Mrs. Francis Habergham

Mrs Francis Habergham AKA Mrs Fleetwood Habergham, of Habergham Hall, nr. Padiham, Lancashire is the author of poem: The Unfortunate Damsel. Tradition states that she composed and sang these stanzas "to console herself when, in 1689, her husband's extravagances finally led to the loss of the families estates". She died in 1703. This poem is thought to been the source of the song: The Sprig of Thyme, The Seeds of Love, Maiden’s Lament, Garners Gay, Let No Man Steal Your Thyme or Rue ard Thyme, a traditional British and Irish folk ballad that uses botanical symbolism to warn of the dangers of false lovers. The song was first documented in 1689 and the many variants with many different titles. When Cecil Sharp first heard John England sing this on 22 August 1903 in Cambridge, Somerset he realised there were many more indigenous folk songs that were undocumented. This discovery helped began a folk song collecting boom around the UK, then later in America.