"being able to get from London and the manufacturing districts, every
article direct, at a small expense, the fair-keepers find no market for
their goods, as heretofore." His paper is, however, a curious
matter-of-fact description of Stirbitch, "sixty years since." We have
been compelled to reject all but one verse of the "Chaunt," on account
of some local allusions, the justice of which we do not deny, but which
are scarcely delicate enough for our pages.

Stirbitch is still a festival of considerable extent, although it has
lost so much of its commercial importance. There are but few fortnight
fairs left: Portsmouth, we _recollect_, lasts 14 days, and there is
a fair held on some fine downs in Dorsetshire, which extends to that
period.)

Stirbitch Fair is held in a large field near Barnwell, about two miles
from Cambridge, covering a space of ground upwards of two miles in
circumference. It commences on the 16th day of September, and continues
till the beginning of October, for the sale of all kinds of manufactured
and other goods, and likewise for horses.

The etymology of the name of this fair has been much disputed. A silly
tradition has been handed down, of a pedlar who travelled from the north
to this fair, where, being very weary, he fell asleep at the only inn in
the place. A person coming into the room where he lay, the pedlar's dog
growled and woke his master, who called out, "Stir, bitch"; when the dog
seized the man by the throat, which proved to be the master of the inn,
who, to get released from the gripe of the dog, confessed his intention
was, with the aid of the ferryman who rowed him over from Chesterton,
to rob the pedlar; from which circumstance the fair ever after obtained
the name of _Stirbitch_. But a more reasonable derivation might be
found in the known custom of holding a festival on the anniversary of
the dedication of any religious foundation. There is a small and very
ancient chapel, or oratory, of Saxon architecture, still standing in
the field where the fair is kept; but to what saint dedicated, is not
recorded. I know not if a St. Ower is to be found in the calendar; if
there is, it will, by adding "wijk," or "wych," a district or boundary,
be no great stretch of invention to account for a transition from "St.
Ower wijch" to _Stirbitch_; or perhaps from a rivulet which empties
itself into the Cam at Quy-water, small streams, in some counties, being
called "stours."

Leaving this ar