Origins: She Moves through the Fair

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Owen an geal gael
Date: 02 Sep 08 - 02:36 AM

Here's an Idea...Hands up all those who want his love to be "dead"!...Mines uP!!

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 04:58 AM

PS :

(that'll learn me not to press the 'transmit' so quick !)

apart from never having come to terms with DADGAD (notwithstanding many years of trying, in both sense of the word), played in DADGAD it sounds very 'harsh' to me, and not at all in keeping with the gentleness of the melody.

It was my understanding that Padraig Colum wrote, or made, the song. I am happy to accept that his might have been a re-working of earlier material, if not a translation from a Goidelic Celtic language.

Again, despite trying, Brythonic Celtic is the only stream I have mastered - sorry for thread-creep, fellow 'Catters !

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Bryn Pugh
Date: 27 Nov 07 - 04:53 AM

It is possible to play the tune 'melodically' using open G - 1st - 6th D B G D G D

or, as I prefer, open C

1st - 6th E C G C G E, or 'low' C, at your preference. Try a D minor shape at the 5th, for effect. I have chords other than the F barre at 5th position, and G barre at 7th, if any one wants 'em : there is Am, F, G, Caug and Bb.

Bryn, the aspiring guitarist (!)

Subject: tab
From: GUEST,mac the knife
Date: 26 Nov 07 - 12:04 PM

am looking for a version of the music as played by a guy called scholley on youtube or somthing similair. have got a couple of versions, one in dadgad thats nice but want somthing "fuller". any suggestions?

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Declan
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 02:34 PM

That's Les Barker's parody posted by Snuffy earlier in this thread.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 02:31 PM

I'll shut the door behind me.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Taconicus
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 02:22 PM

Jim asks what it's about. I agree, most of the versions (including the four-verse one currently popular) don't make much sense. Is it supposed to be a maxim that "two never wed but one had a sorrow that never was said"? I never heard that before.

I think the following seven-verse version makes more sense, yet retains a delicious ambiguity. Did she run away with another? Did she kill herself? What was the "sorrow that never was said"? Did she return, or (more probably) is that his fantasy or a dream? We're never quite sure--but the words make sense in any of those cases.

Our Wedding Day/She Moved Through the Fair

My young love said to me, "My brothers won't mind.
"Nor will my parents slight thee for thy lack of kind."
Then she placed her hand on me and this she did say:
"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."

Then she stepped away from me and moved through the fair.
And fondly I watched her move here and move there.
Then she turned her way homeward with but one star awake.
Like the swan in the evening moving over the lake.

The neighbors were saying we two ne'er would wed
For one had a sorrow that never was said.
But I smiled as she passed with her goods and her gear.
And that was the last time that I saw my dear.

Then according to promise at midnight I rose,
But I found nothing of her but linen and clothes.
The window was open; my young love was gone.
And I left behind to wander alone.

Oh love, my young love, what is this path you chose?
You have taken the thistle; forsaken the rose.
The thistle will wither; it soon will decay,
While the red rose turns fallow, and its petals fall away.

Now if I had two wings, like an eagle I'd fly.
I would fly to my young love's side, and it's there that I'd lie.
In a bed of green ivy I'd leave myself down,
And with my two folded wings I would my love surround.

Last night she came to me, my young love came in.
So softly she came that her feet made no din.
Then she lay down beside me, and this she did say:
"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Jim Lad
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 02:50 AM

That's a lovely song.
What's it about?

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR (Padraic Colum
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 27 Jun 07 - 12:43 AM

With Google Book Search, you can view "Wild Earth and Other Poems" by Padraic Colum, 1916, which contains this poem. I don't think this exact version has been posted at Mudcat before. I have boldfaced the differences between this version and the version in the DT.

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."
And 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."

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Taconicus
Date: 22 Jun 07 - 10:33 PM

Our Wedding Day/Moved Through the Fair

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: billbunter
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 03:56 PM

I recall somewhere The flowers o the Forest was dedicated to the Ettrick archers who died at Flodden - about 60 of them

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,The piper
Date: 15 Jan 07 - 03:52 PM

Whatever the origins, recent or otherwise of the beautiful lyrics, this tune is probably pretty ancient, since it fits easily on the bagpipes [ I've figured out an arrangement so it can't be too difficult]. The scale on the pipes has slightly different intervals, that don't fit exactly with the "do-reh-me..." scale, which is probably why so many many pipe tunes don't quite sound right when played on other instruments,e.g the piano, and some of these tunes are seriously old. "The flowers of the Forest" which, legend has it, commemorates the dead of Flodden {1514} has been played, literally for centuries,and will no doubt still be played in the distant future,
Graham

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Alice
Date: 31 Aug 06 - 10:45 PM

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,therealme
Date: 14 May 06 - 12:39 PM

I always felt this song was most powerful as a simple lyric of love and desire, without the tiresome and clumsy gear of TB and murder and elopement and betrayal and ghosts and shape-shifters and visually-challenged hunters and things that don't go bump in the night and general doom. (Have I covered everything?) There are few parallels in song or poetry to the unresolved erotic tension of the final verse, in which the prospective bridegroom's fiance sneaks to his bed, "lays her hand on him", and says, "It will not be long, love, till our wedding day." That is, if you're thinking of them as real, flesh-and-blood people.

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 14 May 06 - 12:37 PM

That's true they even stole guinness from us!

Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 14 May 06 - 12:36 PM

This is another example of the Irish stealing a tune from us English, calling it their's and getting all the credit. From reading posts on this site the impression given is that mudcatters are aware that the irish do not have the intelligence to grow potatoes let alone write songs!

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jan 04 - 02:02 PM

Brían mentioned An Sagairtín in his message of 12 June 2001, so I just thought I'd let you know that the lyrics are posted. I can't say I've noticed any special resemblance between these songs.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Snuffy
Date: 10 Jun 02 - 09:06 AM

Sounds like the Les Barker version which is further up the thread: Date: 15-Aug-00 - 06:12 AM

WassaiL! V

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Mr Happy
Date: 10 Jun 02 - 08:11 AM

i recently heard someone sing another parody version, including 'with one star awake, she couldn't see her way home and she fell in the lake'

anyone got the rest of this?

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 15 Dec 01 - 12:47 PM

I sometimes sing dead love and sometimes dear. When she comes to him alive i enjoy the double meaning that can be made of " It will not be long love till our wedding day". when she says it at the fair he takes it to mean no, but at night it cleary means yes. I don't care if I have misunderstood an original meaning, it works for me.
Payment in kind is a commonplace and a legal expression in UK meaning payment in goods or services rather than money.
Keith.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Keltik
Date: 14 Dec 01 - 12:52 PM

my small contribution on the thread creep (and thread CPR) on the topic of recorded versions....

Owain Phyfe and the New world renaissance band do a fantastic version on thier cd "Odessey"

gives me goose bumps every time...

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: ard mhacha
Date: 14 Aug 01 - 03:19 PM

McGrath, My Uncle Robert Burns would have been proud of you. Slan Ard Mhacha.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Aug 01 - 07:29 PM

"The extremely good poetry of the piece is an indication that it was in fact written by a poet"

I suppose that's mean to get an argument going, but that's not such a good thing to do in a thread which is 96 posts long already.

It's absolute rubbish of course, in my view, if it's suggesting that farm workers, and the oral process, isn't every bit as capable of producing great poetry as any individual poet (and a poet might of course also be a farm labourer, and often is and has been). But it's the kind of rubbish that might get an interesting argument going.

So maybe you should step outside and say that again, SlowAlan.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 13 Aug 01 - 06:12 PM

Superb song...though I havent heard the Sandy Denny version, regrettably, cos I'm a BIG fan of hers.....

I post mainly for the benefit of Lox though, who posted about the Film in which Daniel Day Lewis sings the song.

The blurb about the Film (which is called 'Eversmile, New Jersey) can be found here:

http://uk.imdb.com/Title?0097302

(apologies for not knowing how to do 'Blue Clicky Things')

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,SlowAlan
Date: 11 Aug 01 - 09:50 AM

Yes I think that is right, Padraic Colum usually indicated where he was using traditional material. I have always thought he wrote the entire thing...the extrememly good poetry of the piece is an indication that it was in fact written by a poet and not an oral piece pieced up by farm workers.. I think he wrote it to sound like an old ballad, and even "left verses out of it" to add to its mystery.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Laura
Date: 10 Aug 01 - 12:44 PM

Was just wondering if anyone could recommend a good book with a rendition of this for piano. Thanks to whoever posted the chords above. Am always looking for easy piano books with renditions of traditional folk songs. Title suggestions for easy piano books would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Brían
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 11:48 PM

I beleive there is definitely a relationship btween this ballad and one titled "Green Grow the Laurels", which is in the digitrad search. I am afraid the melody that is on the midi won't support my claim, but I have a recording by a singer named Kevin McElroy from my area who sings "Green Grow the Laurels" to the same tune, but at a rollicking tempo. There is also a version of "An Sagairtín"(The Little Priest)a song about a woman who sees her lover on the road as he returns from college. She professes her love to him, but too late. He has become a priest. He says that perhaps he can baptise her children. It is the very same melody as "She Moves Through the Fair" on the album Bláth na nÓige by Máirtín Tom Sheanín, although I recognise that melodies of irish tunes are very interchangable. There is a version of "An Sagairtín" in Amhráin Chlainne Gaedheal, but I don't have a copy to compare the melody. That collection was published in 1905. I thought I would mention this, because no one else has, and I would love some more discussion on this.

Brían.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 10:37 PM

See also:  She Moved Through the Fair[e] parody

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE MOVED THROUGH THE BAR (Kipper family)
From: fleetwood
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 09:15 PM

Then of course there is a version by the Kipper family:

164 SHE MOVED THROUGH THE BAR

My young love she says to me, "my mother won't mind,
And my father won't care, for with drink he is blind."
Then she leaned herself on me and she sang this refrain:
"It will not be long, love, till they open again."

She leaned away from me and she fell down the stairs.
And dimly I heard her crash here and crash there.
Then homeward she staggered just one over the eight,
And like the swan in the evening she fell into the lake.

Last night she come to me. Dead drunk she come in,
And so softly she belched I could scarce smell the gin.
Then she staggered against me and slurred this refrain:
"It will not be long, love, till they open again."

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 23-Jul-02.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 07:06 PM

Jan, thanks for your offer, but the words are in the DT, and there are quite a number of threads on the song. (Try the 'Digitrad and Forum Search' box at the top of the threadlist to find both.)
I never heard that Spinners story, but it's quite possible and has happened with other songs. I'd have to compare the Spinners version with the other three that I have. From memory I'd say that only the third verse ('All the people were saying') may differ significantly from the other versions or perhaps not be in them at all. I'll check.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Jan
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 06:30 PM

Does anyone out there remember going to a SPINNERS concert when this song was sung as a solo by Mick Groves he introduced it saying that he learned the first two verse from his mother and having been unsucessful in finding any other fragments he wrote two additional verses.

I don't have the words to hand but could find them if anyone is totally desperate

Jan L

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Chris
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 01:26 PM

Hi All.

I was informed by Dick Richardson, an excellent Sussex singer, that "the sorrow that never was said" is a reference to TB and that this was a common way of referring to the disease. I have always understood this to be a ghost story in verse - it's certainly haunting in every sense of the word.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 18 Feb 01 - 11:42 AM

Always glad to be nudged into re-reading this absorbing thread. Thanks to Martin and Malcolm especially.

Having previously on Mudcat acclaimed Sean McMahon's antholology of Irish songs, prose and verse, Rich and Rare, I now have to put a question-mark against his editing. McMahon gives the four-verse version, and not only atributes it to Colum but states: "...so well known and so often sung that it is incorrectly regarded as traditional."

This version has "brothers" and "parents" in the first two lines, rather than "mother" and "father", and "my young love" rather than "my dead love" in the last verse.

In view of Colum's at least partial claim on the song, it would be interesting to know what elements of it have been documented as pre-dating him.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 18 Feb 01 - 11:03 AM

Pá:draic Colum (I misspelt his name earlier) re-wrote some traditional verses, which was common practice amongst Irish poets at the time (cf. Yeats' Sally Gardens, for example).  These verses seem to have gone back into tradition almost immediately, alongside still-existing traditional versions and sung to the same traditional tune.  The "dead love" bit is a later alteration, as stated above.  "Trad. adapted Colum" would seem fair in the circumstances.  He died in 1972.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Patrick Shields, the uniformed
Date: 18 Feb 01 - 10:22 AM

Can anyone give , for certain, the author of this wonderful song? We of the Georgia Mudcats and always thought it purely traditional.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Feb 01 - 03:36 PM

I've always liked it best without the third verse about "the people etc", and with "my dead love came in" for the last verse. The third verse is great, but it slows things down. I think it's more powerful with the story pared-down to just sufficient to tell it all, no spare flesh on the bones. That's how Margaret Barry sang it, and it's from her singing that the song won its present wide provenance, I think.

And the last line about "It will not be long love till our wedding day" - surely that's her reassuring him that they won't be parted long, because he'll be dying soon, and that'll be their waedding-day. So it's a happy ending.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Big Tim
Date: 17 Feb 01 - 11:25 AM

I read smwhere that the music was provided by Herbert Hughes, probably trad like most of his tunes. Hughes, Colum and Joseph Campbell were all frinds. "Wee Pat" as Campbell's mother called often went to the Campbell home in East Belfast for sunday dinner.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 17 Feb 01 - 09:09 AM

Well, I certainly answered Catrin's question rather earlier in this thread, and Martin Ryan kindly confirmed my reading of it.  As we said at the time, that particular line came from Paddy Tunney.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Paul Mitchell
Date: 17 Feb 01 - 03:30 AM

Catlin, the version sung by Mary Black makes a reference to "The glow of the gree sark" (my spelling). When I first discovered the Mudcat I asked if anyone knew what this meant. Some one, and I can't remember who (sorry,) explained that it's a celtic word refering to the glowing embers of a fire, perhaps most typically seen in the wee hours of the morning whilst a sad, lonely person sits by the dying fire. That makes sense to me with the idea of the "half hearth" giving off "half light".

Paul

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Michael Miland
Date: 16 Feb 01 - 12:47 PM

I'm still of two minds over the "kind" vs. "kine". I think either is possible. Kind can mean relatives, thus he lacks status or heritage (orphan?). Kine obviously could refer to cattle i.e. the kind of material wealth which a good catch would possess.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Seany
Date: 16 Feb 01 - 12:25 PM

Hard song to sing for a bloke ..

Did anyone mention that the final line -

'It will not be long love till our wedding day'

is indicating that the chap will die soon too and they will be united in the spirit world.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Feb 01 - 10:58 AM

Paddy Tunney did indeed record Out the Window on "The Irish Edge"; originally on Topic Records, since re-issued by Ossian.  I haven't heard that one, but I believe it's the version he got from his mother, Brigid; I Once Had a True-Love, on "The Wild Bees' Nest" was the version he got from Barney McGarvey of Clonkillymore.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 16 Feb 01 - 10:39 AM

As discussed earlier in this thread, the tune is traditional; Padraic Colum re-wrote the words at one point (I don't think that Percy French had any involvement) and most people who sing it nowadays are singing the verses as he re-worked them, with the exception of the "dead love" bit.  I've heard the misprint story and while it's obviously possible, I'd want to know which book it was!  I've suggested elsewhere that Margaret Barry was the most likely source of the change to "dead love", and have since found that "Songs of the People" makes the same suggestion.  Margaret Barry is the original source, so far as can be told, of pretty well all the "revival" recordings of the song, which are not so much versions in their own right as arrangements of her version.

Malcolm

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: wes.w
Date: 16 Feb 01 - 10:36 AM

Vague memory.. Malcom Douglas says Paddy Tunney on 'Wild Bees Nest', but perhaps also earlier on 'Irish Edge' (awful bright pink cover LP) where Paddy does a spoken intro to this song?
Confused by age... wes

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Greenbeer
Date: 16 Feb 01 - 10:02 AM

i recently started a thread on this very topic over on uk.music.folk, and received this personal reply from the musician David Kilpatrick which i am reprinting here to add to the pot. A bit ago we had an e-xchange with Dec Cluskey, of The Bachelors (1960s to present day Irish pop group who do their best to hide a natural love for traditional stuff). The theme was 'can you do a song without changing a chord?', or at least without moving more than a single finger on the left hand end of the guitar. I did a take on She Moved Through the Fair; OK, I cheated and added some bodhran and a mountain dulcimer drone backup, but essentially that guitar stays rooted in a 1-5-8 Irish harp style arpeggio, drop D.

http://artists.mp3s.com/artist_song/849/849221.html

It's been one my more successful songs. I'll admit to being influenced by Loreena McKennit anyway, but in this also by Hamish Imlach's final album before he died - both Hamish's most beloved ladies came over to Kelso for an 'in memoriam' concert on the day he was supposed to be booked to play at our club, a few weeks after his funeral. I'm pretty sure they did 'She Moves' that night as well, with Ian Mackintosh and Tich Frier on stage. It was Hamish's use of sweeping organ sounds that persuaded me to create the spatial swirling effects using the bodhran skin.

There was also some debate on the traditional or otherwise nature of 'She Moves', and the subject of the song. It is not a ghost story, as some people think; in one music book, the words 'my dear love came to me' were misprinted as 'my dead love came to me', and that's how the mistake started. The words were written by Percy French, or collected by him, and the tune may be traditional; it is widely published as traditional, and often never attributed to French. The actual story is of marital desertion, not death; the (more wealthy) bride moves in, but pretty swiftly leaves her intended husband and takes all her furniture, linen and clothes etc with her. The period the song refers to is one where pots and pans, nightshirts, stools, chests and so on were considered so valuable they were handed down through the generations and invading soldiery or local robbers would literally steal the shirt off your back. So a wealthy (in terms of 'gear') girl was a worthwhile catch. The narrator merely DREAMS his bride returned to him, and it doesn't imply that she is a ghost - just that he is alone.

David Kilpatrick

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: IanC
Date: 16 Feb 01 - 08:44 AM

Just to "correct" an earlier posting. You don't have to read "Kind" as "Kine" (very unlikely in the context of the song.

"Lack of kind" is an expression meaning lack of material wealth. It's still used occasionally today in East Anglia (UK)

Cheers!
Ian

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR
From: Jimmy C
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 08:38 AM

I first heard this song when I was a youngster. My mother used to sing it, but her version of the first and last verses went like this.

Oh my young love said to me,
My mother won't mind,
And my father won't slight you,
For your lack of kind,
And she moved away from me,
And this she did say,
It will not be long, love,
'Til the next market day.

Last night she came to me,
My dead love came in,
So softly she entered,
Her feet made no din,
Then she laid her hand on me,
And this she did say,
It will not be long, love,
'Til our wedding day.

She sang the 2nd and 3rd verses as Big Daddy has posted above.

I believe she called the song "The Next Market Day".

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 23-Jul-02.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: GUEST,Rebecca
Date: 13 Dec 00 - 12:50 AM

Helen put me onto this thread and i was a bit surprised to see that noone had mentioned the Loreena McKennitt version of the song.

It is absolutely amazing. I can't remeber which CD it is but its one of her earliest ones.

Anyway if you want to listen to a perfect vocalisation of this song have a listen to that one.

Rebecca

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Catrin
Date: 29 Nov 00 - 05:24 PM

Refresh

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Bagpuss
Date: 20 Aug 00 - 01:21 PM

The first version I heard of this was by All About Eve. Its one of the songs that first got me into singing folk songs.

Just to clarify, the second line ends in the word "kine" (meaning cattle - and therefore wealth), and not kind.

Bagpuss