Music is an essential part of Scottish culture. Ballads, or ‘muckle sangs’ in Scots, have been an important way of telling and passing down stories since the Middle Ages. The Ballad, positioned between the windows on the North wall on the first floor in the Great Hall of the Scottish National portrait Gallery, shows a minstrel entertaining ladies of the royal court. Although rooted in the fifteenth century through its historical detail, The Ballad does not represent a specific event but symbolises a time of peace.