She moved through the Fair

I have met several different versions of this song, with the verses and the lines used in the way of "floating" elements of traditional songs, at the whim of the singer. Female singers often changing the words to "he" rather than "she", too.

Although the words are sometimes credited to the Irish poet, Padraic Colum, it is confirmed by MCPS in Dublin that Padric Colum only wrote one of the four existing verses. So the traditional version has three verses ("My young love..." "She stepped away..." & "Last night...") - not four.

There is a Northern Irish version called "Out of the Window", to which Paddy Tunny added this verse:

She moved away from me as she moved through the fair
With hand-clappen dealers whose voice wrent the air
Her cheeks were as roses and her feet ne'er touch the ground
And all that gazed on her were silent around.

Yet another version is called "Our Wedding Day" in "Folk Songs of Britain and Ireland" (edited by Peter Kennedy). The words are rather different: she runs away with someone else - "I'd lost my wee darling through courting too slow".

The song is found in the Tinker (non-Romany Irish and Scottish gypsies) tradition and is also known as "The Wedding Song", since the last words in the verses are "it will not be long love, 'til our wedding day".

Seamas Ennis traced it to a version of the Bold Forester, and it also has been traced back to a version found in South Uist, in Gaelic.

This is one of those songs that I seem to have known forever.

My young love said to me "My parents won't mind"
And my brothers won't slight you for your lack of kind.
Then he stepped away from me and this he did say
"It will not be long, love, until our wedding day".

Then he stepped away from me and he moved through the fair.
So fondly I watched him move here and move there.
He stepped away from me with one star awake,
As the swan in the evening moves over the lake.

I dreamed it last night that my young love came in.
He enteed so softly, his feet made no din.
Then he sat down beside me and this he did say
"It will not be long, love, until our wedding day".

The people were saying no two were ever wed
but one had a sorrow that never was said.
But I smiled as he passed me with his goods and his gear
and that was the last that I saw of my dear.

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Here is a variant from "Songs of the People" entitled "Our Wedding Day":

l once had a wee lass and I loved her well
I loved her far better than my tongue can tell
Her parents disliked me for my want of years
So adieu to all pleasure since I lost my dear

Then I dreamt last night that my love came in
And she walked up so soft that her feet made no din
I thought that she spoke and those words she did say
It won't be long now, love, till our wedding day

Then according to promise at midnight I rose
And found nothing there but the down-folded clothes
The sheets they were empty, as plain as you see
And out of the window with another went she

Oh, it's Molly, lovely Molly, what's this that you have done
You have pulled the thistle, left the red rose behind
The thistle will wither and decay away soon
But the red rose will flourish in the merry month of June

Then if l was a fisherman down by the seaside
And Molly a salmon, coming in with the tide
I would cast out my net and catch her in a snare
I would have lovely Molly, I vow and declare

Or if I was an eagle and had two wings to fly
I would fly to my love's castle and it's there I would lie
ln a bed of green ivy l would leave myself down
With my two folded wings I would my love surround