CHAPTER XXXI
Fairs
The word "Fair" calls up to our minds all sorts of wonderful sights and sounds—the stalls with their wonderful "fairings" and "goodies"; the shows and the shooting-galleries; the "flying horses", the "conjurors", the performing dogs, and Punch and Judy; the wonderful caravans and coco-nuts; the musical instruments of all sorts, from the mouth-organ and "squeaker" to the steam-organ of the roundabout.
Many such fairs are still held in every county and they connect the present day very closely with the life of bygone days. It is "all the fun of the fair" which draws people to them mostly nowadays, but in some of them there is still important business done; people are attracted to them for trade as well as for pleasure.
Some of these fairs are held in big towns, such as Lincoln and Carlisle. At Barnet a great horse fair is held every year in September. But some big fairs are held away from any large town, such as the big sheep fair at Weyhill, in Hampshire. At Stourbridge, in Cambridgeshire, a fair is still held; it is quite an ordinary one now, but in the Middle Ages it was one of the most important fairs, not only in England, but in Europe—a great gathering, where East and West met to do business with each other.
In some places the business part of the fair has quite died out, and a few stalls, a roundabout, a shooting-gallery, and swings are all that can be seen on a fair-day.
The word "fair" comes from an old word which means a "feast" or festival. There are many villages which still have their annual village feast, more important to the village than Christmas or a "Bank Holiday". Houses are turned out and cleaned from top to bottom; everything must be made fit to be seen "for the feast". It is a great meeting-time for families, and the boys and girls who have gone away to work in some big town try to get back for a few hours to their native village, to "the old house at home".
CASTLE AND BUTTER MARKET, DUNSTER, SOMERSETSHIRE