The People's Songbag

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31119, 23 July 1966, Page 12

The People's Songbag

Donald’s Castle especially written for "The Press” by DERRICK ROONEY) Donald Din Built his house without a pin Says an old Scottish rhyme from Ayrshire which recounts one of the more noteworthy exploits of the ancient hero Din Donald, or Donald Din—a hero not entirely unknown in New Zealand, or at least among the section of New Zealanders which patronises the racecourses, for his fourlegged namesake Donald Dinnie, son of Faux TirageFoxam galloped with moderate success around the country a few years ago. The rhyme refers not to any talents Donald may have had for moving about Scotland, but to a castle he is said to have built about six miles south-west of Rowallan. Appropriately enough, its name is Dundonald Castle; it was the ancient seat of King Robert IL who died there about 1390. According to tradition it was built of stone, without a single piece of wood. It is said to have consisted of three strong floors, arched over with stone-work, the roof of one forming the floor of the next. But Donald’s original castle no longer stands; nor, apparently, has it stood for centuries. A Scottish history of the 19th century, describing Dundonald Castle of that time as “singularly noble and baronial,” says that it was “evidently of considerable antiquity, yet certainly another of still greatly more remote origin once occupied the same site. “To the more remote building may allude the following rude rhyme, if it be not altogether a piece of rustic wit of recent times: “There stands a castle in the west. They ca’ it Donald Din; There is no nail in a’ its proof. Nor yet a wooden pin.” Dr. Johnson visited the site with Boswell on their return from the Hebrides; and Johnson “laughed outright” at the idea of a Scottish monarch, being accommodated, with his court, in "so narrow a mansion.”