DALKEITH FAIR. Scottish, Reel (whole time). G Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABC. "Dalkeith Fair" is said to have been a composition of Aberdeenshire fiddler-composer biography:William Marshall by James Davie in his Davie's Caledonian Repository, 1829-30), although this attribution has not been confirmed. The reel was published earlier in Edinburgh by Nathaniel Gow, c. 1812, in a flute anthology. A Highland bagpipe setting was published by John & Robert Glen, Edinburgh pipe-makers, in 1870. Compare with "Cadgers of the Cannongate," a related (but perhaps not cognate) fiddle tune dating to the mid-18th century.
Dalkeith Fair was for centuries an annual cattle and livestock fair.
Additional notes
Printed sources : - Davie (Davie’s Caledonian Repository), Aberdeen, 1829-30; p. 35. Oliver Ditson (The Boston Collection of Instrumental Music), 1910; No. 4, p. 80. John & Robert Glen (Glen's Collection for the Great Highland Bagpipe), c. 1870; p. 25. Kinnaird (Lothian Collection),
