- Museum number
- 1983,0625.13
- Title
- Object: Maggie Lauder
- Description
-
A broadside on the popular ballad 'Maggie Lauder'; with a wood-engraving showing on the right a Scottish man seated beneath a tree, playing the bagpipes, on the left a young woman dancing barefoot beside him, in the background a loch, hills, and castle; with letterpress title (display type), verses in three columns, and two vertical segments of type ornaments. (Belfast, Smyth: [ca.1810-25])
- Production date
- 1810-1825 (ca)
- Dimensions
-
Height: 468 millimetres (printed area)
-
Height: 291 millimetres (wood-engraving)
-
Width: 365 millimetres (printed area)
-
Width: 365 millimetres (wood-engraving)
- Curator's comments
- The wood-engraving block concists of four segments, and it seems that the segments were modified so that the two figures could be printed individually (cut and repaired corners).
The ballad Maggie Lauder is attributed to Francis Sempill (1616?-1682), written around 1642.
The ballad was quite popular at the beginning of the 18th century, and it featured in The Quaker's Opera (1728) and in John Gay's Achilles (1733). [Graham 'Songs of Scotland '(1856) and 'Songs of Scotland' Royal Edition, 1877)] Isaac Robert Cruikshank also designed an illustration to this ballad for a woodcut in the 'Universal Songster' vol. II, in 1826 (p. 17 of P&D pressmark 184.f.06; BMSat 15244).
A similar broadside is in the National Library of Scotland S.302.b.2 (094), published by Simms & McIntyre, Belfast [see http://www.nls.uk/broadsides/broadside.cfm/id/15900, accessed 22.4.2008]
Transcription of the broadside's ballad verses:
Wha wadna be in love
Wi' bonnie Maggie Lauder?
A piper met her gaun to Fife,
And spier'd what was't they ca'd her;
Right scornfully she answered him,
Begone, ye hallan-shaker!
Jog on your gate, you blather-skate,
My name is Maggie Lauder.
Maggie, quo he, and by my bags
I'm fidgin' fain to see thee;
Sit down by me, my bonnie bird,
In trowth I winna steer thee:
For I'm a piper to my trade,
My name is Rab the Ranter;
The lasses loup as they were daft,
When I blaw up my chanter.
Piper, quo' Meg, hae ye your bags,
Or is your drone in order?
If ye be Rab, I've heard o' you,
Live ye upo' the border?
The lasses a', baith far and near
Hae heard o' Rab the Ranter;
I'll shake my foot wi' right guid will,
Gin ye'll blaw up your chanter.
Then to his bags he flew wi' speed,
About the drone he twisted;
Meg up and wallop'd owre the green,
For brawley she could frisk it.
Weel done, quo' he: play up, quo' she:
Weel bob'd, quo Rab the Ranter;
It's worth my while to play, indeed,
When I hae sic a dancer.
Weel hae ye play'd your part quo' Meg,
Your cheeks are like the crimson;
There's nane in Scotland plays sae weel,
Sin' we lost Habbie Simpson.
I've live'd in Fife, baith maid and wife,
For ten years and a quarter;
Gin ye should come to Easter fair,
Spier ye for Maggie Lauder.
- Location
- Not on display
- Acquisition date
- 1983
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1983,0625.13
