She Moved Through the Fair

"She Moved Through the Fair" has been found both in Ireland and in Scotland,[1] but pieces of the song were apparently first collected in County Donegal by Longford poet Padraic Colum and the musicologist Herbert Hughes.

The melody is in Mixolydian mode (major scale with a flattened seventh—a fairly common mode within Irish and Scottish musical traditions), placing a large emphasis on the 1st, 4th, 5th and 7th chords of the scale.[2] John Loesberg speculated: "From its strange, almost Eastern sounding melody, it appears to be an air of some antiquity,"[3] but he does not define its age any more precisely.

The lyrics were first published in Hughes' Irish Country Songs, published by Boosey & Hawkes in 1909.[4] A common version goes 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 stepped away from me, and this, she did say: "It will not be long, love, ‘til our wedding day."

She stepped away from me, and she moved through the fair. And, fondly, I watched her move her and move there. And then she moved onward, with one star awake. Like 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 stepped closer to me, and this, she did say: "It will not be long, love, ‘til our wedding day."

In a letter published in The Irish Times in 1970, Colum stated that he was the author of all but the final verse. He also described how Herbert Hughes collected the tune and then he, Colum, had kept the last verse of a traditional song and written a couple of verses to fit the music.[5]

One verse was not included in the first publication: Colum soon realised that he had not put in the poem the fact that the woman had died before the marriage, and so he wrote the verse that begins: "The people were saying, that no two were e'er wed, but one had a sorrow that never was said ..." and sent it on to Hughes, too late for publication in that particular collection. This extra verse was published in other collections, along with the other three verses. The lyrics were also published in Colum's collection Wild Earth: And Other Poems (1916), though the traditional origin of the final verse is not mentioned there.[6]

In the course of the same Irish Times correspondence, however, another music collector, Proinsias Ó Conluain, said he had recorded a song called "She Went Through the Fair", with words the same as the other three verses of "She Moved Through the Fair", sung by an old man who told him that "the song was a very old one" and that he had learned it as a young man from a basket-weaver in Glenavy.[7]

Irish singer Paddy Tunney related[8] how Colum wrote an alternate version called upon returning from a literary gathering in Donegal with Herbert Hughes, among others. However, as the melody remains the same, Tunney suggested that it would be more accurate to say that Colum simply added new lyrics to an existing traditional song that, by then, had generated many variations throughout Ireland

Tunney, himself, collected a version from an Irish singer named Barney McGarvey. This version, similarly to the lyrics of "Our Wedding Day", was called "I Once Had a True Love". The opening four lines are highly reminiscent of "She Moved Through the Fair", and the second four lines are unmistakably taken from that composition.

The first verse says:

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 you 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 are quite different. Tunney also points to a version of the song that he obtained from his mother, who called it "My Young Love Said to Me", which recalls lyrics from the alternate version, as well. The first verse is virtually the same as Colum's, but the latter three verses are quite different:

My young love said to me, "My mother won't mind…

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

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 greesagh 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 downfolded clothes.

The sheets, they lay empty; 'twas plain for to see.

And out of the window, with another, went she.

One 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 in Northern Ireland in around 1930 and published in 1979.[9] Yet another song, "I Once Had a True Love", also appears to be related, as it shares some lyrics with "She Moved Through the Fair".[10]

"I Was In Chains", written by Gavin Sutherland and recorded by The Sutherland Brothers on their album The Sutherland Brothers Band (1972), has a similar tune but completely different words. Paul Young covered this song on his album The Secret of Association (1985).

The 1989 song "Belfast Child" by Simple Minds incorporates the melody of "She Moved Through the Fair".[11]

In the 1990s the tune was used in the winning entry in the Comórtas na nAmhrán Nuachumtha ("Competition for newly composed songs") in Ráth Cairn. The subject of the song, Bailéad an Phíolóta ("The Ballad of the Pilot"), was a plane crash that took place in 1989 on an unlit runway on Árainn Mhór.[12]

Other name variants include "She Moved Thru' The Fair",[13] "She Moved Thro' The Fair",[14] and "He Moved Through The Fair" [15]

Scottish tenor Sydney MacEwan recorded the song in 1936 and Irish tenor John McCormack recorded it in 1941.[16]

In 1952, folklorist Peter Kennedy recorded the McPeake Family singing a version based on that of Margaret Barry entitled "Our Wedding Day." It featured a bagpipe accompaniment by Francis McPeake, II. The traditional singer Paddy Tunney learned "She Moved Through the Fair" in County Fermanagh and recorded it in 1965. Other singers who sang it in the 1950s and the 1960s included Patrick Galvin, Dominic Behan and Anne Briggs. It was popular among members of the Traveller community in Ireland at that time.

Fairport Convention recorded the song in 1968, adapting the style of the song from the Traveller Margaret Barry, though she herself had learned it from the John McCormack vinyl recording. Former Fairport Convention guitarist and songwriter Richard Thompson regularly includes the song in concert performances.[17] Also of note are the recordings of the song by Alan Stivell in 1973. Art Garfunkel (formerly of Simon & Garfunkel) recorded a particularly lush version on his album Watermark (1977), which featured Irish traditional band The Chieftains and was arranged by Paddy Moloney and Jimmy Webb.

Versions of the song recorded by Sinéad O'Connor (as used on the soundtrack of the film Michael Collins), Trees and Nana Mouskouri change the gender of the pronouns, so the song became "He Moved Through the Fair". O'Connor's and Trees' versions keep the original title even so, but Mouskouri changes it. In a 2015 interview, O'Connor expressed regret for having changed the gender.[18] An alternative version of the lyrics is also used in Mary Black's version of the song.

In June 2016, the BBC TV series The Living and the Dead premiered a version of the song sung by Elizabeth Fraser in collaboration with The Insects.[19][20][21]

• Sissel & The Chieftains Live recording of "Love, Will You Marry Me?" and "She Moved Through The Fair" (2001)
• Traditional Ballad Index, California State University: sources and notes about the song
• The lyrics and a MIDI version of the song
• Information/speculation about the history, origins and variations of the song
• Lyrics and chords
• Sheet music
• Full poem and song
• "He Moved Through the Fair" on YouTube