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Broadside ballad entitled 'The Carse o' Gowrie' Dairy' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: 'The sky wis blue, and the wind blew high; / And the sun wis shining fairly, / When the Duke O' Argyle, he put on his Sunday til / And cam doon tae the Carse O' Gowrie Dairy'. The Carse of Gowrie is in Perthshire. The sheet was published by the Poet's Box of Dundee. The narrative is comic and unusual - the Duke of Argyle takes the Lass o' Ballochmyle (named, presumably, after the Burns poem of the same name) to the Carse o' Gowrie Dairy. The Lord Provost is there but they ignore him as they are enjoying sampling the cheese and scones too much. The narrator is a worker at the dairy. 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. Early ballads were dramatic or humorous narrative songs derived from folk culture that predated printing. Originally perpetuated by word of mouth, many ballads survive because they were recorded on broadsides. Musical notation was rarely printed, as tunes were usually established favourites. The term 'ballad' eventually applied more broadly to any kind of topical or popular verse.
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Probable period of publication:
1880-1900 shelfmark: L.C.Fol.70(33b)
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