Thame Fair
Jack-in-the-Green track 4
I first heard this sung by the duo Silas (James Pattinson and Ralph Jordan) in 1979 or 1980. Caroline Jackson-Houlston found the words for me on a visit to the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library - probably in Songs for Singing Folk: The Dave and Toni Arthur Song Book, published in 1970 by Galliard, in association with the EFDSS. I'd always assumed that this was a traditional song, but it seems it was composed by R.D. "Wag" Puddefoot from Ivinghoe, near Leighton Buzzard, in Bedfordshire. Wag Puddefoot was squire of Aldbury Morris from Tring.