McDuck Castle

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McDuck Castle in The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home by Don Rosa
McDuck Castle in The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home by Don Rosa

McDuck Castle is a fictional Scottish castle in The Scrooge McDuck universe. It served as Clan McDuck's main castle.

Contents

[edit] The Castle in Comic Books

The castle was first featured in the Carl Barks story The Old Castle's Secret in Donald Duck Four Color #189. Barks' only other story to have McDuck Castle was in The Hound of the Whiskervilles.

Don Rosa used the castle in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck,[1] Parts 1, 5, and 9, and in A Letter from Home/The Old Castle's Other Secret. According to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, the castle is located in Dismal Downs, somewhere in Rannoch Moor (a non-fictional location in Scotland). The nearest village is the fictional MacDuich. The McDuck family (except for a few family ghosts) vacated the castle in 1675, relocating to MacDuich due to the depredations of "a monstrous devil dog." [2]

Other comic book artists have used the Castle too. The most famous use of the McDuck Castle outside of the Barks/Rosa universe is The Daniel Branca story titled The Sobbing Serpent.

According to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, the castle was built in 400 AD, as portrayed in the unpublished first draft sketches.[3] It is most probably based upon Andrew Carnegie's Skibo Castle, befitting the character of Scrooge McDuck as a loose caricature of Carnegie.[4] Upon the death of his father, Scrooge McDuck became Laird of The Clan McDuck and owner of the castle and its lands.[5] Indeed, Scrooge had supported the castle financially for many years prior, enabling the McDuck family to reoccupy it in 1885.[5]

[edit] Present Day Laird

It is not clear who inherited the castle and title after Scrooge's (unofficial) death in 1967.[6][7] According to both Barks and Rosa, Scrooge's grand-nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie are the likely candidates.[8]

[edit] The Castle on Television

In the show Duck Tales, McDuck Castle appeared in the Episode The Curse of Castle McDuck where Scrooge, Webby, and the Nephews investigate a crisis in Scotland. That Episode is loosely based on The Hound of the Whiskervilles.[9]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Rosa, Don. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Gemstone Publishing; 2005. ISBN 978-0911903966.
  2. ^ Rosa, Don. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Op Cit. page 9.
  3. ^ Rosa, Don. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Op Cit. First Draft panel 2, page 22. The founding date of the castle is unattested, but may be inferred by MacDuich's participation it the expulsion of the Romans in 400 A.D. Given Iron Age Scots propensity for fortified dwellings, the castle may have been extant by 122 A.D. in its earliest form as an Iron Age fort.
  4. ^ "The Green Mountain Lion, April 2007", St. Andrews Society of Vermont, April 2007. 
  5. ^ a b Rosa, Don. The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Op Cit. Laird of The Clan McDuck, pages 92-107, 108.
  6. ^ Scrooge McDuck Timeline according to Rosa.
  7. ^ I.N.D.U.C.K.S. Story code: GC HD 77B
  8. ^ The Lives and Times in Duckburg, Chapter IX (1967-) The dawn of a new age.
  9. ^ Duck Tales, Season 1, Episode 52, Nov 17, 1987, The Curse of Castle McDuck
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