Quotes on the castle
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‘Ding Doon Tantalloun,
Ding Doon Tantalloun’
English soldiers approaching the castle in 1528.
They besieged and took the castle, but weren’t able to tear it down.
‘Temptallon is of suche strength as I nede not to feare the malice of myne enymeys, and therefore do thinke myself nowe to be out of danger’
Sir Ralph Sadler, English Ambassador, in a letter to Henry VIII of England, 6 November 1543
‘… Tantallon vast,
Broad, massive, high and stretching far,
And held impregnable in war,
On a projecting rock it rose,
And round three sides the ocean flows.’
Marmion, Sir Walter Scott
‘The red shell of Tantallon speaks to you of the might of the Douglases.’
Summer in Skye I. 34, Alex Smith, 1865
‘The greatest attraction is Tantallon Castle, worthy of regard,
About three miles distant to the eastward;
Which in time of war reoeived many a shock,
And it’s deemed impregnable and built on a perpendicular rock
The castle was built in times unknown to history,
But ’tis said it belonged to the Douglas family;
And the inside is a labyrinth of broken staircases,
Also ruined chambers and many dismal places.’
William Topaz McGonagall
The quotations are partly taken from: Tabraham, Chris and Doreen Grove: Tantallon Castle, Scotland 1994. and The Oxford English Dictionary.
Thanks go out to Chris Hunt for the McGonagall quotation. For more information on this poet have a look here: McGonagall Online.