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Broadside entitled 'Cuddy Peggy' |
CommentaryThis ballad begins: 'In the high town of Gala lived auld Peggy Tinlin, / Wha was blessed wi' content, though at times took to grumblin'; / Her calling in life was provisions to hawk, / And David, her cud, bore them a' on his back!' The broadside was published at 190 & 192 Overgate, Dundee, probably by the Poet's Box. This is a comic ballad in rhyming Scots couplets. The humour is based around a minster who comes to pray for 'David', believing him to be 'Cuddy Peggy's sick husband when 'David' is in fact her horse. The minister's role as community leader has featured in Scottish literature for centuries, sometimes in a heroic light, sometimes as a target of satire. Here the minister is gently ridiculed but ultimately portrayed in a good light, as he laughs 'a' the road hame' at his own mistake. 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(41a)
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