Origin: She Moved Through the Fair

Subject: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Rebecca
Date: 11 Dec 00 - 10:23 PM

Does anyone happen to have any information on the origins of this tune and possibly about how it originated.

If you do I'd love to hear about it it is one of my fovourites.

Thanks

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: alison
Date: 12 Dec 00 - 12:53 AM

Hi Rebecca... welcome to Mudcat...

There have been a few threads on this in the past... if you put the word "fair" into the forum search and set the age to 1 year... you'll find a few...... but here's one with 70 messages to get you started....

She moved through the fair

slainte

alison

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,fair
Date: 12 Dec 00 - 01:36 AM

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 07:57 PM

Does nayone no about this line and what it means?
"But one had a sorrow that never was said"

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Peace
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 08:07 PM

As in "what was the sorrow?"?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 06 Sep 06 - 08:55 PM

See the many other discussions here on this song: links are above. You seem somehow to have found, and revived, the only thread here that contains no information; apart from Alison's helpful link. It contains no information because pretty much everything worth saying (and a great deal that was not worth saying) has already been said elsewhere, in some cases many times over. For once, for a wonder, nobody gave into the temptation to repeat it all yet again.

Let's keep that good resolution. If, once you've read what the other discussions have to say, you are still puzzled by those lines, then do ask again; either here, or (preferably) in a thread that mentions them already. Just, as I'm sure you'll understand, so that discussion is kept focussed and reasonably accessible to people who may seek similar information in the future.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: leeneia
Date: 07 Sep 06 - 12:44 PM

A person could read a whole novel in the time it would take to go through all those threads.

The line about sorrow means that the narrator always regretted that he was not permitted to marry the woman who moved through the fair. He married someone else and never said anything about his regret to his actual wife.

It is amazing that the author of the words managed to convey so much in so few words and with an admirable absence of self-pity.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Cllr
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 08:13 AM

what does the sorrw mean?
"The Sorrow that never was said referers to tuberculosis which poor people got (also known as consumption) as it was sameful or very sad so it was the illness that nobody talked about. this is the reason she dies and then he dies later. )

Cllr

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Sep 06 - 11:35 PM

CLLR - What is your source? What is your reference? OR, what is your personal hypothothis based on? What is the location and time frame?

Be careful, of broad-brushed-assertions (unlike the DeltaBlues many "MCmembers" comments on the MudCat have become a trove of spurluous statements that have rendered dot-org a "eunich" in the world of folk-song research.) Regrets to Dick and Susan and the clan.

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Cllr
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 05:09 AM

I apologise for the brief response in my last post, so many other posts covered this in earlier threads that i didnt google will ifnd the relevent bits if you cant be bothered to go through (this thread also mentioned not bothering to read through so i just corrected leeneia's previous comment.

I notice you didnt take umbrage at the lack reference in that post, if it had more reference i would have gone into more detail in my response. perhaps we should be both feel castigated.

Even so Garg, no offence, but i will write how i like depending on how time, motivation and relevence to an issue seems to me at the time

Still its the internet and you take or leave what is said or written

I originally planned to summerise some of the earlier thread arguments, such as Padraig Colum being credited with it, but some take this to mean he was the originall author while some seem to accept that it is a modernised version of a traditional gaelic poem. Certainly Padraig Colum collected rewrote with modern language and published it in 1909.

One theory i have which is all my own (so you can take or leave it)is that the line "swan in the evening over the lake" is a litarary allusion to the the middle tale of the "Three Great Sorrows" of irish story telling,   All involve the death of family, particulary siblings. In the second tale "The Children of Lir" the family is cursed by being turned into swans once a month, so the hunting of the swan was made illegal in case one of the shapechangers was accidently klled.
You can look this story up on the internet or even *gasp* read it in a book.

Cllr

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Cllr
Date: 09 Sep 06 - 05:13 AM

http://www.ireland-information.com/articles/thechildrenoflir.htm

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: MACA
Date: 12 Sep 06 - 01:10 PM

Hi,
Jo Mapes here. I learned She moved thru the fair from Margaret Barry, years ago. Have a couple of great stories about her. It's a haunting song, isn't it?
Jo.    www.jomapessingingpage.com

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 02:38 AM

^^^ A young lass said to me
My mother won't mind
And my father won't slight you
For your lack of kind
Then she laid her hand on me
And this she did say
Oh it will not be long love
'Til our wedding day

Then she went away from me
And she moved through the fair
So fondly I watched her
Move here and move there
And then she went homeward
With one star awake
As the swan in the evening
Moves over the lake

All the neighbours were saying
That the two would ne'er wed
For one had a sorrow
That never was said
And she smiled as she passed
With her goods and her gear
And that was the last
That I saw of my dear

Last night she came to me
My fond love came in
And she moved so soft
That her feet made no din
And she lay down beside me
And this she did say
Oh it will not be long love
'Til our wedding day

The song is about Tuberculosis which, at the time it was written, bore the same stigma as aids.
In the first verse she passes the disease to her lover "Then she laid her hand on me"
The second is simply a lover's verse.
In the third she is taken away to a sanitarium where she dies. While the neighbours gossip, they dear dare not speak of her illness by name... "one had a sorrow that never was said" Much the same way as "Cancer" was always said in a whisper, when I was a child.
In the final verse he sees her, either in his delirium or as a spirit
"And she moved so soft that her feet made no din" And now she tells him that soon he will join her "And she lay down beside me and this she did say, Oh it will not be long love 'Til our wedding day"

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: nutty
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 03:17 AM

An interesting theory Jim Lad. Have you any evidence as to its authenticity?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 03:26 AM

No! That's what makes it "Traditional". I've known this story and sang this song since I was a wee boy. You seem to doubt it and yet I speak with such authority. How could I be wrong.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 05:08 AM

Hi Nutty....my understanding of the song is the same as Jims..more or less. I knew it was illness but had not realised it was TB....I can accept that it would be TB.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 10:26 AM

Can't help thinking that the use of the rhyme-word "din" is a flaw.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 11:08 AM

"Din" is correct. Had this been a Scottish song, I would agree with you but the song is of Irish origin and the story is common knowledge in my circles. Sinead O'Connor and other female artists have so twisted the words, to fit their gender, as to render the song unrecognizable and completely bury the true meaning.
Check with your Irish friends. I'll be very surprised if less than 50% of the 40 & ups know the story. I don't know a lot but this one, I'm sure of.

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR (Padraic Colum
From: nutty
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 11:59 AM

My version of the song comes from the Padraic Colum words printed in the New Oxford Book of Irish Verse published by the Oxford University Press in 1986.

SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR

My young love said to me, 'My brothers won't mind,
And my parents won't slight you for your lack of kind.'
Then she stepped away from me, and this she did say,
'It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.'

She stepped away from me and she moved through the fair,
And fondly I watched her go here and go there,
Then she went her way homeward with one star awake,
As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

The people were saying no two were e'er wed
But one had a sorrow that never was said,
And I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear,
And that was the last that I saw of my dear.

I dreamt it last night that my young love came in,
So softly she entered, her feet made no din;
She came close beside me, and this she did say,
'It will not be long, love, till our wedding day.'

Colum died in 1972 and may well have given that explanation for the poem, but I would prefer to have concrete evidence before believing it.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: nutty
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 12:03 PM

I should also have said - 'din' has common usage (particularly in the North of England) as meaning 'noise'

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Fred McCormick
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 01:05 PM

Hugh Shields discussed the origins of this song, and the relationship of the traditional versions to Padraic Colum's rewrite in a detailed article called "The Proper Words". Irish University Review Vol 5. 1975.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 01:07 PM

There is no reason to think that tuberculosis has anything to do with it. It's a subtle and meloncholy love song. Her parents wouldn't let her marry him because he wasn't rich enough. He married someone else but mourned for her without saying anything. When he was old, he had a vision that she was with him, still young and beautiful.

Don't wreck it.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 01:18 PM

Well guest Rebecca asked and the answer is for her. If you're somehow disappointed with its meaning, I'm sorry. It is what it is but there is absolutely nothing to stop you from reading into it, what you will. It is a beautiful song, regardless of its meaning.
Thank You for the information on the author, Nutty
Regards
Jim

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 01:31 PM

I have known and sung this song for many years as did my father before me and his before him. I have never heard this tb story nor has anyone I know who sings this song. Could the tb thing be a recent myth regarding this strange and wonderful piece ?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 01:55 PM

Depends what you mean by recent. I've known the story since I was young and I'm 52 now. I believe that it's a major accomplishment, by the author, that the song stands alone regardless of the hidden content. Some folks are happier when there's a little mystery to it.
Hence some of the earlier comments. I tend to feel the same way but for this one, I'm just as happy knowing.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: nutty
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 04:44 PM

I've spent a good part of the evening reading through the numerous threads on this subject and am puzzled by the seeming need to label this as a 'traditional' song.

I accept that there are traditional songs with similar lyrics but the song as sung by the great majority of people today is the one that was written by Padraic Colum.

He appears to have followed in the footsteps of AP Graves and resurrected a traditional theme, making a much more singable song by doing so.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 09:59 PM

Yes, that's exactly what he did. It's a pity that people didn't take my advice (given more than a year ago) to leave this thread alone and instead take the trouble to read the other ones before repeating baseless fantasy and misinformation as "fact".

Where, I wonder, do they get all that foolishness from? Why does folk music (and what is imagined to be folk music) attract so much bizarre speculation from people with vivid imaginations but -apparently- no conception of how to construct an argument based on actual evidence?

That was a rhetorical question. It doesn't require an answer.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 10:05 PM

No. It doesn't

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 10 Jan 07 - 11:42 PM

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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"She Moved Through the Fair" or "She Moves Through the Fair" is based on a traditional Irish folk song. Its original author is unknown. The song, a folk staple, has been performed by many artistes, and its haunting tune and lyrics will be familiar to many.

The song was first collected in Donegal by Padraic Colum and Herbert Hughes, and published by Boosey & Hawkes in London in a work entitled Irish country songs in 1909, though some claim it dates back to medieval times. The lyrics, except for the last verse, were composed by Padraic Colum, and the tune was written down by Herbert Hughes. Most modern arrangements of the song can be traced to the recording by Fairport Convention in 1968, who adopted the style of the song from the travelling singer Margaret Barry.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 07:51 AM

So is the tb tale true or no ?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: JeremyC
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 08:22 AM

Who cares? You can read anything you like into a song, and the author's intentions don't even matter anymore, beyond a certain point. This is like asking whether "Puff, the Magic Dragon" is about pot--who cares what the "right" answer is! If it's meaningful to you with your interpretation of it, then your interpretation is "right."

A friend of mine does "The Foggy Dew" (the Easter Uprising version) with an Irish band he's in, and he spins it so that it focuses more on the soldiers than on England. He sees the last verse as talking about post-traumatic stress syndrome, and whether he's "right" or not in his interpretation, he sings it as well as I've heard it played, and it comes across to the listener--which is the point. Debating whether some detail is "correct" is silly. Songs by their nature are open to interpretation, and they can always move beyond their author's original wishes.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Scrump
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 08:24 AM

She's over there by the coconut shy.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 12:04 PM

I know/knew "din" approximates to "noise", but feel that it is rather to strong a word; that is, unless she had tackety boots on and was tap-dancing, "din" isn't the word which I'd use naturally for "sound of footsteps", and it therefore seems a forced word, chosen for its rhyme with the simple "in"; that is, I didn't mean it's a word distorted from Colum's original (but then, too, isn't the choice of "no two ever wed", as used in some recordings, better than the awkward "no two were e'er wed"; alliteration and assonance are all very well, but the repetition of "w" here makes it seem as if some unduly plummy-voiced Tory MP is blustering. Admittedly, the better sounding version - to my way of hearing - implies more volition to the couple, whereas "were e'er wed" does have a greater impression of their being forced by parents. And I read somewhere that this song is of a type found in fishing communities where the drowned husband/lover appears to the widow, that is, it's not a love-song only but a ghost-story too. It tends to be sung quite a lot at weddings, unfortunately.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 12:41 PM

Guest& Jeremy: All excellent points. The song is wide open to interpretation, as any song of this ilk, should be.
As for the repetition of "W"... sorry to say, it's part of my speech pattern all the time (due to my unfortunate accent) so it suits me fine but there is no reason why you shouldn't make it fit your own accent.
Music is for pleasure and for sharing so why not sing it which ever way it pleases you?
Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair

From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 07:51 AM

So is the tb tale true or no ? It's true but if it bothers you.. follow Jeremy's advice.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Nixie
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 03:17 PM

I think we can all agree that regardless of the various translations, the song is truly beautiful.

May I say, I have really enjoyed reading all of your contributions to this topic. How refreshing it is to find articulate and intelligent conversation on a chat/forum instead of inane babble about the latest Big Brother programme and whether Jade's had liposuction!!

Thank you for restoring my faith in the art of discussion and debate.
xxxx

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,mickburke
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 04:14 PM

According to collector Sam Henry ,the original song wasn't haunting or melancholic.I think he said that the verse about the dead love was added by Padraig Colum . Before then it was a much lighter more whimsical song.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 11 Jan 07 - 04:16 PM

'I know/knew "din" approximates to "noise", but feel that it is rather to strong a word; that is, unless she had tackety boots on and was tap-dancing, "din" isn't the word which I'd use naturally for "sound of footsteps", and it therefore seems a forced word, chosen for its rhyme with the simple "in"' ...

Trad. songs and faux-trad. songs are full of words which are peculiar to some or all modern listeners because they are archaic, denote archaic meanings, are faux-archaic, dialectal, faux-dialectal, artificially 'poetic', or some combination of the preceding. I don't know which of these apply to the word 'din' in this song, but to my ear, that word has a tone (so to speak) consistent with that of the rest of the diction of the song. The cumulative effect of this archaic-poetic diction, like that of the diction of the King James Bible, is to place the story in a world that is strange and charming, at the same time that it is familiar. If, like me, you ignore the interpretation of the song that gives it TB and infection and ghosties and hocus-pocus, then a simple expression of erotic longing comes through somehow all the more powerfully because of the slightly-jarring diction. In other words, the contrast between the unfamiliarity of the diction, on the one hand, and the familiarity of a universal human passion, on the other, makes the effect all the more striking.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 02:12 PM

I discovered this 3-month-old thread thanks to a reference from a more recent discussion, which pointed to Jim Lad's thorough and very interesting explication of his understanding of this very lovely and mysterious song.

I'm surprised that his "correctness" was challenged, and very much surprised that anyone would consider the song to be "ruined" by this ~ or any ~ interpretation.

I would venture the opinion that Jim is indisputably "correct" insofar as his understanding of the song is something he learned from the tradition whence he came ~ his family and the larger community of they were a part. Perhaps other groups have passed down versions of the song with minor but meaningful differences in the lyrics because their shared understandings of the song may have developed differently over time.

Having just "digested" or internalised this particular backstory that I just learned today, I am now much more likely to try performing the song myself. Only now might I be able to infuse every obscure, archaic line with meaning. Earlier, I was certainly able to enjoy listening to a haunting air with vaguely mystical lyrics, but I could not possibly have sung the piece with any level of conviction, with any idea of what I might be trying to communicate.

Anyone else who prefers to understand the song's tragic story in therms of parental diapproval, etc., rather than disease, more power to you ~ especially if your understanding allows you to bring your own feelings to your effort to pass the song along via performance.

As for myself, I may be more prone than most to adopt Jim's intrerpretation because my own late father lived with tuberculosis, and survived for many years enduring the aftermath of the surgery that "cured" him by removing a lobe from each lung. In the mid-20th-century Irish-American community, his disease no longer held the stigma that was once the case back in the old country, but because we were so aware of the disease, everyone in our family certainly knew about TB's historical association with shameful poverty.

Another angle: if and when I start to sing the song, and certainly whenever I hear it from know on, it will be impossible not to think about the very recent plague of incurable sexually-transmitted disease. Not part of the "tradition," certainly not anything intended by the author(s), but an inescapable subtext now that the world has changed (as it always does).

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 04:26 PM

And as Jim Lad pointed out: " ... I speak with such authority. How could I be wrong"?

(And if he tells us that there are Weapons of Mass Destruction hidden in the lyrics, we'll go to war against them!).

Oh - and "it's part of my speech pattern all the time (due to my unfortunate accent)" - should that not read "my unfortunate ACCIDENT" (I assume involving a bottle thrust gobward with too much vigour ... )?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 04:44 PM

Actually, I learned the story from Paddy Graber after I sang it at the Midsummers Festival in Smithers in the early eighties. He made a point of writing the third verse out for me. A little too late though. I had already recorded it without that verse.
That being said. My closest friends over the years are Irish and all of them, without exception, knew the story and were somewhat surprised that I didn't.
So, handed down by tradition? I suppose. If you include being told by an Irishman, raised in the far east, residing in Vancouver's China Town and attending a Folk Festival beneath Hudson Bay Mountain, which is far removed from Hudson Bay or Hudson's Bay for that matter, on a drizzly Sunday morning on the twenty third of June which, although it marked summer solstice, is a long way from being the middle of the summer.
And yet: I do remember every detail after all these years.
Tradition or Evolution. Who really cares. The story will evolve.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 05:01 PM

I should clarify one point though. Although I had often heard, as a boy that the song was about "Consumption", I hadn't a clue what that meant and always felt too stupid to ask. Something we could all keep in mind when someone posts a thread such as this one.
Paddy was the first one to sit down on the bleachers with me and interpret the song line by line. He didn't wait to be asked. Just passed along a little knowledge.
If I had payed attention in school the way I did to him that day, I'd be far too important to talk to any of yous!
Grin!
Jim

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 05:23 PM

'Although I had often heard, as a boy that the song was about "Consumption", I hadn't a clue what that meant and always felt too stupid to ask.'

Why didn't you just Google it, Uncle Jim?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 05:30 PM

Just another Celtic Woman number. Is there no end to the songs they turn into massive hits ?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 05:33 PM

Yeah, after I posted earlier today, it had occurred to me that one bit of TB "lore" that I learned as a kid, and might have mentioned, was that it used to be called "consumption" back in the bad old days.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 05:42 PM

"Just another Celtic Woman number."

Someone else respond to this. I don't know anything about "Celtic Woman" and this is the first I've heard of her having anything to do with this song.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 05:59 PM

Celtic Woman is a group made up of 5 Irish women (4 singers and one fiddle player), and one singer from New Zealand. They are currently on a North American tour, you can check them out at Celticwoman.com. This song is one of the ones they do, and quite beautifully IMO. Be warned, you may become an instant fan, and become 'obsessed' with their music. Enjoy!

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:07 PM

I know I've said this before but it always annoys me when people change the lyrics to this one. Please tell me that Celtic Woman doesn't do that.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:10 PM

Celtic Woman does the very best rendition of that song. And they don't change anything as far as I know. Hey Jim, are you a fan yet ??

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:12 PM

Not yet. I'll try to watch it during the next pledge drive. You just never know, do you?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:13 PM

GUEST - why don't you give yourself a handle, so we'll know if it's the same GUEST making each post? If it is, I assume I misinterpreted your first post - if it was yours - in which case, I missed the irony, and took it as a slag at both CW and the song ...

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:16 PM

"Celtic Woman does the very best rendition of that song."
That you've heard.
Hmmm. John McCormack, Fr. Sydney McEwan, Jim Brannigan, That Bald Girl whose picture I'd love to tear up on David Letterman .... meself..no .. but there's more.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: PoppaGator
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:16 PM

For a variety of opinions about "Celtic Woman," check out:

this thread

As you'll observe, it's not one "woman" (singluar), but a group of very attractive young women whose musical talents are the subject of some debate, best known for videotaped concert appearances shown on PBS (American public TV) during fund-raising drives. Depending upon whose option you trust, their presentation is either overproduced and tastelessly commercial, or beautiful and inspiring.

(My own opinion falls somewhere between the extremes. I've never watched an entire program; I think the ladies are undoubtedly talented, and the music mostly quite enjoyable, but that the show as a whole is quite deliberately middlebrow, directed toward the largest possible audience.)

Describing "She Moved Through the Fair" as a "Celtic Woman song" is probably a demeaning dismissal of a song that can be quite wonderful when presented by the right perfomer, and which certainly predates the CW group's formation, regardless of whether it's truly ancient or if it was composed only a single century ago.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,AWG
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:44 PM

I checked out PoppaGator's link to a thread about Celtic Woman. I really hope all threads dont contain so much @#$%-ing crap. Have those people any taste at all? Boy oh Boy. Oh well, theyll come around and learn to love Celtic Woman, like everyone else!!

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:47 PM

AWG. It's good that you've now given yourself a handle. Start a "Celtic Woman" thread. You will surely then, find people of like mind.
Off you go now.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,AWG
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:52 PM

Hey Guest Meself, it's AWG, (sorry I forgot the handle in the one post). Anyhow, Meav did that song on Celtic Woman's first DVD from The Helix Theatre in Dublin, Ireland. She does an incredible version, with her beautiful voice and all. Trad Arr and David Downes (Celtic Woman music director) wrote this song. The best version by far (would there be any doubt).

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:53 PM

So Jim Lad - I see you're fond of the Brannigan rendition ... ?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 04 Apr 07 - 06:58 PM

Heh, Heh.    You have to know your audience sometimes.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Taconicus
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 01:27 PM

I like Jim Lad's version above. Elsewhere, Jim mentions that the current lyrics are from the following book of "Irish Country Songs" published in 1909. Here's the full citation:

Irish country songs / collected and arranged by Herbert Hughes.-- Pub info London ; New York : Boosey & Hawkes, 1909-1915

However, I've also read that Padraic Colum derived the lyrics from an older County Donegal ballad that was published in the 1909 edition of that work. Does anyone have a copy of that 1909 edition? I'd like to know the lyrics of that ballad from which "She Moved through the Fair" was derived, if it was printed in that book. Thanks!

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim McLean
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 02:48 PM

I heard this song sung by Dominic Behan in 1957 or so. He also said it was about a girl dying of consumption. The only difference was that Dom said he wrote it himself!

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 03:08 PM

What 'Bramicus' read seems to have been based on a misunderstanding by somebody. Colum's poem was first printed as 'She moved thro' the Fair', 'adapted from an old ballad', in Hughes' 1909 anthology (unchanged in later reprints), which also included a song called 'The Next Market Day'. Now, the 'old ballad' is generally taken to be one called (among other titles) 'Next Market Day'; but that isn't the song that Hughes printed, which is more usually known as 'A Maid Went to Comber'. The story is a very different one: see, for example, thread A Maid Went To Comber, where the text is quoted. Note especially the comments from John Moulden and Bruce Olson.

The New Oxford Book of Irish Verse (see earlier post) included a form of 'She Moved Through the Fair' reworked and expanded by Colum as compared to the version in Hughes. It should be noted, as ever, that 'dead love' was no part of Colum's poem; that was introduced later on, via a commercial recording, by the tenor John MacCormack. In the song that formed the basis of Colum's re-working, the reason why the narrator didn't see his sweetheart any more was that she had eloped with another man.

The tuberculosis tradition is actually quite interesting as an example of the folklore that accumulates around songs; there are many such examples, and it can happen very quickly. The reason why Jim's comments were greeted with scepticism and a degree of hostility was that he presented them as bald fact without explanation. He was new here, and probably didn't realise that some songs in particular attract all manner of balderdash from people who don't always know what they are talking about; and that this is one such ('Danny Boy' is another).

His later comments made it clear that it wasn't something he had made up himself but a genuine tradition (even if it originated with Dominic Behan, which wouldn't be a surprise). Whether or not it was what Colum had in mind we don't know; though, given the information available so far, there seems no particular reason to think that it was.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 03:18 PM

Is there a song worth stealing that Dominic Behan hasn't had a go at?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim McLean
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 04:10 PM

Barney McKenna reckoned Dominic copyrighted the Bible!

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 04:18 PM

Praise the Lord!
I was hoping that wouldn't offend you.
"Jim mentions that the current lyrics are from the following book of "Irish Country Songs" published in 1909" ... he must be referring to you, here.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Gurney
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 04:50 PM

The versions of the song that I came across were too 'witchy' and mysterious for me, until I found Colum's sensible and sensitive version.

Regarding the TB theory, anyone who's read the James Herriot books will realise the huge effort and expense that went into wiping out this curse. I remember , as a child, seeing large signs in meadows advertising "The Tuberculin Tested Herd....", so I'm ready to credit it as a plausible theory.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim McLean
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 04:53 PM

No, Jim Lad, I'm sure Malcolm meant you. Dominic was my best man (although my wife hated him) but he was an incredible man. If you caught him at breakfast time you could have the most enlightened and entertaining few hours but ...

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Jim McLean
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 05:50 PM

I should have said Bramicus rather than Malcolm. Sorry Malcolm.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 02 Jun 07 - 06:13 PM

'Gurney': since all 'versions' of 'She Moved Through the Fair' are based on Colum's, it might be best to consider his the original rather than merely as another 'version'; though as we know he based his poem on elements of existing material, these told rather a different story. It's certainly true that a lot of silliness has resulted from McCormack's (possibly accidental) alteration to the song; though it certainly gave it a new resonance for a lot of people, its author hadn't intended, so far as we can tell, any such thing. I wonder if anyone ever asked him what he thought about the whole business?

I don't need to read Herriot to know about TB; my father contracted it in the early '70s. Because innoculation and other precautions had largely eradicated it in Britain at that time, diagnosis was late and he sustained quite a bit of permanent lung damage before he got the right treatment. The medical establishment hadn't fully appreciated then that increased immigration from countries lacking proper innoculation programmes would inevitably bring with it an increase in diseases of that kind.

As one theory among others it's fine; but without evidence it can only be speculation. Consumption has for centuries served as a romantic plot device, though the reality is very far from romantic. Since there is an Irish connection here, it's worth mentioning that TB was a recurring motif in Van Morrison's early work; sometimes the references were direct, sometimes more oblique. That isn't guesswork, though.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Taconicus
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 12:56 AM

Thanks for the explanation, Malcolm. But what was "the song that formed the basis of Colum's re-working," and where can I find the lyrics?

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 03:04 AM

One thing you could do would be to read the other discussions here on the song (see links above). I appreciate that that might be onerous and confusing, though, given the amount of rubbish that people have posted here on the subject over the years. You will also find comments that, though they seemed reasonable at the time, have proved to be wrong (such as my own suggestion that it was Margaret Barry who introduced 'dead love' to the song).

Have a look at the DT file OUR WEDDING DAY. This is copied from the Sam Henry collection. Unfortunately, the DT transcriber has given it the wrong title (Henry called it 'Out of the Window') and hasn't bothered to credit the singer, who was James Lafferty of Doaghs, Magilligan. His version was printed in The Northern Constitution, 24 July 1926.

You'll recognise the first two verses. The third is the usual conclusion, while the others are 'floating' verses that occur in many songs. There is another version in Henry, 'Our Wedding Day' ('collected' in 1934), which appears to derive from Colum's re-write. That is not quoted here. There are further references to two versions in Paddy Tunney's repertoire if you have the stamina to wade through the other threads mentioned, and the wit to learn to use the search engine.

Good luck.

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Taconicus
Date: 03 Jun 07 - 12:39 PM

Thank you. I did look through the various threads, but could not find it amongst the massive number of posts on the subject (even with the search engine).

Subject: RE: Help: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Shinann
Date: 05 Jun 07 - 10:09 AM

Ive been reading through alot of the threads and find them all very interesting.
Im a 16 year old who loves Traditional songs ALOT and has been singing this particular song alot and has had it sung to her alot aswell....
I always presumed the woman had died and then her ghost came back to him.....and that was the impression ive been getting since i was 5...I love this song

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Another comment
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 05:59 PM

A fine song to be interpretted as you wish. The 60's rocker Joe Brown & the Bruvvers have recently recorded this. His daughter Sam Brown adds some fine haunting backing vocals. Well worth a listen.

Allan from Norwich

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 21 Oct 07 - 12:33 AM

Thank you for the explantion (TB). I disagree most strongly that such an explaination takes anything away from the beauty of the song. If anything it makes it more achingly beautiful.

When a person died before they were married, it was often called their "wedding day" and they were burried in white. (Source: Albion's Fatal Tree) That alone makes me agree with the explaination.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Billy, Donegal
Date: 25 Oct 07 - 07:13 PM

So many great versions of She Moves Through the Fair. Always a showstopper at gig, party or gathering. Many singers go over the top on the song. It`s one of those rare gems that is best sung unaccompanied, without too much embellishment. My favourite version is by Anne Briggs...simple, bare, effective.
Billy

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: PoppaGator
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 12:48 AM

I can only imagine how great Sam Brown's background singing must be on this number, singing with her dad.

My first and only knowledge of Sam's artistry is her performace on the "Concert for George [Harrison]" DVD, which also features Joe Brown, but separately. Her rendition of "You Can Lead a Horse to Water" is my very favorite moment in a really excellent all-star concert. That girl can sing!

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Rasener
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 08:34 AM

I really do like this version by Wendy Arrowsmith. Have a listen. She has a really nice voice. Its the second song on the right.
http://www.myspace.com/wendyarrowsmith

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,JTT
Date: 26 Oct 07 - 01:55 PM

"No two were ere wed but one had a sorrow that never was said" is a traditional Irish saying, meaning that no two people have ever been married without one having an unspoken sorrow that was concealed throughout the marriage.

It's a more romantic idea in the context of the "made match", when both boys and girls were liable to be married off to the person who would make the best partnership with their family farm.

Many's the girl or boy who was married to a 50-year-old next door whose land marched with their parents', so that the marriage would consolidate the two farms. Or to a drunk who happened to be heir to a good business.

As for "din", in the context it is a regional usage for "sound".

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Jab
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 01:06 PM

Again, some might say this is going to ruin it but anyway...

I am not an English native speaker and I ran across the Loreena McKennitt interpretation of this song. I felt some of the archaic forms evade my understanding and I really don't know what the song is about. So I ran to google and found this thread and similar. After reading all theories I took the lyrics - without the added last verse (the one that has the death connotations) and show it to my coworkers, the majority of which are English speakers. The consensus was , roughly put "they had a minor fight because the girl wouldn't put up, she left telling him to wait until the wedding and then he has a wet dream about it in which she still reprimands him" . Now before dismissing this as pure trollery, please consider that the initial versions of the song were more light hearthed in both song and lyrics than what we all got used of hearing. Also key to this is that most of these coworkers are people that have no contact or interest in Celtic, folk, Old English , tradition and so forth. These are people grown up on rave and at best rock music. And yes, a song is what you make of it - and even the outhor rights to define what he meant dillutes in time.

Just my 2c.

Jab

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 04:06 PM

There are so many reasons why your coworkers are transparently wrong about Padraic Colum's meaning that I'm tempted to suggest they were having a bit of fun with you.

On the other hand, rock & rave fans may believe that all songs present the story you describe. Or should.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,A passing pedant
Date: 07 Dec 07 - 08:55 PM

Lack of KINE - it means cattle.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: MartinRyan
Date: 08 Dec 07 - 05:55 AM

GUEST Pedant

Colum wrote "kind" which is,here, an Ulster dialect word. FWIW the curious expression "with her goods and her gear", which turns up in the "Out of the Widow" versions, has similar origins.

REgards

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,michelle
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 01:14 PM

Can someone PLEASE just tell me if the origins of this ballad go back to the 18th century, or earlier. There is no real information except for it being "From the traditional...""traditional" could mean anything. When was this tale first heard, in any form?

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 02:10 PM

A lot of speculation on this song, but these are the basic facts, from Contemplator:
"The original words were an old ballad from Donegal which was collected in 1909. The words were "reworked" by Padraic Colum to this version. Alternate titles and variants include "Our Wedding Day" and "Out of the Window.""
http://www.contemplator.com/ireland/shemoved.html

The basic idea of the song is paralleled in other songs, some early, but no direct connection has been made to this particular song.

Mudcat has about a dozen threads on this song; picking the "meat" out of them is a slow and laborious task.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 03:10 PM

Lack of 'kind' I have always taken to mean she did not come of a 'good' family ~ kind=kindred here, surely?

I wonder why so many singers leave out that vital 3rd verse of Colum's ~~ the one with the 'great sorrow', the goods & gear', the 'last that I saw of my dear' ~~ including Margaret Barry, who, asked in an interview by Karl Dallas whether she had learned it from family? other travellers? ... replied simply, "Oh no, I got it off a gramophone record by Count John McCormack" - who also, obviously, omitted it; and more recently Méav of Celtic Woman, who I imagine will have got it from one of these sources. Seems a shame that verse should vanish into the ewigkeit. I recall that Bob Davenport, way back when I first heard him in about 1956, sang only vv 1,2,4 also.

If you want it as a ringtone, you can get it by googling the lyrics of Belfast Child by Jim Kerr of Simple Minds, who wrote this 1989 chart-topping song to the tune of She Moved, which he first heard at about the time of the Enniskellen bombings. Not sure if I find this an iniquitous impertinence or an encouraging manifestation of an ongoing tradition! (And much the same re Rosamund Lehmann's having called her introspective memoir The Swan In The Evening.)

~M~

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 04:03 PM

lack of kind means lack of worldly goods.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 07:17 PM

What your authority for that assertion, Q? Cannot find any such usage in any dictionary, whereas --

"Definition of KIND
1
a archaic : nature
b archaic : family, lineage"
          Merriam Webster Dictionary online

~M~

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 10:05 PM

"And your father won't slight you for your lack of kind."

It follows from payment in kind- payment in goods rather than money.

Quotes in the OED, 15, under kind; e. g. Buckle, 1862.

Walton, 1670-"Rainment were provided for him in kind."

Entry 16, Kind payment- payment in goods.

Or one could take Kind in one of the other senses, which Webster's lumps under lineage: lack of breeding or background; "good of its kind;" etc.

Kind is a word with many meanings and inflections; the OED has about three quarto pages all told, including the supplements, with the various definitions and quotes.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 01:52 AM

Take this point, Q, re payment in 'kind' possible = dowry. But surely 'slight' ['my father' btw, not 'your'!] implies a social-class counter-reaction rather than a merely avariciously disappointed one. Both interpretations semantically possible; but must say I prefer mine.

~M~

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Lighter
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 11:10 AM

MtheGM is surely correct, though I've shared Q's interpretation since I first heard the song.

The OED has no definition of "kind" that is anything like "wealth" or "property." "In kind" is an idiomatic phrase which means, more or less, "in precisely or essentially the same way." Hence, if an obligation is settled "in kind," it does mean, in many cases, "by handing over property," but "kind" all by itself is never used as a synonym of "property."

Nineteenth-century database searches turn up no exx. of "lack of kind." Twentieth-century exx. are restricted to printings of Colum's poem. Phrases like "enough kind" meaning "enough property" appear to be nonexistent.

A writer in the Irish University Review in the 1970s noted that "lack of kind," in the poem, was "a phrase unfamiliar to me in Anglo-Irish or English usage."

Colum's "kind" could have been a typo for the archaic (and thus "poetic") "kine," cattle, which would make sense, except that Colum never bothered to correct it in any post-1909 printing - and there were many of them. As it stands, "kind" would be equally "poetic" and has the advantage of rhyming perfectly with "mind."

All the evidence shows that by "lack of kind," Colum meant lack of what the OED defines as "The character or quality derived from birth."

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 03:41 PM

I'll accept that. It was the alternate meaning that I posted.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 08 Aug 22 - 06:55 PM

Child's has many, many verses of the different versions of this song over the past two centuries.

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST,John Moulden
Date: 09 Aug 22 - 09:04 AM

Guest, writing on 8th August, can you please specify which of the Child ballads you're referring to?

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 09 Dec 23 - 09:22 AM

Regarding MGM Lion's post from 29 August 2012.

Does anyone know where that Karl Dallas story about Maggie Barry learning She Moved Through the Fair from a gramophone recorded first appeared?
Was it in print?

Subject: RE: Origin: She Moved Through the Fair
From: Thompson
Date: 10 Dec 23 - 04:24 AM

"Kind" in Ireland is archaic but still occasionally used for the goods you own.