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Broadside ballad entitled 'The Feeing Time' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: 'My friend and I struck frae Millgye, / For Glasgow town we took our way, / When all along the road was strung, with lads and bonnie lasses gay'. It was published by the Poet's Box, Dundee, and sold for a penny. The feeing time was traditionally when farmhands and servants were employed. It happened twice a year, at the end of May and the end of November. If a person missed the feeing time, it could mean a long and difficult search for work. In this song, however, the two characters find love as a result. 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(35b)
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