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Broadside ballad entitled 'Bonnie Brier Bush' |
CommentaryVerse 1: 'There grows a bonnie briar bush in oor kail-yard; / An' sweet are the blossoms on't in oor kail-yard, / An ahint that brier bush a ald and lass were heard, / Rich busy, busy cootrn' in oor kail-yard.' The broadside was published by the Poet's Box, Overgate, Dundee. This simple love ballad gave its name to a famous collection of stories, 'Beside the Bonnie Brier Bush', written by 'Ian MacLaren' (Rev. John Watson) and published in 1894. This book in turn became synonymous with a certain period of popular Scottish fiction, the 'Kailyard' era, around the turn of the twentieth century, when Christian parables in Scottish rural settings gained huge popularity both here and in America. Very little of this fiction is widely available today, although one of the 'Kailyard' authors, J.M. Barrie, remains internationally famous for his later work 'Peter Pan'. 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(39b)
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