> The Watersons > Songs > Sedgefield Fair
Sedgefield Fair
[
Roud 294
; TYG 15
; Ballad Index RcOlJoWa
; trad.]
The Broadside from Grimsby sang Caistor Fair (Old John Wallace) in 1973 on their Topic album of songs and ballads collected in Lincolnshire, The Moon Shone Bright, and their band member John Conolly sang Brigg Fair / Caistor Fair on his 2013 CD The Man from Fiddlers' Green. He commented:
Jolly jinks at Caistor Fair provide a contrast to Joseph Taylor's classic love song, set in Brigg. The two towns are ten miles apart, in rural North Lincolnshire.
The Watersons sang Sedgefield Fair with Mike Waterson in lead in 1981 on their album Green Fields. A.L. Lloyd commented in the album sleeve notes:
Sedgefield is just north of Stockton-on-Tees, and in the nineteenth century its fair was renowned for draught horses. In this comedy song the sellers had poor luck. “Titty fa lairy, fire up (or flare up) Mary” was quite a favourite chorus for many mid-nineteenth century songs. Some say it refers to the steam threshing machine then coming into favour. David Hillery got the song from Jack Beeforth of Wragby, Yorks, and then passed it on to the Watersons.
The steam threshing machine's theory is supported by Jim Copper's The Threshing Song which has the line “Flare up Mary” in the chorus. This song was recorded in 1951 by BBC Radio and included in 1955 on the Alan Lomax collection World Library of Folk and Primitive Music: England.
Lyrics
The Watersons sing Sedgefield Fair | Notes by Greer Gilman |
---|---|
Awd Dicky Thompson, he had a grey mare |
awd = old;
ti = to;
browt = brought |
Chorus (after each verse): |
As A.L. Lloyd notes, “fire up Mary” may refer to a
threshing engine. (Though at times the Watersons seem to be singing
“fire off Mary”--suggested by Dicky's awd gun?) |
Now he turned her away into Wragby Wood |
|
Now he browt her some hay, it were all in a scuttle |
|
Now he took 'er away inti't field to ploo |
inti't = into the; ploo = plough |
Now all of his sheep got intiv his fog |
fog = new grass which springs up after mowing |
Then all of his hens got intiv his corn |
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Greer Gilman for the transcription and the notes.