There has been much speculation in print about the identity of the girl in "Girl from the North Country". Clinton Heylin states that the most frequently mooted candidates are Echo Helstrom, an early girlfriend of Dylan from his hometown of Hibbing, and Suze Rotolo, for whom Dylan was pining as he finished the song in Italy. Howard Sounes suggests the girl Dylan probably had in mind was Bonnie Beecher, a girlfriend of Dylan's when he was at the University of Minnesota. Musicologist Todd Harvey notes that Dylan not only took the tune of "Scarborough Fair", which he learned from Martin Carthy in London but also adapted the theme of that song. "Scarborough Fair" derives from "The Elfin Knight" (Child Ballad Number 2), which was first transcribed in 1670. In the song, a supernatural character poses a series of questions to an innocent, requesting her to perform impossible tasks. Harvey points out that Dylan "retains the idea of the listener being sent upon a task, a northern place setting, and an antique lyric quality". Dylan returned to this song on "Nashville Skyline" (1969), recording it as a duet with Johnny Cash, and he returned to it again in the studio with an unreleased organ and sax version in 1978.