Annotation:Laird o' Auchluncart (The)

Back to Laird o' Auchluncart (The)

LAIRD O' AUCHLUNCART, THE. Scottish, March (4/4 time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABBCCDDEEFF. Composed by Scots fiddler-composer J. Scott Skinner (1843-1927).

Auchluncart (Auchlunkart) House is in Banffshire. James Frederick Skinner Gordon, in his book The Book of the Chronicles of Keith (1880, p. 52), mentions one of the lairds in this passage:

"Sanners Dow's" Shop was a Place of public knowledge at the south-west corner [in Keith]. It was so capacious as to hold two Customers at a time. A quaint Sign-Board, a great attraction to the merchandise below, is among the things that were. It had a large '4' painted in the centre, which Symbol (cut often on Merchants' Grave-stones) indicated that "Goods," never Evils, were Sold, which came from the Four Airts of the World.

The Laird of Auchluncart is reported to have sought refuge in this Warehouse, when overtaken by a pelting shower, who once and again excused his intrusion by the announcement--"I'm the Laird of Auchluncart;" when, patience having been exhausted, honest "Sanners" broke the silence and rejoined, "Weel, fa's contrin ye? Bide still far ye are; ye wid flyte wi' a truff."

The Lairds of Auchlunkart and Tanachie in Skinner's time were Andrew Steuart, an M.P. for Cambridge (1857-62), and his son. In 1885 Andrew resigned Auchlunkart and Tanachie in favor of his only surviving son, William Francis Day Steuart, who in 1899 married Florence, daughter of S. Hammond Woolwich.

Source for notated version:

Printed sources: Skinner (Harp and Claymore), 1904; p. 29.

Recorded sources: