She Moved Through The Fair
Track Information
Original Track ID
SA1955.62.A1
Original Tape ID
Summary
In this song the singer meets his lover, who tells him that her father will not object to their marriage. She later dies and reappears as a ghost, telling her sweetheart that it will not be long until their wedding day.
Item Notes
3 verses of 4 lines; well-known short version.
Fragments of this well-known and widely-sung traditional song were collected by Padraic Colum, who reworked it and added at least one verse of his own before publishing the song in 1909 in the first volume of Herbert Hughes' 'Irish Country Songs'. Hughes also made an arrangement of the traditional tune.
The third of Colum's four verses (beginning 'The people were saying, no two e'er were wed') is commonly omitted by later singers, as is the case here. Other traditional versions can be much longer.
See:
'The Stone Fiddle' (P. Tunney, 1979) pp. 153-154
'Irish Country Songs' vol. 1 (H. Hughes, 1936) pp. 46-48
'Folksongs of Britain & Ireland' (P. Kennedy, 1975) p. 365
'Sam Henry's Songs of the People' (G. Huntington, 1990) pp. 395-396, p. 454
Language
English
Genre
Collection
Classification
Source Type
Reel to reel
Audio Quality
Fair