Ballads.
Subject
Subject Source: Local sources
Scope Note: Songs with rhyming verse and a narrative; also, slow, romantic songs (AAT). For all ballads of the kind collected by Child. Include Jacobite ballads, which will also be indexed under 'Jacobites'. The individual ballads of a group which is indexed as a group should either be mentioned individually in the catalogue description or be listed in the volumes (NLS).
Found in 44 Collections and/or Records:
Airs of songs and ballads collected, chiefly in Buchan, with a few from Angus and elsewhere, by George Riddell, Rosehearty (died 1942).
Series
Identifier: MSS.3041-3043
Scope and Contents
Accounts of George Riddel's life will be found in MS.3042, inside the front cover.
Dates:
Late 19th century-early 20th century.
Apparently unpublished manuscript of `Gleanings of Antiquity in Forfarshire’ by James Thomson of Dundee.
Item
Identifier: Adv.MS.35.6.17
Scope and Contents
The manuscript contains:(i) a general topographical description of the area (folio 4);(ii) descriptions of ancient monuments and fortifications found there, including a concise account of the Druids (folio 15);(iii) accounts of excursions made in Perthshire in 1822 (folio 59);(iv) copies of ballads relating to Forfarshire, a translation of a Charter of King John of England to the clergy and people of Arbroath, 1206, and a copy of a reversion of...
Dates:
1825.
Autograph scores of musical compositions by David Stephen, Director of Music to the Carnegie Trust, Dunfermline.
Series
Identifier: MSS.22153-22162
Scope and Contents
Most of the compositions appear to be unpublished.
Dates:
1899-1943, undated.
Autograph vocal scores of works by Hamish MacCunn.
Series
Identifier: MSS.21979-21980
Dates:
[Before 1890, before 1891.]
‘Collection of Ballads, collected chiefly from tradition, by R. Pitcairn . . . Commenced Edinr., 1817', and containing later dates down to 1823.
Series
Identifier: MSS.2913-2915
Scope and Contents
The verse is accompanied by notes by Robert Pitcairn.
Dates:
1817-1823.
Copy of "Ballads of the Bench and Bar", with manuscript annotations.
Item
Identifier: Acc.5780
Dates:
1882.
Copy, written by a clerk, of the Reverend Dr Alexander Irvine’s collection of Ossianic ballads, including some parodies and late imitations.
File
Identifier: MS.14882
Scope and Contents
In a letter of the Reverend Dr Alexander Robertson Irvine of Blair Atholl (now folios i-ii), to his son, it is pointed out that Irvine got most of the poems from the recitation of John MacDonald of Dalchosnie (1721-1809) during 1800-1804, while he was missionary in Rannoch. Full information is given in the manuscript on the sources of many of the remaining poems, which were collected in various parts of Perthshire (and in Greenock, in the case of Captain Alexander Morrison),...
Dates:
1800-1808.
Donald Smith’s Irish miscellany.
Item
Identifier: Adv.MS.72.3.2
Scope and Contents
The manuscript, watermarked 1796, was compiled by and for Dr Donald Smith when in Ireland circa 1798. Scribes:
(a) anonymous, Roman hand;
(b) Toirdhealbhach Maguidhir (Terence McGuire), Gaelic hand;
(c) Dr Donald Smith, Roman hand. Terence Mcguire’s work at part II pages 17-90, written in 1798 (cf. pages 17, 45, 69) reproduces material written by him in 1788 at Royal Irish Academy 1185 (24 C 55), pages 159-175, and in 1789 at Royal Irish Academy 1074 (24 P 29),...
Dates:
[Circa 1798.]
Four letters, 1935-1936, of or concerning C M Grieve to R D McIntyre, with other papers.
File
Identifier: Acc.9902
Scope and Contents
Includes:
Edinburgh University student rectorial broadsheet "Students` Front" (1936)
14 letters and other papers, 1942-1945, of or concerning Douglas Young
copy, undated, of "A Ballad for Douglas Young", attributed to Sydney Goodsir Smith.
Dates:
1935-1945.
Lady John Scott collection of music, chiefly Scottish.
Series
Identifier: MSS.834-843
Scope and Contents
The collection consists of manuscript music composed or collected by Lady John Scott (Alicia Anne Spottiswoode of Spottiswoode, died 1900, wife of Lord John Douglas Scott), much of it being in her autograph.
Dates:
Mid 19th century-late 19th century.
Lady Louisa Stuart's ballad, "Ugly Meg, or, The Robber's Wedding" ('Muckle-mouthed Meg'), in Sir Walter Scott's hand.
Item
Identifier: MS.3531
Scope and Contents
The ballad is undated, but is written on paper watermarked 1805.
There are some words and phrases in another hand in places where the original writing has been deleted.
With a frontispiece in watercolour and a tailpiece in pencil.
Dates:
[1805, or after.]
Letter of Sir Walter Scott to Alexander Pringle of Whytbank, containing a version of the ballad of the Scotts of Whitslade, pasted in a copy of Captain Walter Scot of Satchells, 'A true history of several honourable families of the right honourable name of Scot’ (Edinburgh, 1776), presented to Pringle by Sir Walter Scott.
Item
Identifier: MS.3286
Scope and Contents
Sir Walter Scott states that he has a copy of the ballad in a hand of the seventeenth century.
Dates:
1830.
Letters chiefly of Scottish interest.
File
Identifier: MS.2524
Scope and Contents
Except one of Archbishop Leighton, the letters are of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Several are addressed to the Mures of Caldwell; others to Archibald Constable. Among the writers are Dr John Moore, Hugh Blair, David Hume, Bishop Percy, John Pinkerton, Dugald Stewart, Lord Jeffrey, Joanna Baillie, James Hogg (writing to 'M.L.', the anonymous author of two songs in ‘Jacobite relics’, second series (Edinburgh, 1821)), Mrs Grant of Laggan, Lord Cockburn, and John Gibson...
Dates:
[?1673], 18th century-early 19th century.
Letters to Sir Walter Scott, chiefly to the Ballantynes, with several to other persons.
File
Identifier: MS.997
Scope and Contents
The letters are chiefly unconnected. Among them is the 'Imitation of the beginning of a Morlachian ballad' (Goethe's 'Klaggesand von der edlen Frauen des Asan-Aga), 1807 (folio 5).
Dates:
1805-1831, undated.
Leyden Song Book: a collection of songs, instrumental pieces, and psalms, possibly compiled by Williane Stirling, with later additions.
Item
Identifier: Adv.MS.5.2.14
Scope and Contents
The contents are:1. 54 songs and instrumental pieces (folios 1-25 verso), of which the following have been identified:`My love bound me`, Robert Jones, ‘Second Book of Songs’, 1601 (folio 4 verso);`Do not O do not praise`, Robert Jones, ‘Ultimum Vale’, 1608 (folio 5);`There is none, O none but you`, Thomas Campion, ‘Second Book of Airs’, 1610 (folio 6);`Vaine men whose follies`, Thomas Campion, ‘Second Book of Airs’,...
Dates:
Circa 1639.
Literary and family papers of Sir Alexander Gray (1882-1968), Professor of Political Economy at Aberdeen and later at Edinburgh University.
Series
Identifier: MSS.26001-26018
Scope and Contents
Sir Alexander Gray published several volumes of his own poems and of translations of European ballads, and his literary papers consist of his work in these fields.
Dates:
[Circa 1916]-[circa 1960.]
Manuscript containing a collection of ballads and other poems
Item
Identifier: Adv.MS.19.1.4
Scope and Contents
The contents of the manuscript are as follows:(i) ‘La Complainte de Nature a L`Alchymiste’ by Jean Perréal, followed (folio 18) by ‘La Response de l’Alchymiste’. Printed in ‘La Roman de la Rose’, iv, pages 123-202. It omits the prologue and a number of lines throughout, and the last 187 lines of the ‘Response’ are replaced by the last forty lines of the ‘Complainte’. For a discussion of the poem and its authorship, see A Vernet in ‘Bibliothèque d`Humanisme et Renaissance’, iii,...
Dates:
1st half of 16th century.
Manuscript containing poems of William MacMurchy.
Item
Identifier: Adv.MS.73.2.2
Dates:
1748, 1806, undated.
Manuscript music-book, containing ballads, dances, and pianoforte pieces, hymns, and vocal exercises and scales.
File
Identifier: MS.3282
Scope and Contents
The music-book is made up of pages watermarked 1794.
The volume contains ballads, dances, and pianoforte pieces from Scotland and various European countries (passim), hymns (folios 22 verso-31), and vocal exercises and scales (folios 22, 32 verso-33 verso, 70-71 verso). Among the more extended pieces are extracts for pianoforte from Méhul's 'Jeune Henri' of 1797 (folio 67 verso), and from an opera 'Paul and Virginia', possibly that produced in London in 1800; and 'Favourite dances at...
Dates:
?1794-1813.
Manuscripts, 1850, 1869, of two slightly different versions of the ballad 'The Cantie Carlie', with correspondence and notes, 1869, 1885.
File
Identifier: MS.5292
Scope and Contents
The ballad is said to have been composed by the Reverend Gavin Mitchell, circa 1767.
Dates:
1850, 1869, 1885.
Microfilm of assorted music, and notes on music and songs, chiefly Scottish.
Item
Identifier: Mf.Sec.MSS.295
Scope and Contents
The contents are as follows:
Notes, 1826-1827, of Lady John Scott on music, and songs, chiefly Scottish (MS.842);
Airs, 1824, chiefly of ballads, also of marches, etc., dedicated to Sir Walter Scott by Andrew Blaikie (MS.1578);
Copies of songs, dances, and other tunes, arranged for violin, made by members, relatives, and friends of the family of Brown, residing at Linkwood, Elgin, late 18th century (MS.3378).
Dates:
Late 18th century-1827.
Microfilm of correspondence of Henrietta Rhodes concerning the ballad 'Oh Nanny wilt thou gang with me' by Thomas Percy, including printed texts of the ballad and the music for it and manuscripts of poems in imitation of it.
Item
Identifier: MS.15522 [Mf.MSS.2]
Dates:
1801, [1801, or after.]
Microfilm of eight ledgers of Alasdair Gray, containing work notes for stories, poems, plays, and his last novel, with draft of letters and many diary entries.
Series
Identifier: Mf.Sec.MSS.2061-2062
Dates:
1945-2008.
Microfilm of Leyden Song Book, a collection of songs, instrumental pieces, and psalms, possibly compiled by Williane Stirling, with later additions.
Item
Identifier: Mf.Sec.MSS.230
Dates:
[Circa 1639.]