Are Any of You Going to the Calhoun Fair? Patrick Gainer; No source or date given, circa early 1970s
[From West Virginia Regional History on-line. Patrick Gainer started recording the Child ballads (1-13) probably in the early 1970s before his 1975 book came out (he died in 1981). This version was probably "localized" by Gainer himself, who knew these details about the ballad:
This is ballad, Child No. 2. Child's title of this ballad is "The Elfin Knight", but in the West Virginia versions which we have found the knight loses all the character of the supernatural and is simply a young man who has a playful sort of game between his former lover and himself. He imposes certain impossible tasks upon her, and she in turn imposes even more impossible tasks upon him. Sometimes it is localized, as in this version, Are Any of You Going to the Calhoun Fair? It is very unusual to find the old world ballads localized as this one is. The Calhoun Country Fair was once held in Arnoldsburg, WV. The reference to West Fork, is the West Fork River in Calhoun County. And the old Jerk Line is a tract of land which belonged to a family who came to West Virginia from Germany. The name is Jerka, and pronounced Yerka. The people around got to calling the name "jerk." The name was later changed to Y-e-r-k-e and pronounced "Yerkee."
This is a fantastic background for this ballad. Notice that no informant, place or date is mentioned, a strategy he used to conceal the sources of his ballads. He used part of the above dialogue in his 1975 book, Folk Songs from the West Virginia Hills. He probably though better of it and didn't include this version in his book. For whatever reason, the ballad was pulled from the web-site- I transcribed the first two stanzas circa 2011.
R. Matteson Jr. 2014]
Are Any of You Going to the Calhoun Fair?- Gainer c. 1970
1. Are any of you going to the Calhoun Fair?
A-hie-maruk-mirandy-o,
Remember me to a lass who lives there,
For once she was a true lover of mine.
Oh, are any of you going to the Calhoun Fair?
A-hie-maruk-mirandy-o,
Remember me to a lad who lives there,
For once he was a true lover of mine.
[text upcoming]