"She Moved Through the Fair" (or "She Moves Through the Fair") is a traditional Irish folk song, existing in a number of versions and which has been recorded many times.
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The song was first collected in Donegal by poet Padraic Colum and musicologist Herbert Hughes, and published by Boosey & Hawkes in London in a work entitled Irish Country Songs in 1909.[1] The tune is in mixolydian mode.[2] The lyrics were also published in Colum's 1922 book Wild earth: and other poems (though the book doesn't mention their traditional origin).[3]
A longer variant of the song is called "Our Wedding Day". A related song, "Out of the Window", was collected by Sam Henry, from Eddie Butcher of Magilligan, Northern Ireland, around 1930, and published in Henry's Songs of the People.[4] Another song, "I Once Had a True Love", also appears to be related, as it shares some lyrics with "She Moved Through the Fair".[5]
The traditional singer Paddy Tunney learned it in County Fermanagh and recorded it in 1965. Other singers who sang it in the 50s/60s were Dominic Behan and Anne Briggs. It was a popular song among members of the Traveller community in Ireland by that time.
Fairport Convention recorded the song in 1968, adopting the style of the song from the influential travelling singer Margaret Barry, though she herself had learned it from a vinyl recording made by Count John McCormack at Abbey Road in 1941. Also of note are the recordings of the song by Alan Stivell in 1973.
One version of the lyrics is as follows:
Colum may have altered the traditional words significantly, perhaps cutting a number of verses; the variant of the song called Our Wedding Day has ten verses, to Colum's four. The song is often shortened further by omitting the third verse (above).
Several versions of the lyrics are in current use. For example, in the first line of Colum's version published in Wild earth:
the word 'brothers' is usually changed to 'mother'.
Similarly, the second line:
is usually rendered:
or even as:
The original "My dead love" in verse 4 is often rendered as "my dear love", "my own love", or "my young love" (particularly when verse 3, which implies that the woman may have died, is omitted). In Colum's version, this final appearance of the woman is in a dream, whereas other versions imply she is a ghost.
In the variant called Our Wedding Day, the woman goes into the man's bedroom while he is asleep, but she is not dead; she then runs off with another suitor, and the man joins the army.
The traditional singer Paddy Tunney relates[7] how Colum "wrote" the song after returning from a literary gathering in Donegal with Herbert Hughes and others. Tunney suggests, however, that it would be more accurate to say that Colum simply improved an original traditional song which at that time had splintered into many variations throughout Ireland.
Tunney himself collected one version from an Irish singer called Barney McGarvey. This version was called I Once Had A True Love. The opening four lines are reminiscent of She Moved Through The Fair and the second four lines are unmistakably similar.
The words to the first verse are:
I once had a sweet-heart, I loved her so well
I loved her far better than my tongue could tell
Her parents they slight me for my want of gear
So adieu to you Molly, since your are not here
I dreamed last night that my true love came in
So softly she came that her feet made no din
She stepped up to me and this she did say
It will not be long love, till our wedding day
The remaining two verses, however, are quite different. Nevertheless, this opening verse shows how songs could be changed and adapted as they were passed down in the oral tradition.
Tunney also points to a version of the song which he learnt from his mother which she called, My Young Love Said to Me. The first verse is virtually the same as Colum's but the remaining three verses are quite different and describe how the woman in the song went off with another man. It is 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 went away from me and this she did say:
It will not be long now till our wedding day.
She went away from me and she moved through the fair
Where hand-slapping dealers' loud shouts rent the air
The sunlight around her did sparkle and play
Saying it will not be long now till our wedding day.
When dew falls on meadow and moths fill the night
When glow of the greeesagh on hearth throws half-light
I'll slip from the casement and we'll run away
And it will not be long love till our wedding day
According to promise at midnight he rose
But all that he found was the downloaded clothes
The sheets they lay empty 'twas plain for to see
And out of the window with another went she
Colum's version is more subtle. It gives no explanation for the young woman's disappearance, which gives the song a sense of mystery and allows the listener the freedom to interpret it in his or her own way.
In recent times, following Fairport Convention's version of the song in the sixties, hundreds of artists have recorded this song in its traditional form. Most have kept to some form of the traditional lyrics: however, the versions by Sinéad O'Connor (as used in the soundtrack of the film Michael Collins), Trees and Nana Mouskouri change the gender of the pronouns and so the song became "He Moved Through the Fair". O'Connor and Trees' versions keep the original "She Moved Through the Fair" title on their sleeves, although Mouskouri changes the name to suit the variant. An alternative version of the lyrics was also used in Mary Black's version of the song.
Other notable versions:
| Preceded by "Something's Gotten Hold of My Heart" by Gene Pitney & Marc Almond |
UK number-one single February 19, 1989 "Belfast Child" by Simple Minds |
Succeeded by "Too Many Broken Hearts" by Jason Donovan |