Fairport Convention 
She moves through the fair (What we did on our holidays) 
By Marcel Veltman 
 
Who can say something sensible about the origin of this song? Many people believe it is a 
mediaeval traditional, but problably it was made up somewhere in the 19th century just to 
sound like one. There are even rumours that it is a complete hoax, brought into being by 
a young American named Randy Newman, long before he himself outfamed this song and 
everyone who ever sang it. If this is true, he never claimed the joke, nor the royalties 
when The Simple Minds took the melody for their mega-selling hitsingle 'Belfast Child' 
 
D5 , C5 , G5 , D5  
 
D5           
My young love said to me 
    C5            D5  
My mother don't mind 
 
And my father won't sligh you 
     C5            D5 
For your lack of kind  
         C5             D5 
And she laid her hand on me 
     C5               A5 
And this is she did say 
    C5                D5 
It will not be long love 
      C5           D5 
Till our wedding day 
  

D5 , C5 , A5 , C5 , D5 , C5 , G5 , D5 
 
And she went away from me 
She moves through the fair 
And fondly I watched her 
Move here and move there 
And then she went homeward 
Only one star awake 
Like a swan in the evening 
Moves over the lake 
 
Last night she came to me 
My dead love came in 
So softly she came 
That her feet made no din 
And she laid her hand on me 
And this she did say 
Oh, it will not be long love 
Till our wedding day