Subject: RE: Origins: She Moves through the Fair
From:
GUEST
Date: 03 Nov 13 - 06:32 PM
It was collected in Donegal around 1903 by a team that included the musicologist Herbert Hughes who had been brought up in Belfast (Hughes was then 22). He collected traditional airs and transcribed folk songs in North Donegal in August 1903 with his brother Fred, the extraordinary F.J. Bigger, and John Campbell, all from Belfast. "Dedicated to seeking out and recording such ancient melodies as were yet to be found in the remoter glens and valleys of Ulster, he produced in 1904 Songs of Uladh (ancient name for Ulster) with Joseph Campbell, illustrated by Joseph's brother John Campbell and paid for by Bigger, who freely spent his own money, time and inexhaustible energy in supporting and publicising the creative talents and endeavours of others involved in the Irish Cultural Revival" - Bigger was an Anglican who lived on the Antrim Road in Belfast.
F.J. Bigger was an incredible man, and was probably the prime mover and financer behind these and other collecting endeavours. See http://www.ardrighbooks.com/fjb.html .
The version of "She Moved..." collected by Hughes, Campbell and Bigger was adapted by the Irish poet Padraig Colum, and was published by Hughes in 1909. Later Colum decided another verse was needed between the existing second and third verses. He often claimed to have written all four verses, but there seems to be no doubt that he simply adapted the original three (see next paragraph).
In Irish Country Songs, Volume 1, 1909 by Herbert Hughes, the earliest published version that I have so far found, "She moved thro' the fair" is on page 46. Hughes states that the words are by "Padrẚic Colum adapted from an old ballad". That seems to be pretty definitive. It contains only these three verses, which I have copied here from the 1909 original as follows:
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 stepp'd away from me and this she did say,
"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."
She stepp'd away from me and she went thro' the fair,
And fondly I watch'd 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.
Last night she came to me, she came softly in,
So softly she came that her feet made no din,
And she laid her hand on me and this she did say
"It will not be long, love, till our wedding day."
The song is spread over pages 46 to 48, and includes the music for the melody and a piano accompaniment. The melody is the same as the one that I have always known.
I don't see anything in those words to suggest she had died, or gone away, or disappeared. Just two devoted lovers. Anything added later is just not being true to the simple and beautiful original, including Colum's subsequently added verse which includes the spurious "and that was the last that I saw of my dear". Did he do this (and other subsequent wording changes to the original three verses) just to spice up the song a bit?
What a debt we owe to these chaps and all those other collectors who went out and about the country to listen and write down what they heard. Hughes and Campbell also collected "My Lagan Love" in Donegal in 1903. They are also credited with collecting the tune for "Down by the Salley Gardens", from which the familiar song was arranged by Hughes in 1909 using the poem of that name written by William Butler Yeats in 1899. (The tune used was the reel called "An Traigh Mughdhorna", or "The Moorlough Shore". I have listened to this reel and it is identical to "Down By..." except for the pace.)
The Irish musical heritage is filled with such achingly beautiful melodies. But what of the wonderful tunes and songs that have been missed and lost forever?
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sj
