Location of Gaelic ballads in relation to other verse types

The Gaelic ballads in BDL are spread fairly evenly throughout the MS.  This suggests that the ballad material was available to the scribes during the entire period of compilation.  There is no marked concentration of ballad texts in any particular section of the MS, in a way that would suggest a phase of interest in the genre, or a desire to distinguish the ballads from other genres of verse in the MS.  We could therefore conclude that the Gaelic ballad texts have been inserted in BDL without any significant plan or strategy on the part of the scribes.

This conclusion, however, must not be allowed to obscure the likelihood that there may have been wider strategies at work in the selection of the material, or that the scribes had a conscious awareness of the relative worth of the individual items which they placed in their MS.  When the entire body of BDL ballads is examined and assessed within the tradition as a whole, it can be seen to be a judicious selection of material which does not appear to have been the result of haphazard gathering.  Consideration of the location of the ballad items therefore offers no more than a sidelight on the process of compilation.

It is evident that, in a few cases, the texts belong to particular sequences of writing within the MS.  These sequences are worth considering, because the evidence of bardic or other types of verse which flank the ballads may yield some clues as to the source or provenance of the texts. Thus, if a ballad occurs as part of a sequence which links it closely to bardic poems of Scottish provenance, this may give a hint that the ballad has been obtained through a Scottish intermediary.  Similarly, when ballads are linked to, or presented as part of, sequences of demonstrably Irish origin, this may indicate that they derive from an Irish source, although a Scottish intermediary may, of course, lie between the Irish source and the MS.

The sequences can be identified by close study of the scribal hands.  Although it is not possible to identify individual scribal hands in the MS, it is possible to discern particular shades of ink and forms of hand.  These ‘forms of hand’ may mean no more than the use of a particular type of instrument at a particular time.  Definite conclusions, of major significance, about script or scribal hands are dangerous.

Two types of sequence are attested: sequences of ballads which appear to include links with bardic poems, and sequences of ballads which seem to stand alone, but contain suggestions as to the possible provenance of the items.