Annotation:Struan Robertson's Rant (1)
STRUAN ROBERTSON('S RANT) [1]. AKA and see "Cuckold Come Out of the Amrey," "David Rae." Scottish, Strathspey (whole time). E Minor (most versions): E Dorian (Bremner). Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB (Bremner): AABBC (Kerr): AABBCCD (Athole, Lowe): AABBCCDD' (Skye). A good example of the form strathspey rant. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest appearance of the tune in print in either Stewart's 1761 collection (p. 19) or Robert Bremner's collection (p. 17). Bremner printed the tune in two-parts, but it was issued in four parts by the Gows in 1799. "Struan Robertson" is known in Northumberland under the title "Cuckold Come Out of the Amrey." One version also appears in the Gillespie Manuscript of Perth, 1768.
Struan or Strowan--Gaelic S'ruthan, "Streamy"--is a placename in Perthshire, a region known for its harpers in the 17th century whose chiefs were known as the Struan Robertsons. The Robertsons were Lairds of Lude in Perthshire The widow of one of the lairds, John Robertson, himself having passed away in 1731, lived long enough to enthusiastically entertain Bonnie Prince Charlie at Lude in 1745, where he dallied to dance strathspeys and reels before campaigning in his unsuccessful bid for the throne. Lady Lude was said to have been so excited that she behaved "like a light giglet" and that she was "so elevated while she was about the Young Pretender that she looked like a person whose head had gone wrong" (Sanger & Kinnaird, Tree of Stings, 1992).
"Struan Robertson's Rant (1)" was entered into the large 19th century music manuscript collection[1](No. 472, p. 130) of prosperous dairy farmer, miller, sometime printer and bookbinder, and fiddler James Barry (1819-1906) of Six Mile Brook, Pictou County, northern Nova Scotia.
A Irish derivative in a reel setting is “Templehouse Reel (The).”
