Annotation:Dalry House
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DALRY HOUSE. Scottish, Strathspey. D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AB (Gow, Surenne): AAB (Athole, Davie). Antiquarian William Stenhouse remarked the "Dalry House" is derivative of an earlier tune called "Cady Laddie" (Walsh, 1737) or "Mount Your Baggage (2)."
Dalry House, Haymarket, Edinburgh, was originally built in the 1600's as a fortified structure, converted after the wars of the time to a residence. One John Chiesley lived there in the latter 1600's. He divorced his wife in 1688, and she took him to court, with the result that the President of the Court of Session, a magistrate named Sir George Lockhart sided with the abandoned spouse, and decreed that Chiesley pay her and her children a substantial alimony. This in turn aggrieved Chiesley, so much so that he shot and killed Sir George. Within days Chiesley was captured, tried and executed by hanging (with the fatal pistol itself draped around his neck), although not before his offending right arm (with which he fired the gun) was loped off. The building stands today, converted to apartments. It is said that Chiesley's ghost, nicknamed 'Johnny One-Arm' haunts the premises.
Source for notated version:
Printed sources: Davie (Davie's Caledonian Repository), Aberdeen, 1829-30; p. 11. Gow (Complete Repository, Part 3), 1806; p. 36. Köhlers’ Violin Repository, Book 2, 1881-1885, p. 126. Moffat (Dance Music of the North), 1908; No. 14, p. 6. Stewart-Robertson (The Athole Collection), 1884; p. 106. Surenne (Dance Music of Scotland), 1852; pp. 76-77.
Recorded sources: