THE PARODY is big brother to the Pun. Puns make free with words; parodies make free with serious poems or characteristic styles. The pun takes a word with two senses, and produces a comical effect by unexpectedly substituting the one sense for the other. The parody takes some well-known poem, and while preserving the external form, uses it to clothe some totally different kind of composition, creating amusement (as well the pun) by the very grotesqueness of the new combination, – like the effect of putting a big man's hat upon a little boy's head, or dressing a monkey in clerical robes, or putting a clown into the helmet and plate-armour of some ancient knight...

Many of the best parodies depend for appreciation on intimate acquaintance with the authors who are mimicked...

The more conspicuous an author is, either from his ability or his exalted position, the more temptation does he present to the parodist, and the more do most people enjoy seeing him cleverly burlesqued.

In the hotter days of the land agitation in Skye, in the year 1882, when Sheriff Ivory found it no easy matter to get his warrants executed, and when a force of police had to be despatched to Braes, the centre of the disaffected district, the "bobbies" met with rather a warm reception from the crofter women. On their return to Glasgow, the chaffing (not to speak of the odium) they had to encounter was probably harder for them to bear than the maledictions and the stones of the Braes Amazons. This parody on Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" was one specimen of it: –

Half a league, half a league!

Four abreast – onward,

All in the valley of Braes

Marched the half-hundred.

"Forward, Police Brigade!

In front of me," Ivory said;

Into the valley of Braes

Charg'd the half-hundred.

Forward, Police Brigade!

Charge each auld wife and maid!

E'en though the Bobbies knew,

Some one had blundered!

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do or die;

Into the valley of Braes,

Charg'd the half-hundred.

Missiles to right of them,

Brickbats to left of them,

Women in front of them

Volley'd and thunder'd.

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they charg'd, they tell,

Down on the Island Host!

Into the mouth of _______ well!

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Charg'd the half-hundred.

Flourish'd their batons bare,

Not in the empty air –

Clubbing the lasses there,

Charging the calleachs, while

All Scotland wonder'd !

Plung'd in the mist and smoke

Right through the line they troke –

Calleach and maiden

Reel'd from the baton stroke,

Shatter'd and sunder'd!

Then they march'd back – intact –

All the half-hundred.

Missiles to right of them,

Brickbats to left of them,

Auld wives behind them,

Volley'd and flounder'd.

Storm'd at with stone and shell,

Whilst only Ivory fell –

They that had fought so well,

Broke through the Island Host,

Back from the mouth of – – well!

All that was left of them –

All the half-hundred.

When can their glory fade?

Oh, the wild charge they made!

All Scotland wonder'd!

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Skye Brigade!

Donald's half-hundred!

Source: Rev. David Macrae, A Pennyworth of Parodies, Glasgow: Morison Brothers, c.1897, pp. 3-48. Online at elfinspell.com/Humor/PennyworthSeries/APennyworthOfParodies.html (accessed 8.3.2016].