Annotation:Forneth House
FORNETH HOUSE. AKA - "Forneith House." AKA and see "Mrs. Crawford's Favorite." Scottish, Slow Air or Strathspey (whole time). D Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AAB. The tune was first published twice by Robert Petrie, originally in his First Collection (1790) under the title "Forneth House," and again, this time claimed as his own composition in the Third Collection (1800). This was perhaps due to its appearance the same year in Nathaniel Gow's Fourth Collection (1800) where the melody appeared in a slightly different setting as "Mrs. Crawford's Favourite Strathspey," with no attribution. The Gows must have known it was composed by Petrie, for the London branch of the Gow publishing family (Nathaniel's brothers Andrew and John) used the "Forneth House" title earlier in their Collection of Slow Airs (c. 1795). Poet Robert Tannahill (1774-1810) composed a song to the ("Forneth House") melody, beginning "Now Winter, wi' his cloudy brow, is far ayont yon mountains."
In 1882-4, Frances Groome's Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland described Forneth like this:
Forneth, a hamlet in Clunie parish, NE Perthshire, 6 miles W by S of Blairgowrie, under which it has a post office. Forneth House, ½ mile nearer Blairgowrie, crowns a fine elevation on the NW bank of the loch of Clunie, and commands a beautiful prospect of the lake, its islet, and surrounding scenes.
