Tom Pearce (Widdicombe Fair I)

DESCRIPTION: The singer asks Tom Pearce to lend his old mare to go to the fair. Tom wants the horse back soon, but it is slow in returning, for it has taken sick and died. (Now the horse's ghost can be seen haunting the moors at night)
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1889
KEYWORDS: horse ghost travel
FOUND IN: Britain(England(South,West)) Canada(Ont) US(Ap)
REFERENCES (13 citations):
Gardham-EarliestVersions, "WIDDICOMBE FAIR"
Kennedy-FolksongsOfBritainAndIreland 308, "Tom Pearce" (1 text, 1 tune)
Reeves-TheEverlastingCircle 75, "Illsdown Fair" (1 text)
Karpeles-TheCrystalSpring 112, "Midsummer Fair" (1 text, 1 tune)
Hamer-GarnersGay, pp. 10-11, "Bedford Fair" (1 text, 1 tune)
Baring-Gould/Sheppard-SongsOfTheWest2ndEd, #16, "Widdecombe Fair" (1 text, 1 tune)
Quiller-Couch-OxfordBookOfBallads 171, "Widdicombe Fair" (1 text)
Bush-FSofCentralWestVirginiaVol3, pp. 16-17, "Joe Maybe" (1 text, 1 tune)
Silber/Silber-FolksingersWordbook, p. 398, "Tam Pierce" (1 text)
GirlScouts-SingTogether, pp. 68-69, "Widdicombe Fair" (1 text, 1 tune)
LibraryThingCampSongsThread, post 161, "Widecombe Fair" (1 short text, from user John5918, posted november 30, 2021)
DT, WIDDECOM* TAMPRCE*
ADDITIONAL: Walter de la Mare, _Come Hither_, revised edition, 1928; #80, "Widicombe Fair" (1 text)
ST K308 (Partial)
Roud #137
RECORDINGS:
Tom Brown, "Widdlecombe Fair" (on Voice07)
George Maynard, "Lansdown Fair" (on FSB10)
Bill Westaway, "Widdicombe Fair" (on FSB10, FieldTrip1)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Widdicombe Fair (II)" (lyrics)
SAME TUNE:
Guys on the Grand Coulee Dam (by Woody Guthrie; tune conjectured by Pete Seeger) (Woody Guthrie, __Roll On Columbia: The Columbia River Collection_, collected and edited by Bill Murlin, Sing Out Publications, 1991, pp. 66-67, with Seeger's notes on p. 68)
ALTERNATE TITLES:
Bedford Fair
John Jones's Old Mare
Stow Fair
NOTES [129 words]: According to Marc Alexander, A Companion to the Folklore, Myths & Customs of Britain, Sutton Publishing, 2002, p. 316, Widdicombe Fair is:
"The fair held at the Dartmoor village of Widecombe-on-the-Moor.... The fair is held on the second Tuesday in September with a Master of Ceremonies dressed in an old-fashioned farm worker's smock and holding a crook. In the local dialect he announces various events, including such traditional games as the slippery pole and a cross-country foot race. The fair has been held at Widecombe-on-the-Moor since the middle of the nineteenth century."
Alexander, pp. 316-317, adds a tale of when Satan supposely visited Widecombe in 1638, when a severe storm hit the town and damaged the church of St. Pancras, killing several inside. - RBW
Last updated in version 6.8
File: K308

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