Annotation:Old Spedlings Castle's Ghost's Dance

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OLD SPEDLINGS CASTLE GHOST'S DANCE. Scottish, Air or Country Dance (6/8 time). A Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. Composed by biography:James Porteous (1762-1847), a fiddler-composer, farmer and miller from Annandale who published A Collection of Strathspeys, Reels, Jigs and Hornpipes (Edinburgh, c. 1821) containing original tunes. "Old Spedlings Castle Ghost's Dance" is among them, and commemorates a rather gruesome Scottish legend. Spedling Castle, Spedlins Tower, was a 15th century keep on the south bank of the River Annan in Dumfriesshire, and was anciently the seat of the Jardines of Applegarth. It was perhaps most famous as the environs of the Spedlins Tower ghost, the shade of James "Dunty" Porteous (1650-75) an ancestor of composer James Porteous, but like the composer, was a miller, albeit for the village of Milhousebridge. Dunty (an Old English word that is thought to have meant "argument" but whose later meaning was 'one who knocks') reputedly had a quarrelsome nature, and one day while delivering bread to the tower became embroiled in an argument with Sir Alexander Jardine, the Baronet. It did not end well for Dunty, who was imprisoned by the nobleman in the dungeon of the keep. Called to Edinburgh on pressing business a short time later, Jardine neglected to leave the keys to the cell or instructions for the care of his prisoner, whom he forgot about for several says.

At some point he realized what he had done and hastened back to tend to Porteous. Dunty, for his part, had become increasingly ravenous, and began to loudly beg for food and sustenance...to no avail, for he went unheard or unheeded. The Baronet returned too late, to discover Dunty had expired in his cell, so desperate that he had gnawed off part of his hand in his hunger.

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