Broadside ballad entitled 'The Paisley Officer'

Commentary

Verse 1: 'In blythe and bonny Scotland, where the blue bells do grow, / There dwelt a pretty fair maid down in a valley low'. A woodcut has been included at the top of the sheet. It shows a vanquished man in a wooded glade, surrounded by threatening adversaries.   

This ballad was probably quite popular with the audiences of its time as there are many occurrences of it the National Library of Scotland's collection. In a relatively short space it tells a story which mixes class, gender non-conformity, and imperial colonialism with romantic drama. An officer courts a shepherdess, who is described as a stereotypically beautiful woman. When he has to leave for India, she offers to 'go disguised in man's attire' as his servant. The text refers to 'her' and 'Mary' throughout but imagines women looking at a person they see as an attractive but 'gentle, slight' man. The ballad ends with both Mary and Henry killed by Indian fighters. This ballad has been identified as belonging to the genre of 'warrior women'. It also links Paisley, then at the height of its fame as the home of the 'Paisley shawl' which appropriated Kashmiri patterns, with the military actions of the British colonisation of India.        

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.

previous