Origins: She Moves through the Fair

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Lox
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 02:32 PM

Dear "...."

What are the words in Irish?

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Bernard
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 06:48 PM

It's what is known as a 'demon lover ballad', meaning that one of the partners has already died before the start of the song, so to speak.

The 'fair' means a field of flowers.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 10 Aug 00 - 09:11 PM

Unless it just means "the fair", as in one of those events you go to that involve buying and selling livestock etc.  It is not a "demon lover" ballad; the reference to death is recent (20th. century I think, though John Moulden would know for sure), though it is of course very romantic.

Beware of reading things into songs for which there is no evidence beyond wishful thinking...

Malcolm

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Bernard
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 04:44 AM

Not my opinion, chuck, I read it somewhere a LONG time ago...

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 08:07 AM

Fair enough; I still think it's wrong, though.

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: P05139
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 10:30 AM

OK, everyone's mentioning the Sinead O'Connor version, but Boyzone also did a fantastic version which can be found on the B-Side of the single "A Different Beat" or Track 14 of the album of the same name.

Ronan Keating's voice suits the song perfectly, so there!

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 11:10 AM

Boyzone?  Good heavens.  Mind you, good as so many of the contemporary recordings of the song are, to my mind they're really "covers" rather than distinct variants in their own right, at least for the moment.

I was maybe a bit abrupt earlier, Bernard; sorry about that.  I should really have gone into more detail.  A look at other traditional versions will soon make it plain what sort of fair we're talking about!  As to the supernatural element, in the traditional versions that I've seen, with one exception, the young man loses his love, not to death, but either for an unspecified reason (as in the version Paddy Tunney heard from Barney MacGarvey in 1960, and printed in The Stone Fiddle) or, more usually, to another man; as in, for example, Our Wedding Day (in Kennedy, mentioned above by Muriel Doris; there is another version, from Sam Henry's Songs of the People, here: Our Wedding Day ) or My young love said to me (Paddy Tunney).

The exception is Margaret Barry's four-verse version; this is virtually identical to Padraic Colum's rewrite, but instead of "she came softly in", she sang "my dead love came in".  I strongly suspect that it was she who introduced that bit to the song, and in so doing completely changed its meaning.  That would be some time in the 1940s or 50s, presumably.  As it happens, I think that it was a stroke of genius, but it does mean that any speculation as to the deeper meaning of that particular version of the song can only be subjective and personal; a matter of opinion, not fact.  I'm hoping that John Moulden will look in and tell me if I'm hopelessly wrong in my guess, and that somebody will post the Gaelic version that gets mentioned from time to time.

Malcolm

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR
From: Catrin
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 03:50 PM

I once had a sweetheart, I loved her right well
I loved her far better than my tongue can tell
Her parents did slight me for my want of gear
Adieu to all pleasure, since I lost my dear

She went away from me and she moved through the fair
Where hand-clapping dealers' loud shouts rent the air
The sunlight around her did sparkle and play
Saying "It will not be long love, 'til our wedding day"

When dew falls on meadows and moths fill the night
When the glow from the grease hawk(?) on the hearth throws half light
I'll slip from my casement and I'll run away
Then it will not be long love, till our wedding day

Then according to promise, at midnight I arose
But all that I found there were her bloodstained clothes
Now it's out through the window and plain for to see
Oh gone is my love and murdered is she

Now my own, how I loved her, as much as my life
And yes, my intention was to make her my wife
My poor heart lies bleeding for the girl I adored
I will pray for her soul now, what can I do more?

I dreamed last night that my dead love came in
She came in so easy that her feet made no din
She came stepping up to me and this she did say
"It will not be long love, 'til our wedding day"

Probably a bit of a mish mash that - it's words a friend gave to me and I haven't got a clue where they came from. Might help in the discussion though.

And yes, one of my favourites too.

Catrin

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: P05139
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 04:23 PM

Yes, Malcolm, BOYZONE! They are Irish after all!

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Aug 00 - 05:31 PM

I must try to listen to that...  The version Catrin posted above seems to be mainly Paddy Tunney's (verses 1-4), with a verse 5 that may have come from the version in Kennedy (or one like it) and a final verse that could be from the Barney MacGarvey version I mentioned, and which Paddy recorded on The Wild Bees' Nest.

Having said that, there are some important differences, since, as I said, none of them mention death.  Paddy's 4th. verse ran:

According to promise, at midnight he rose
But all that he found was the downfolded clothes.
The sheets they lay empty 'twas plain for to see
And out of the window with another went she.

Verse 5 looks like a conflation of two of the verses from Kennedy, with "soul" substituted for "welfare".  In MacGarvey's version, it's "true love", not "dead love".  Unless somebody can find a traditional source for it, I'd put money on it's being a recent re-write, though certainly an interesting twist to the story.  Oh, "grease-hawk" is given by Tunney as "greesagh", which I believe is Gaelic "griosach": "burning embers".

Malcolm

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Catrin
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 10:41 AM

Wow, Malcolm C. That is sooo interesting. I think it shows that the folk tradition, of songs evolving because of half remembered words and tunes, is still going on, even with all of todays technology which freezes songs into 'correct' versions. Perhaps that's a thread drift though.

I like the 'murdered' bit of the story though. I think it makes it more interesting. And the ghost bit too. Come to think of it, I always thought it was a ghost story and the references to 'dead' love, rather than 'true' love, were 'original'.

I am though, as always, only too ready to be proved wrong.

Cheers,

Catrin

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From:
Date: 13 Aug 00 - 01:02 PM

Has anyone heard the lovely version sung by Nana Mouskouri on her album of songs of the British Isles? It includes the 4 "classic" verses.This was my first exposure to this beautiful song. I agree that Sandy Denny's singing of it is superb also. Must say that "HE Moved through the Fair" (the version Nana sings) gave me the impression that the man had left the girl to pine despite the promise of marriage, and that the final ghostly reappearance was but her wishful fantasy.

BTW, I think my personal favorite song of all is "The Streets of Laredo." I suppose that's being discussed by another thread, eh? I shall have to find it. Michael Martin Murphey in performance (and perhaps on one of his albums) makes clear the Gaelic origins of "Streets."

Marian C.

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE MOVES THROUGH THE FAIR (parody)
From: Snuffy
Date: 15 Aug 00 - 06:12 AM

I don't know the parody "She Fell Through the Flare", but here's Les Barker's take on the song.

SHE MOVES THROUGH THE FAIR

(Les Barker)

My young love said to me, "My mother won't mind,
And my father won't slight you for your lack of kind."
Then she put her arms around 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,
She won some old goldfish and one teddy bear.
Then she made her way homeward, with one star awake,
It was too dark to see, and she fell in the lake.

Last night she came to me, my wet love came on.
And sadly she told me that Teddy had gone.
The she put her arms around me, and this she did say.
"It's goldfish and chips for your dinner today."

Sung by Alison Younger on Oranges And Lemmings, Mrs Ackroyd Records DOG007

Wassail! V

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Susanne (skw)
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 11:54 AM

Lovely, Snuffy! I hate parodies of songs I love, but some are actually very good!
Different topic: A friend tells me he has heard that this song originally had other lyrics, concerning a mother looking for her dead child. I've never heard this story before, but maybe someone else knows what this may refer to? - Susanne

Subject: Lyr Add: SHE MOVED THROUGH THE FAIR (f. Mouskouri)
From: Alice
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 12:16 PM

Well, I love anything the way Nana Mouskouri sang it. I actually have always sung this changing it a little myself, because when the lyrics are first person male, I usually look for a way to have it make more sense for a woman singing it. Here are my slight changes for when I sing it:

His young love said to him,
My mother won't mind,
And my father won't slight thee,
For your lack of kine,
And she stepped away from him,
And this she did say,
It will not be long, love,
Til our wedding day.

She stepped away from him,
And she moved through the fair,
And he watched her fondly,
As she moved here and there,
And then she went homeward,
With one star awake,
As the swans in the evening,
Move over the lake.

Last night she came to him,
Her ghost came in,
She came so softly,
That her feet made no din,
And she layed her hand on him,
And this she did say,
It will not be long, love,
Til our wedding day.

So, not much different from the other version, but if you are a woman, better than singing words written for a man.

Alice

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: poet
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 04:55 PM

20 years ago (before mudcat) the only source of lyrics open to me was what I could pinch from visiting singers. I once heard the misterious 3rd verse and then NEVER heard it again. so when I decided that I wanted to sing this song I took a liberty and wrote this verse in its place.

Oh my young love she left me for death came that night
and he took her away from the world and the light,
and the thoughts in my mind were of what she did say
that tommorrows the morning of our wedding day.

I have since of course found the missing verse but I find that I cannot imprint into my memory to replace the one that I wrote so i'm afraid I still sing my own words.


Graham (Guernsey)

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 04:59 PM

There's a verse about small birds singing too, Derek Gifford sings it, but I've not got round to picking it off the tape yet. Anyone know where that came from?

LTS

Subject: RE: She Moves Through the Fair
From: MartinRyan
Date: 19 Aug 00 - 06:44 PM

Malcolm

You're right about "gríosach" - I believe Paddy Tunney himself inserted it.

Regards

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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: Malcolm Douglas
Date: 12 Jun 01 - 10:37 PM

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

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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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: 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?