"Jockie to the Fair", also known as "An Marcach Chuig an Aonach", "Jogging to the Fair" and "General Action" is an English (originally) Morris Dance Tune (6/8 time) and March; Irish Jig or Set Dance and American Country Dance (6/8 time) in G Major. The melody, dating at least from the mid-18th century, was a popular tune throughout England and served several functions, including dancing and marching. Morris dance versions are wide-spread and numerous and have been collected from many villages in England's Cotswolds. One version of the tune was used as a march in the British army during the Revolutionary War period. The word 'jockey' is Scots in origin and derives from the word 'joculator', which by the 17th century meant an itinerant minstrel. Novelist Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) mentioned "Jockey to the Fair" a few times in his novel Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), where it was played by his character Gabriel Oak, a bachelor shepherd. It was printed in Aird's Selection of Scotch, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 2 (1785), Bacon's A Handbook of Morris Dances (1974), Harding's All Round Collection (1905), Karpeles & Schofield's A Selection of 100 English Folk Dance Airs (1951), Mallinson's Mally's Cotswold Morris Book, vol. 1 (1988), Mallinson's Mally's Cotswold Morris Book, vol. 2 (1988), Neal's Espérance Morris Book, vol. 1 (1910), O'Neill's Music of Ireland: 1850 Melodies (1903), O'Neill's Dance Music of Ireland: 1001 Gems (1907), Raven's English Country Dance Tunes (1984), Roche's Collection of Traditional Irish Music, vol. 2 (1912) and Skillern's Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1780 (1780).