As played at Benbow Cornish Session

 

 

Two versions of Fer Lyskerrys / Liskeard Fair recorded in the Racca Project 1995-1997.

Fer Lyskerrys as played by the Lowender Festival Band in 1987 (Version 2)

The tune, Liskeard Fair, is noted down in Rev Sabine Baring Gould’s Rough Notebook Vol 2 p.28 (Plymouth and Devon Records Offices & Vaughan Williams Memorial Library online: https://www.vwml.org/record/SBG/3/5/28A). There is no clear source, date or place recorded on the record.

Liskeard fair days (originally St Mathews Feast, St Mary’s and Ascension Day) were granted by Richard, Earl of Cornwall, in 1266. Allen’s ‘History of Liskeard’ makes several references to these fair days and the processions around the town during the mid-18^th Century which involved music, begging for cider or beer and people on horseback. The procession finished with a dance on the ‘frolic green’. (Paynter W.H . The History of the Borough of liskeard – John Allen. Edited and revised 1967 . Page 140. Original Version by Allen 1856)

Notes

See Cornish Session Tunes

For more about Cornish Session Tunes

Racca: Cornish Tunes for Cornish Sessions Project 1995-97

Fooch 1 & 2 Favourite Cornish Session and Dance Tunes – Neil Davey

Prys Ton: Cornish Session Tunes – An Daras Folk Arts Project

Kesson -Kyt’s Tunery

Cornish Trad -Discovering Cornish Traditional Music