Old Horn Fair, the importance of folk music and the great Thomas Hardy

Old Horn Fair - An original poem inspired by a folk song.

Old Horn Fair

‘Let us go to the old Horn Fair’,

Called the men in bright green dress,

But the lady in her great distress,

Turned her mare and did declare,

‘Rogues I shall not come with you

Knowing what you men would do,’

And so she turned and galloped away,

Keeping herself safe for one more day,

But the poor maiden without a horse,

Did instead suffer the Lady’s course,

And now she is beneath the ground,

Unable to make the slightest sound. 

The Poem above was inspired by the traditional folk song 'Horn Fair'. Below is a version sung by BBC Folk Award Winning duet, Spires and Boden (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1pSCP0Y64w). The tale within the poem is that of a fine, upper-class young woman and her reaction to the common men also making their way to Horn Fair at the same time as herself.

Horn Fair was a real event which took place in Essex right up until the Nineteenth Century, it involved all the young people's processing to the fair wearing horns upon their heads, hence the name. However, it was banned after the community began to protest that the celebration was 'lowering the moral tone of Essex' or so we are told by Jon Boden as he introduces the song found below.

Score and lyrics to the traditional folk song, 'Horn Fair'

Although the folk song is light-hearted and plays on the joyfulness of the occasion I chose to give my poem a somewhat more sinister outlook. The men, angered by the Lady's refusal, take out their desires on a young, poor maiden who has no horse to escape upon. This results in her death and the sorrowful conclusion of the poem. Unlike the previously explored, Trampwoman's Tragedy, by Thomas Hardy, this is not followed by the ethereal reappearance of the poor maiden and therefore her death is far more solid and irreversible than that of the lover in the afore mentioned poem. 

Cotswold Morris Dancers 

Folk music allows us to explore the past in a way very similar to poetry, presenting historic events, situations, expectations and communities to the reader and/or listener. It is often believed that poetry is best understood when read out loud to an audience which places little difference between the performance of the two. For this reason neither should be allowed to diminish in their importance or fade from our culture. After all when one thinks of the English countryside, images of Morris dancers still appear and alongside them the folklore presented within traditional music and poetry. This is another reason that I am such a lover of Thomas Hardy’s poetry. His collections are littered with folklore references which permit us to access the past and the heritage of England that is in some cases becoming lost among the concrete jungles, the traffic jams, the airport terminals and the high-rises.  

Read, enjoy and remember. There is much more about us than meets the eye, it’s time to open them and see. See perhaps for the first time the real beauty of the world around us. Amyx