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Broadside ballad entitled 'Fitba Wull' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: 'I am, ye see, a weaver, freens, / Jist cam' frae Vinegar Hill, / Tae sing aboot a son o' mine's / That's nicknamed Fitba Wull'. It was published by the Poet's Box of the Overgate, Dundee. It probably cost one penny. This ballad is unusual because it contains not only standard verses, which are to be sung to the tune of 'Oor Jock's a handy chappie', but it also includes large portions of narrative which are to be spoken. It demands a participatory audience, and it is easy to imagine the narrator getting quite animated reciting the text, and a crowd of listeners joining in for the chorus. It is not clear what the connection between the different Poet?s Boxes were. They almost certainly sold each other?s sheets. It is known that John Sanderson in Edinburgh often wrote to the Leitches in Glasgow for songs and that later his brother Charles obtained copies of songs from the Dundee Poet?s Box. There was also a Poet?s Box in Belfast from 1846 to 1856 at the address of the printer James Moore, and one at Paisley in the early 1850s, owned by William Anderson. Broadsides are single sheets of paper, printed on one side, to be read unfolded. They carried public information such as proclamations as well as ballads and news of the day. Cheaply available, they were sold on the streets by pedlars and chapmen. Broadsides offer a valuable insight into many aspects of the society they were published in, and the National Library of Scotland holds over 250,000 of them.
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Probable period of publication:
1880-1900 shelfmark: L.C.Fol.70(29a)
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