How it came to be appended to this fragment of "Cambric Shirt" is not known.
Cambrick Shirt- Robert Hunt received this text by Feb. 1867 from a "lady from Cornwall" who herself had heard it "when a child" from an "old woman of St. Ives, - a district beyond railways, - around which still linger many of the old-world customs, and much of the lore which was the stock-in-trade of the Cornish droll-teller".
Can you make me a cambrick shirt,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Without any seam or needle work?
And I will be a true lover of thine.
Can you wash it in yonder well,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Where never sprung water nor rain never fell?
And I will be a true lover of thine.
Can you dry it on yonder thorn,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Which never bore blossom since Adam was born?
And I will be a true lover of thine.
Now you have asked me questions three,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
As many wonders I'll tell to thee
If thou wilt be a true lover of mine.
A handless man a letter did write[2],
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme;
And he who read it had lost his sight,
And thou shalt be a true lover of mine.
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1. From Dictionary of Phrase and Fable by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer - 1898; Dr. Whewell's riddle is—
A headless man had a letter (o) to write,
He who read it (naught) had lost his sight;
The dumb repeated it (naught) word for word,
And deaf was the man who listened and heard (naught).
2. An adaptation of an ancient riddle.