Annotation:Inverey's Rant

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INVEREY'S RANT. Scottish, Rant. A Mixolydian. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Inverey is a hamlet in Crathie Parish, Aberdeenshire, situated south of the River Dee and stradling the Ey Burn near the confluence with the larger stream. It is also the location of Inverey Castle (seat of the Earls of Mar) and the baronial manor of Invercauld House, seat of Clan Farquharson. Perhaps her most famous son was "The Black Colonel", John Farquharson of Inverery, who fought in the battles of Bothwell Bridge and Killiecrankie, and who was outlawed for the murder of a Ballater laird (c.f. the song "The Ballater"). The love of his life was Annie Ban, Fair Haired Annie, who predeceased him. Before he too passed on, he instructed that he be buried at Inveray beside Annie, but instead he was buried at Braemar. The next morning his coffin was found on the ground outside of his grave, and it was reburied. This happened two more times, until the coffin was removed to Inverary for re-buriel, according to his wishes, upon which the inexplicable incidents ceased. John Glen (1891) finds the earliest printing of this tune in Daniel Dow's Thirty Seven New Reels and Strathspeys (Edinburgh, c. 1775, p. 22).

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Glen (The Glen Collection of Scottish Dance Music), no. 1, 1891; p. 2. S. Johnson (ATwenty Year Anniversary Collection), 2003; p. 29. MacDonald (The Skye Collection), 1887; p. 33.

Recorded sources:




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