Download or read book Ballad of Jamie Allan written by Tom Pickard and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tom Pickard's Ballad of Jamie Allan recounts the true adventures of an eighteenth-century gypsy musician who lived on the English?Scottish Borders and died in Durham jail, serving a life sentence for stealing a horse. Though once patronized by dukes and earls, Allan lost their support as his wayward behavior began to exceed their own. His reputation as a great piper was matched only by his reputation as an outlaw or, in the words of Walter Scott, "a desperate reprobate."Drawing on newspaper accounts and court depositions, Pickard brings the ballad tradition to life with his own genius for the form. Through the words of his cohorts and contemporaries, Allan emerges as a spirit of the Borders, that wild and historically lawless region where rivers and fells set the stage for his captures and escapes.