Mulga Bill's Bicycle
Encyclopedia
"Mulga Bill's Bicycle" is a poem written in 1896 by Banjo Paterson
.
The poem is a ballad
. Each line is a fourteener
, having fourteen syllables and seven iambic feet.
It tells the tragic
tale of Mulga Bill, a man whose pride
in his riding skill causes him to purchase, ride and crash a bicycle
. Although Mulga Bill claims expertise in riding all things his ineptitude and subsequent accident suggest that he may only know how to ride a horse.
The poem was first published in The Sydney Mail
on 25 July 1896. It is amongst Paterson's most popular works. A 1973 reprinting of the poem illustrated by Kilmeny
& Deborah Niland
has been continuously in print since publication and won the 1973 ABPA Book Design Award and the 1974 Visual Arts Board Award.
The novel by H. G. Wells
on cycling, The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll
was published in the same year as this poem.
The poem actually featured the Safety bicycle
. However, the poem has been inaccurately illustrated by various illustrators with a depiction of the visually more interesting Penny-farthing
which had been superseded at the time the poem was written. The introduction of safety cycles gave rise to a bicycling boom with millions being manufactured in the decade 1890-1900. They were very popular in the Australian outback
, widely used by shearers
and itinerant workers at the time that Paterson wrote this poem.
The model for the character of Mulga Bill was William Henry Lewis (1880-1968), who knew Paterson in the vicinity of Bourke, New South Wales
. Lewis had bought his bicycle as a result of a drought
when there was no feed for horses.
Eaglehawk, Victoria
—once a rural mining town, now part of greater Bendigo
—was given as Mulga Bill's hometown (Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk ...). This has been recognised with the development of the Mulga Bill Bicycle Trail, a scenic ride taking in many of the mining attractions, historic sites and modern-day amenities of Eaglehawk.
Mulga is a very common species of Acacia that predominates the interior regions of the Australian bush, and colloquially, it is an alternative term for the Bush
itself or wilderness regions, for example ‘up the mulga’.
The poem has been set to music and the poem title was the name of a prominent Australian folk music group (also known as a bush band) in the 1970s.
Mulga Bill's bicycle
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, “Excuse me, can you ride?”
“See here, young man,” said Mulga Bill, “from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy’s Gap to Castlereagh, there’s none can ride like me.
I’m good all round at everything as everybody knows,
Although I’m not the one to talk – I hate a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
There’s nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There’s nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I’ll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I’ll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight.”
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above Dead Man’s Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ‘ere he’d gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man’s Creek.
It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man’s Creek.
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, “I’ve had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I’ve rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I’ve encountered yet.
I’ll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it’s shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It’s safe at rest in Dead Man’s Creek, we’ll leave it lying still;
A horse’s back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill.”
by "Banjo" Paterson
Banjo Paterson
Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson, OBE was an Australian bush poet, journalist and author. He wrote many ballads and poems about Australian life, focusing particularly on the rural and outback areas, including the district around Binalong, New South Wales where he spent much of his childhood...
.
The poem is a ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
. Each line is a fourteener
Fourteener (poetry)
A Fourteener, in poetry, is a line consisting of 14 syllables, usually having 7 iambic heptametric feet, most commonly found in English poetry produced in the 16th and 17th centuries...
, having fourteen syllables and seven iambic feet.
It tells the tragic
Tragedy
Tragedy is a form of art based on human suffering that offers its audience pleasure. While most cultures have developed forms that provoke this paradoxical response, tragedy refers to a specific tradition of drama that has played a unique and important role historically in the self-definition of...
tale of Mulga Bill, a man whose pride
Hubris
Hubris , also hybris, means extreme haughtiness, pride or arrogance. Hubris often indicates a loss of contact with reality and an overestimation of one's own competence or capabilities, especially when the person exhibiting it is in a position of power....
in his riding skill causes him to purchase, ride and crash a bicycle
Bicycle
A bicycle, also known as a bike, pushbike or cycle, is a human-powered, pedal-driven, single-track vehicle, having two wheels attached to a frame, one behind the other. A person who rides a bicycle is called a cyclist, or bicyclist....
. Although Mulga Bill claims expertise in riding all things his ineptitude and subsequent accident suggest that he may only know how to ride a horse.
The poem was first published in The Sydney Mail
The Sydney Mail
The Sydney Mail was an Australian magazine published weekly in Sydney. The weekly edition of The Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, it ran from 1860 to 1938....
on 25 July 1896. It is amongst Paterson's most popular works. A 1973 reprinting of the poem illustrated by Kilmeny
Kilmeny Niland
Kilmeny Niland was an Australian artist and illustrator. While best known for her children's book illustrations, she worked in a wide range of genres, including animation, wildlife art, miniatures, portraits, cards and prints...
& Deborah Niland
Deborah Niland
Deborah Niland is an Australian artist, well known as a writer and illustrator of children's books. Some of her most popular books include Annie's Chair, When The Wind Changed, Mulga Bill's Bicycle, and Chatterbox...
has been continuously in print since publication and won the 1973 ABPA Book Design Award and the 1974 Visual Arts Board Award.
The novel by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
on cycling, The Wheels of Chance: A Bicycling Idyll
The Wheels of Chance
The Wheels of Chance is an early comic novel by H. G. Wells about a cycle holiday, somewhat in the style of Three Men in a Boat. In 1922 it was adapted into a silent film The Wheels of Chance directed by Harold M...
was published in the same year as this poem.
The poem actually featured the Safety bicycle
Safety bicycle
A safety bicycle is a type of bicycle that became very popular beginning in the late 1880s as an alternative to the penny-farthing or ordinary and is now the most common type of bicycle. Early bicycles of this style were known as safety bicycles because they were noted for, and marketed as, being...
. However, the poem has been inaccurately illustrated by various illustrators with a depiction of the visually more interesting Penny-farthing
Penny-farthing
Penny-farthing, high wheel, high wheeler, and ordinary are all terms used to describe a type of bicycle with a large front wheel and a much smaller rear wheel that was popular after the boneshaker, until the development of the safety bicycle, in the 1880s...
which had been superseded at the time the poem was written. The introduction of safety cycles gave rise to a bicycling boom with millions being manufactured in the decade 1890-1900. They were very popular in the Australian outback
Outback
The Outback is the vast, remote, arid area of Australia, term colloquially can refer to any lands outside the main urban areas. The term "the outback" is generally used to refer to locations that are comparatively more remote than those areas named "the bush".-Overview:The outback is home to a...
, widely used by shearers
Sheep shearer
A sheep shearer is a worker who uses -blade or machine shears to remove wool from domestic sheep during crutching or shearing.-History:...
and itinerant workers at the time that Paterson wrote this poem.
The model for the character of Mulga Bill was William Henry Lewis (1880-1968), who knew Paterson in the vicinity of Bourke, New South Wales
Bourke, New South Wales
-Transportation:Bourke can be reached by the Mitchell Highway, with additional sealed roads from town to the north , east and south . The town is also served by Bourke Airport and has Countrylink bus service to other regional centres, like Dubbo...
. Lewis had bought his bicycle as a result of a drought
Drought in Australia
Drought in Australia is defined as rainfall over a three month period being in the lowest decile of what has been recorded for that region in the past. This definition takes into account that drought is a relative term and rainfall deficiencies need to be compared to typical rainfall patterns...
when there was no feed for horses.
Eaglehawk, Victoria
Eaglehawk, Victoria
Eaglehawk is a former gold-mining town in Victoria, Australia and a suburb within the City of Greater Bendigo.The town is situated to the north-west of Bendigo on the Loddon Valley Highway. The highway is known locally as High Street until the intersection with Sailors Gully Road and as Peg Leg...
—once a rural mining town, now part of greater Bendigo
Bendigo, Victoria
Bendigo is a major regional city in the state of Victoria, Australia, located very close to the geographical centre of the state and approximately north west of the state capital Melbourne. It is the second largest inland city and fourth most populous city in the state. The estimated urban...
—was given as Mulga Bill's hometown (Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk ...). This has been recognised with the development of the Mulga Bill Bicycle Trail, a scenic ride taking in many of the mining attractions, historic sites and modern-day amenities of Eaglehawk.
Mulga is a very common species of Acacia that predominates the interior regions of the Australian bush, and colloquially, it is an alternative term for the Bush
The Bush
"The bush" is a term used for rural, undeveloped land or country areas in certain countries.-Australia:The term is iconic in Australia. In reference to the landscape, "bush" describes a wooded area, intermediate between a shrubland and a forest, generally of dry and nitrogen-poor soil, mostly...
itself or wilderness regions, for example ‘up the mulga’.
The poem has been set to music and the poem title was the name of a prominent Australian folk music group (also known as a bush band) in the 1970s.
Mulga Bill's bicycle
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that caught the cycling craze;
He turned away the good old horse that served him many days;
He dressed himself in cycling clothes, resplendent to be seen;
He hurried off to town and bought a shining new machine;
And as he wheeled it through the door, with air of lordly pride,
The grinning shop assistant said, “Excuse me, can you ride?”
“See here, young man,” said Mulga Bill, “from Walgett to the sea,
From Conroy’s Gap to Castlereagh, there’s none can ride like me.
I’m good all round at everything as everybody knows,
Although I’m not the one to talk – I hate a man that blows.
But riding is my special gift, my chiefest, sole delight;
Just ask a wild duck can it swim, a wildcat can it fight.
There’s nothing clothed in hair or hide, or built of flesh or steel,
There’s nothing walks or jumps, or runs, on axle, hoof, or wheel,
But what I’ll sit, while hide will hold and girths and straps are tight:
I’ll ride this here two-wheeled concern right straight away at sight.”
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that sought his own abode,
That perched above Dead Man’s Creek, beside the mountain road.
He turned the cycle down the hill and mounted for the fray,
But ‘ere he’d gone a dozen yards it bolted clean away.
It left the track, and through the trees, just like a silver streak,
It whistled down the awful slope towards the Dead Man’s Creek.
It shaved a stump by half an inch, it dodged a big white-box:
The very wallaroos in fright went scrambling up the rocks,
The wombats hiding in their caves dug deeper underground,
As Mulga Bill, as white as chalk, sat tight to every bound.
It struck a stone and gave a spring that cleared a fallen tree,
It raced beside a precipice as close as close could be;
And then as Mulga Bill let out one last despairing shriek
It made a leap of twenty feet into the Dead Man’s Creek.
‘Twas Mulga Bill, from Eaglehawk, that slowly swam ashore:
He said, “I’ve had some narrer shaves and lively rides before;
I’ve rode a wild bull round a yard to win a five-pound bet,
But this was the most awful ride that I’ve encountered yet.
I’ll give that two-wheeled outlaw best; it’s shaken all my nerve
To feel it whistle through the air and plunge and buck and swerve.
It’s safe at rest in Dead Man’s Creek, we’ll leave it lying still;
A horse’s back is good enough henceforth for Mulga Bill.”
by "Banjo" Paterson