Clan McDuck
Encyclopedia
The Clan McDuck is a fictional family in the style of a Scottish
clan
, from which a great number of Walt Disney Company's comic book
characters
held their origin.
According to Don Rosa
's timelines the Clan is known since 122 AD, when an, as of yet, unnamed member of the clan sold stone to the construction crew of Hadrian's wall
.
The Clan McDuck was originally called the Clan MacDuich, but dropped the Gaelic spelling of the name in 1071 and became the McDucks.
The most famous members of the clan are Scrooge McDuck
and Donald Duck
.
This has been expanded on in the Italian Disney comic universe in the story Storia e gloria della dinastia dei paperi (History and glory of the duck dynasty). According to it, the clan was founded during the 1st century BC by Pah-Peh-Rheo, an Egypt
ian, who had become a Roman citizen as Petronius Paperonius
. Originally following a campaign of the Roman Army
to Britain
, he eventually decided to settle in Caledonia
(the Roman name for Scotland
) among the populations of the Picts
.
Donald, his sister Della Duck and her children Huey, Dewey and Louie
Duck are descendants of the Clan through their maternal line of ancestry.
's McDuck Family Tree, and shows the relationship to the Duck family. It includes McDucks from the 19th and 20th centuries, but not distant ancestors. Among the most famous McDucks that did not appear in Rosa's tree are Scrooge McDuck's half-brothers Gideon McDuck and Rumpus McFowl.
was in his second decade of creating comic book
stories starring Donald Duck
and his various relatives. He had personally created several of the latter, Scrooge McDuck
and Gladstone Gander being the most notable among them. But the exact relation between them was still somewhat uncertain. Carl decided to create a personal version of their Family tree
. To better define their relations he added several previously unknown relatives. Carl never intended to publish this family tree as he had created it for personal use.
In 1981 Carl was well into his retirement but his stories remained popular and had gained him unexpected fame. He had given several interviews and answered questions about his personal views on the characters and their stories. Among other subjects, Carl described his early version of the family tree. Rough sketches of the tree were published in a number of fanzine
s. Fans of the characters were pleased for the background it added to them. At this point Mark Worden decided to create a drawing of this family tree including portraits of the characters mentioned. Otherwise Mark made few changes to the tree, most notably adding Daisy Duck
as Donald's main love interest. His illustrated version of the tree was published at first in several fanzines and later in the Carl Barks Library
. The later was a ten-volume collection of his works in hardcover black-and-white edition.
In 1987 Don Rosa
, a long-time fan of Carl Barks and personal friend of Mark Worden, started creating his own stories featuring Scrooge McDuck
and his various associates. His stories contained numerous references to older stories by Carl as well as several original ideas. After several years he gained a fanbase of his own. In the early 1990s Egmont, the publishing house employing Don, offered him an ambitious assignment. He was to create the definitive version of Scrooge's biography and a family tree accompanying it. This was supposed to end decades of contradictions between stories which caused confusion to readers. The project was to become The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
. The family tree accompanying it was first published in Norway
on July 3, 1993.
In the process of working on Scrooge's biography, Don studied Barks' old stories mentioning his past. Then he added several ideas of his own. Among them were biographical information for Scrooge's supporting cast. In a way Scrooge's biography was also their own biography.
The seat of Clan McDuck is the McDuck Castle. 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
, 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, and later to Glasgow
due to the depredations of "a monstrous devil dog."
Other comic book artists have used the Castle too. The most famous use of the McDuck Castle outside of the Barks/Rosa universe is an Angus/Vicar
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. It is most probably based upon Andrew Carnegie
's Skibo Castle
, befitting the character of Scrooge McDuck as a loose caricature of Carnegie. Upon the death of his father, Scrooge McDuck
became Laird
of The Clan McDuck and owner of the castle and its lands. Indeed, Scrooge had supported the castle financially for many years prior, enabling the McDuck family to reoccupy it in 1885.
In the show DuckTales
, 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.
patterns are registered with the House of Tartans, MacDuck, and MacDuck Final version (note spelling variation: MacDuck vs. McDuck). These were created and registered by the Walt Disney Corporation, the MacDuck Final version in 1942, and MacDuck in 1984. Both tartans are non-fiction in nature and are available as bolts of cloth or finished kilts and other garments.
Some sources state Disney created the MacDuck Final version with Scrooge McDuck in mind. This is unlikely, as Scrooge McDuck made his first appearance in 1947, in the story Christmas on Bear Mountain
.
A tartan which looks like Mac Duck Final version is shown on some Don Rosa stories, such as The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home
.
" by Carl Barks
and later appeared in Don Rosa
's Duck Family Tree.
Sir Eider was born in Scotland
in 880. Later in his life, he became the leader of The Clan McDuck. In 946, the castle was under siege by Anglo-Saxons
, raiders who did not care about the treaty that King Edmund I of England
and King Malcolm I of Scotland
signed in 945. Sir Eider did not supply arrows for his men (because they were expensive) and paid them only 30 pieces of copper
an hour. His under-paid men abandoned their lord to save their lives, and Sir Eider died fighting the raiders alone.
Sir Eider was buried in the family cemetery, and his armour was placed in one of the castle's hallways.
" by Carl Barks
and later appeared in Don Rosa
's Duck Family Tree. He also appears as a ghost
in Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
.
Sir Quackly was born in Scotland
in the year 1010. He later became the leader of The Clan McDuck. In 1057 King Macbeth I of Scotland offered him a small treasure
chest in exchange for his support in the ongoing war for the throne. Sir Quackly agreed and served the king during the war, but became obsessed with protecting the treasure, and accidentally trapped himself inside the walls with his treasure, where he subsequently died.
Sir Quackly became a legend among the McDucks, who claimed that his ghost protected the treasure and the castle. In the story "The Old Castle's Secret", the villain Diamond Dick disguises himself as Quackly's ghost to scare Scrooge McDuck
away, while in the later "The Last of the Clan McDuck", Quackly's ghost appears in person, advising a young Scrooge McDuck
without revealing his true identity. Sir Quackly's remains and the treasure chest were found by Scrooge McDuck in 1948.
" by Carl Barks
and later appeared in Don Rosa
's Duck Family Tree.
He was born in Scotland
in 1159. He was very gluttonous. The clan was until then one of the richest in Scotland, but that changed in 1189. He was asked by King William I of Scotland
to offer most of his clan's treasure in order to fulfill King Richard I of England
's terms for a treaty that been signed between them. The treaty said that if William offered to Richard 10.000 marks he would be free. William would be freed of his oath of subservience to Richard. Out of patriotism Roast obeyed his king's wishes. That later led to financial problems and decline of the clan. Later Roast's relationship with the king became tensed. In 1205 he raided the king's cellar. He died a little later due to indigestion. He was buried in the family cemetery. His armour was placed in one of Castle McDuck's hallways.
.
Sir Swamphole was born in Scotland
in 1110, and later became the leader of The Clan McDuck. He was a very successful leader, and the clan became richer under his leadership. He died in 1175. He was buried in the family cemetery and his armor was placed in a hallway of Castle McDuck.
" by Carl Barks
and later appeared in Don Rosa
's Duck Family Tree.
Sir Stuft was born in 1190 Under his leadership the Clan suffered from financial problems. In 1220 he decided to seal Castle McDuck, the clan's main castle, dungeons in an attempt to decrease the maintenance cost of the castle. He did however create a secret passageway that led from one of castle's hallways to the sealed dungeons, and from there to the family cemetery out of the castle. The passageway was useful for transportation when the castle was being under siege by rival clans. Stuft McDuck died in 1260. The entrance to the passageway in the cemetery was disguised as his tomb. His bones remained in his armour, placed in front of the castle's entrance to the passageway.
, a chapter created for The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
though it never got a place in the story at the end.
Sir Donald McDuck, nicknamed "Black Donald" because of his foul temper, is said to have invented Golf
, Hammer Throw
and Caber Toss
in 1440. His temper while playing golf resulted in James II of Scotland
outlawing the sport.
. According to his tombstone he lived from 1437 to 1509. He was treasurer of the Knight Templars and responsible for hiding their treasure underneath McDuck Castle.
He first appeared in the eight-part saga Storia e gloria della dinastia dei paperi (History and glory of the Duck Dynasty) by Guido Martina, Romano Scarpa
, Giorgio Cavazzano
and Giovan Battista Carpi
, first published between April 5, 1970 and May 24, 1970.
He was presumably a distant descendant of Scrooge Shah, the last King of Sagbad (a pun on the name of Baghdad
). The latter was featured in the story King Scrooge the First by Carl Barks
and Tony Strobl
, first published in October, 1967, as the earliest known ancestor of Scrooge McDuck
. According to that story Sagbad was sacked in 2033 BC
by the troops of young immortal King Khan Khan (2050 BC
-1967) but King Scrooge Shah and his apparent heir Prince Donduk managed to escape. The immortal lost their tracks but would much later locate their distant descendants.
In any case according to his origin story Pah-Peh-Rheo was born an Egypt
ian.
He was supposedly a non-royal uncle to a Queen of Egypt who herself was the great-grandmother of Cleopatra VII of Egypt
.
's uncle. He was mentioned in "The Great Steamboat Race" by Carl Barks
and later appeared in person in a handful of stories by Don Rosa
.
Angus McDuck was born in Glasgow
, Scotland
in 1829 to Dingus McDuck and Molly Mallard. He had two younger brothers named Fergus McDuck and Jake McDuck.
Angus migrated to the United States
during the late 1840s. In 1850 he was working as a cabin boy in the Mississippi River
riverboat Drennan Whyte when it sunk. He was the only survivor. He continued working on Mississippi riverboats and he had obtained his own by 1861, named Cotton Queen. Around the time of the American Civil War
(1861–1865) he became quite successful as a riverboater. Soon after the end of the war in 1865 he and fellow riverboater Porker Hogg became the co-owners of Cornpone Gables, a Southern plantation
that had gone bankrupt. The two were unable to settle their differences and they decided to have a riverboat race in 1870 to decide who would be the owner. Both riverboats sank. Porker had two more riverboats but Angus spent the next ten years as a professional card player.
In 1880, in a poker game with Porker, Angus won the rights to one of his rival's riverboats, named Dilly Dollar. Porker soon lost his other riverboat to Blackheart Beagle and his sons, the first generation of Beagle Boys
, a family of outlaws, and retired. Angus on the other hand hired his nephew Scrooge McDuck
and a penniless inventor named Ratchet Gearloose as his crew. Business wasn't going well and Angus decided to retire in 1882 . He left his riverboat to his nephew and settled down in New Orleans.
He became the writer of a series of dime novel
s under the title The Master of Mississippi, based on a highly exaggerated description of his life. His dime novels became very popular and to have more material to add he occasionally travelled through the country. In the story "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff" by Don Rosa, he is seen appearing at Buffalo Bill
's Wild West. After the show's money is stolen by the Dalton Brothers, Angus rides out with Bill, Scrooge, P.T. Barnum, Annie Oakley
, and Geronimo
to stop the bandits.
Angus' exact date of death is unknown.
In 1955, Porker's nephew, Horseshoe Hogg, and Scrooge McDuck would bring their uncles' steamboat
s back to the surface to finish the race for Cornpone Gables. Scrooge won, only to learn that 85 years of disuse made the mansion so fragile that he accidentally destroyed it with a sneeze
.
for his Duck Family Tree and has not appeared in person. Dingus, who was Scrooge McDuck
's grandfather, was a coal miner
.
He married Molly Mallard and had three sons: Angus McDuck, Jake McDuck, and Fergus McDuck.
In a 1960s story by Bob Gregory
and Tony Strobl
Scrooge's grandfather is referred to as Titus McDuck.
. He was Scrooge McDuck
's father.
He was born in Glasgow
, Scotland
in 1830 to "Dirty" Dingus McDuck and Molly Mallard, both working as coal
miners at the time. He spent most of his life as a mill worker.
According to a story by William Van Horn
, Fergus at some point had a short marriage with an unidentified woman, with whom he had the son Rumpus McFowl. He later married Downy O'Drake, his wife in Rosa's stories, who became the mother of three of his children: Scrooge McDuck
, Matilda McDuck, and Hortense McDuck. An Italian character, Gideon McDuck, might also be a son of Fergus.
The rest of Fergus' biography is shown in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. In 1877 he encouraged his son to work to have his own money. Scrooge's obvious intelligence, skill at hard work and ambition made his father believe that Scrooge would be able to restore The Clan McDuck to its former glory.
In 1885 the Clan's hereditary lands would have been seized due to Fergus' inability to pay his taxes. But Scrooge spent his savings at the time, 10,000 dollars, to pay the taxes and became the new owner of their lands. While Scrooge was away Fergus and his family moved back to Castle McDuck, abandoned for centuries, in Dismal Downs. The family continued to work to pay for the taxes and Scrooge sent them most all of the money he earned while traveling. Fergus became a widower in 1897.
Scrooge became rich in the Klondike
and returned to Scotland in 1902 as a billionaire. Scrooge's intention was originally to settle in Dismal Downs but he quickly changed his mind and decided to settle in the United States
. He wanted to take his family with him. His sisters accepted but Fergus decided to stay. He died during the night, aged 67, and his spirit was re-united with his wife Downy and the rest of the McDuck-clan as his three children left Scotland.
In the NES
game DuckTales 2
, Scrooge and his nephews found a piece of a treasure map that apparently belonged to Fergus. It claimed to lead to Fergus' lost treasure. However, due to Fergus' inability to pay taxes, it is presumed that this map is not canonical to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, unless such treasure was obtained later in his life.
In Don Rosa
's "A Letter from Home
", it's revealed that Fergus tried to find the Knight Templar
treasure hidden in the castle McDuck by one of his ancestors, a Knight himself. Even though Fergus decided not to tell Scrooge about the treasure, he learns about it through other ways and, like Matilda McDuck, thinks Fergus kept the secret from him because he disapproved Scrooge. In the middle of their way to the treasure, Scrooge, Matilda and Scrooge's nephews find a letter from Fergus, who believed Scrooge would eventually find it, revealing the reason he hid the secret from Scrooge is that Scrooge would feel better building his own fortune instead of inheriting one.
story (known as "The Horseradish Story"), where the story of Swindle McSue's trickery on Seafoam is used as back-story. The character's story was later expanded by Don Rosa
, and he appears among the McDucks in heaven in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
.
Hugh McDuck was born in Scotland
in 1710. He settled in Glasgow
in 1727 and turned to the sea for a living. He became successful and obtained his own ship, named "The Golden Goose". He grew wealthy transporting merchandise between the United Kingdom
and the West Indies.
In 1753 his luck was over. He signed a contract with Swindle McSue to deliver a chest full of horse radish to Jamaica
. Three weeks later his ship sunk along with the chest before reaching Jamaica. It was sabotaged by Swindle. When Hugh returned to Scotland he found out that his contract had some small print letters that his failing sight did not allow him to see. The term in small letters said that if Hugh failed to deliver the chest to Jamaica all of his belongings would go to Swindle. Hugh kept just his clothes, his silver watch in his pocket and his golden dentures in his mouth. Swindle wanted them too but Hugh escaped.
The only thing known about his later life is that he died in 1776, aged 66. It is presumed he was involved in the American Revolutionary War
. His descendant Quagmire McDuck inherited the silver watch, known by then as "the heirloom watch".
According to Don Rosa
, Seafoam McDuck and Hugh McDuck are the same character; "Seafoam" is just a nickname.
's uncle. He was mentioned in the story "A Christmas for Shacktown
" (1952) by Carl Barks
, in which Donald Duck
dresses up as Jake in an attempt to trick Scrooge into giving money to charity.
The character was later used by Don Rosa
, and appears in three of twelve original chapters of Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
. He lived in the same house as his brother Fergus McDuck and helped Fergus and his wife Downy O'Drake to raise their children. He settled in McDuck castle along with his brother in 1885. However, it appears that by 1902, Jake was no longer living there.
According to Rosa's sketches and timelines, Jake was born in 1832 to coal
miners Dingus McDuck and Molly Mallard, and grew up to become a stockyard hand in Glasgow. His date of death is unknown, but it appears that both Scrooge and Donald believed him to be alive in 1952.
, in a scene where Scrooge McDuck
is hypnotized into seeing events in the lives of his previous incarnations. The character was later used Don Rosa
. He appeared on Rosa's Duck Family Tree, and he appears among the McDucks in heaven in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
.
Malcolm McDuck was born in 1530. He belonged to a branch of the Clan McDuck that had settled in England
.
He served in the English navy. In 1563 he became the first mate of the frigate HMS "Falcon Rover". He served under Captain Loyal Hawk. The ship raided Spanish Caribbean Sea between 1563 and 1564. He and boatswain Pintail Duck, who would later be reincarnated into Donald Duck
, buried potatoes under the employment of Captain Loyal Hawk and for the Queen of England.
Malcolm McDuck is said to have lost his life on December 9, 1564 when the Spanish fleet sunk the "Falcon Rover" along with its entire crew, though this is not true. In 1579, he became in command over the newly founded Fort Drakeborough, an establishment that in 1818 was taken over by Cornelius Coot and later renamed Fort Duckburg
in the story "The Heirloom Watch", published on June, 1955.
Quagmire was a brother of Dingus McDuck. He had inherited his ancestor Hugh McDuck's silver watch. Apparently he was wealthy enough to have his own estate. When he died his watch was inherited by his nephew Fergus McDuck. His estate remained unclaimed until the time that his grandnephew Scrooge McDuck
, by then owner of the watch, tried to claim it.
, a chapter created for The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
though it never got a place in the story at the end.
Locksley McDuck joined renegade Robert Roy MacGregor
sometime after 1707. The alliance ended later when Locksley had a hard time doing the last part of "Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor"
for his Duck Family Tree and has not appeared in any stories. She was the wife of Dingus McDuck and had three sons: Angus McDuck, Jake McDuck, and Fergus McDuck.
Molly's name might be a reference to a Dublin fishmonger
Molly Malone
from a famous Irish
folk song
of the same name. However Don Rosa has admitted he does not remember anymore how he came up with the name.
's mother. She was created by Don Rosa
and appears in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
and on the Duck Family Tree.
Of Irish origin, she was born in 1840. She married Fergus McDuck and became the mother of three children: Scrooge, Matilda, and Hortense.
She was a very devoted housewife
and mother. She settled in Castle McDuck at Dismal Downs, the Clan McDuck's old castle, along with her family in 1885. She died in 1897, and was buried in the McDucks' cemetery.
's younger brother, and mainly appears in Italian
comic stories; in those stories, Gideon is the editor of the newspaper
"The Cricket", the most credible newspaper in Duckburg. Gideon also has an antagonistic relationship with his brother Scrooge.
The character was created by Romano Scarpa
, and first appeared in a story published on February 10, 1956.
Gideon's existence is inconsistent with Carl Barks
's view of Scrooge as presented in "The Old Castle's Secret". In this story, Scrooge states that he is the last of the Clan McDuck. Though Don Rosa
hasn't used him in his family tree or his timelines it has been purposed that he could be an illegitimate son of Fergus McDuck born somewhere between the death of Fergus' wife on 1897 and Fergus' own death on 1902. That would mean that Scrooge is the last legitimate McDuck. Gideon is now considered the last of Fergus' five children and a younger half-brother of Rumpus McFowl, Scrooge McDuck, Matilda McDuck and Hortense McDuck.
, wife to Quackmore Duck, sister-in-law of Goosetave Gander and Daphne Duck, aunt to Gladstone Gander, mother to Della Duck and Donald Duck
and finally grandmother to Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck.
Hortense was born in 1876 in Glasgow
, Scotland
as the youngest child of Fergus McDuck and Downy O'Drake. In Barks's tree, her older brother was Scrooge McDuck
and her older sister Matilda McDuck. Some non-Barks writers gave Scrooge two half-brothers, Rumpus McFowl and Gideon McDuck, though these do not appear in Barks's conception of the family. Jake McDuck, her paternal uncle was also living with them.
Hortense was born in a working class
family living in relative poverty. In 1877 her ten-year-old brother Scrooge started working as a shoe polisher in an effort to help support his family. At the time Hortense was merely an infant sucking on her thumb. She observed from a distance with her father and sister while her brother earned his Number One Dime. Scrooge would spend some of his leisure time with his younger sisters, and occasionally repaired their doll
s. Otherwise Hortense spent most of her time clinging to her older sister.
By 1880, Scrooge came to realise that his earnings were not enough despite his hard work and efforts. He emigrated to the USA
in hopes of earning his own fortune. He was hired as a cabinboy on a merchant ship heading to New Orleans, Louisiana. Scrooge noted that Hortense's "Bye, Scroogey" were her first spoken words. Before that, all she could say was "glxblt".
From an early age it was obvious Hortense had a fairly nasty temper combined with considerable strength. In 1882, Scrooge was hired as a cowboy
by Murdo MacKenzie
. To do this he had to ride Widow Maker, a mare who had already managed to dispose of five other cowboys. Scrooge soon managed to become her rider although he never really managed to tame her. He renamed the horse Hortense after his spirited six-year-old sister. The latter found this idea unflattering at best.
In 1885 The Clan McDuck's hereditary lands were in danger of being seized due to her father being unable to pay taxes. The lands also included Dismal Downs, the Clan's castle which had been abandoned since 1675. The Whiskervilles, traditional enemies of the McDucks since the 15th century, planned to gain ownership of the lands and were already trying to plunder the castle and its graveyard in search of old relics and treasure. Fergus and Jake guarded the Castle in order to stop them. Nine-year-old Hortense offered to help them and proved more effective in conflict than either of the elder McDucks. The Whiskervilles came to fear her.
In 1902 Scrooge McDuck returned to Scotland to fetch Hortense and their sister Matilda McDuck. When Scrooge established Duckburg, Calisota, United States
as his homebase he started journeying the world trying to expand his financial empire. One of her proudest moments was when she singlehandedly caused the entire United States Military to flee Killmotor Hill, armed only with a broom, and her bad temper, much to the shame of the current president, Theodore Roosevelt
, and the fear of the soldiers. From 1902 till 1930, she and Matilda ran Scrooge's empire from his homebase while he was away. During these years Hortense met her boyfriend Quackmore Duck whom she married on 1920. Later the same year she gave birth to twins. Her son was named Donald Duck
and her daughter Della Duck. Of the two only the boy inherited his mother's temper. A fight with Scrooge in 1930 ended all relationships between Scrooge and his family and she retired. She was thought deceased by 1948, because in this year Scrooge claimed he was the last McDuck. However, Matilda has since turned up alive and well, in a story by Don Rosa; there she also refers to Hortense, though Hortense is not seen. In the notes to the Danish publication of the story (Hall of Fame - Don Rosa Book 10), it is stated that the publisher decided that Hortense was "officially dead".
Scrooge may have claimed that he is the last McDuck, as he is the only male left. Hortense and Matilda changed their names to Duck after marriage, so, technically, Scrooge is the last McDuck.
's cousin in the 1968 story "The Doony Desert Dilemma" Vic Lockman
and Tony Strobl
. An imposter calling himself Lurch Duck and claiming to be Scrooge's long-lost cousin attempts to defraud Scrooge of half his fortune.
.
"Mani buche" is a philanthropist and lives in Arizona.
's two sisters. She was first mentioned in Carl Barks
' 1950s sketch for a Duck Family Tree, where she was shown to have adopted Gladstone Gander. The Matilda McDuck character was dropped in Barks' 1991 Duck Family Tree sketch (where Gladstone Gander is the biological grandson of Grandma Duck and not related to Scrooge), but Don Rosa
picked up the name, and used Matilda McDuck as a prominent character in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
.
Matilda McDuck was born in Glasgow
, Scotland
in 1871 to Fergus McDuck and Downy O'Drake. She is the younger sister of Scrooge McDuck
. She would have a younger sister named Hortense McDuck.
In contrast to Scrooge's and Hortense's fiery tempers, she was always amazingly calm. In 1902 Scrooge returned to Scotland and took both of his sisters with him to go to America. When he established his base in Duckburg, Calisota, United States
he left Matilda and Hortense to run his empire from 1902 to 1930. In the meantime he traveled the world expanding his financial empire. In 1930, a conflict with Scrooge ended all relationships between him and his family, and his sisters are believed to have left Duckburg.
In the story "The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home" (2004), Don Rosa used Matilda McDuck in a non-Life and Times story for the first time. In this story, it is shown that she was hired by her nephew Donald Duck
(son of Hortense) to tend the McDuck castle in Scotland. The story shows the reconciliation between Matilda and Scrooge. It is suggested that Donald deliberately set them up for a reunion. Unfortunately, he did not get the thanks he expected. This is the first time Huey, Dewey and Louie
met their great aunt. In that story, Scrooge returns to the McDuck Castle for another treasure and learns from Matilda that his family already knew about the treasure but their father Fergus decided not to tell Scrooge about it. Both Scrooge and Matilda thought that was because of Fergus' disapproval of Scrooge's greedy ways but after finding a letter on the way for the treasure (hence the other title "A Letter from Home") they learn Fergus's real motive was the fact he thought Scrooge would feel better building his own fortune instead of simply inheriting one.
Matilda, while trying to leave the castle, mentions Hortense. However, in the commentary in the American printing of the story, Don Rosa states that he was prevented from using Hortense because he would have had to explain why she had abandoned her family. So Hortense's fate remains a mystery. In the notes to the Danish publication of the story (Hall of Fame - Don Rosa Book 10), it is stated that the publisher decided that Hortense was "officially dead".
Matilda is usually drawn with a flower on her hat, which loses a petal in each panel in which she appears.
Don Rosa has suggested that Matilda McDuck could have married the well-known Disney character Ludwig von Drake
.
. Moocher's look is very similar to Scrooge's one, except for the fact that he wears tattered clothes, but, unlike his very rich cousin, Moocher is a sweetheart. He was used in some Brazilian comic stories in the 70's.
and introduced as a lazy and greedy cousin of Scrooge McDuck
. It was soon revealed that he was Scrooge's half-brother. His exact relationship with the other characters from the Scrooge McDuck universe is unknown. It has, however, been stated that his mother had been briefly married to Fergus McDuck.
Rumpus is a proud collector of rock
s. He has a humongous appetite and snores a lot. At first Rumpus had an antagonistic relationship with Donald, his nephews and Scrooge but they began to get along better in later stories.
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
clan
Scottish clan
Scottish clans , give a sense of identity and shared descent to people in Scotland and to their relations throughout the world, with a formal structure of Clan Chiefs recognised by the court of the Lord Lyon, King of Arms which acts as an authority concerning matters of heraldry and Coat of Arms...
, from which a great number of Walt Disney Company's comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
characters
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
held their origin.
According to Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's timelines the Clan is known since 122 AD, when an, as of yet, unnamed member of the clan sold stone to the construction crew of Hadrian's wall
Hadrian's Wall
Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain, the second being the Antonine Wall, lesser known of the two because its physical remains are less evident today.The...
.
The Clan McDuck was originally called the Clan MacDuich, but dropped the Gaelic spelling of the name in 1071 and became the McDucks.
The most famous members of the clan are Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
and Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
.
This has been expanded on in the Italian Disney comic universe in the story Storia e gloria della dinastia dei paperi (History and glory of the duck dynasty). According to it, the clan was founded during the 1st century BC by Pah-Peh-Rheo, an Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian, who had become a Roman citizen as Petronius Paperonius
Petronius (disambiguation)
Petronius, also known as Petronius Arbiter, was a Roman writer who lived in the 1st century.Petronius may also refer to:People* Publius Petronius, governor of Aegyptus c...
. Originally following a campaign of the Roman Army
Roman army
The Roman army is the generic term for the terrestrial armed forces deployed by the kingdom of Rome , the Roman Republic , the Roman Empire and its successor, the Byzantine empire...
to Britain
Roman Britain
Roman Britain was the part of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire from AD 43 until ca. AD 410.The Romans referred to the imperial province as Britannia, which eventually comprised all of the island of Great Britain south of the fluid frontier with Caledonia...
, he eventually decided to settle in Caledonia
Caledonia
Caledonia is the Latinised form and name given by the Romans to the land in today's Scotland north of their province of Britannia, beyond the frontier of their empire...
(the Roman name for Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
) among the populations of the Picts
Picts
The Picts were a group of Late Iron Age and Early Mediaeval people living in what is now eastern and northern Scotland. There is an association with the distribution of brochs, place names beginning 'Pit-', for instance Pitlochry, and Pictish stones. They are recorded from before the Roman conquest...
.
Donald, his sister Della Duck and her children Huey, Dewey and Louie
Huey, Dewey and Louie
Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck are a trio of fictional, anthropomorphic ducks who appear in animated cartoons and comic books published by the Walt Disney Company. Identical triplets, the three are Donald Duck's nephews. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were created by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro, and first...
Duck are descendants of the Clan through their maternal line of ancestry.
Family tree
This family tree is based on Don RosaDon Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's McDuck Family Tree, and shows the relationship to the Duck family. It includes McDucks from the 19th and 20th centuries, but not distant ancestors. Among the most famous McDucks that did not appear in Rosa's tree are Scrooge McDuck's half-brothers Gideon McDuck and Rumpus McFowl.
Literary origins
In the early 1950s Carl BarksCarl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
was in his second decade of creating comic book
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
stories starring Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
and his various relatives. He had personally created several of the latter, Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
and Gladstone Gander being the most notable among them. But the exact relation between them was still somewhat uncertain. Carl decided to create a personal version of their Family tree
Family tree
A family tree, or pedigree chart, is a chart representing family relationships in a conventional tree structure. The more detailed family trees used in medicine, genealogy, and social work are known as genograms.-Family tree representations:...
. To better define their relations he added several previously unknown relatives. Carl never intended to publish this family tree as he had created it for personal use.
In 1981 Carl was well into his retirement but his stories remained popular and had gained him unexpected fame. He had given several interviews and answered questions about his personal views on the characters and their stories. Among other subjects, Carl described his early version of the family tree. Rough sketches of the tree were published in a number of fanzine
Fanzine
A fanzine is a nonprofessional and nonofficial publication produced by fans of a particular cultural phenomenon for the pleasure of others who share their interest...
s. Fans of the characters were pleased for the background it added to them. At this point Mark Worden decided to create a drawing of this family tree including portraits of the characters mentioned. Otherwise Mark made few changes to the tree, most notably adding Daisy Duck
Daisy Duck
Daisy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1940 by Walt Disney Productions as the girlfriend of Donald Duck. Like Donald, Daisy is an anthropomorphic white duck, but has large eyelashes and ruffled tail feathers to suggest a skirt. She is often seen wearing a hair bow, blouse, and shoes...
as Donald's main love interest. His illustrated version of the tree was published at first in several fanzines and later in the Carl Barks Library
Carl Barks Library
Carl Barks Library is a series of 30 books with all Disney comics and covers written and/or drawn by Carl Barks. A few stories were modified, sometimes for production reasons and sometimes in an attempt to remedy censorship in the original publication, restoring the published work to Barks'...
. The later was a ten-volume collection of his works in hardcover black-and-white edition.
In 1987 Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
, a long-time fan of Carl Barks and personal friend of Mark Worden, started creating his own stories featuring Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
and his various associates. His stories contained numerous references to older stories by Carl as well as several original ideas. After several years he gained a fanbase of his own. In the early 1990s Egmont, the publishing house employing Don, offered him an ambitious assignment. He was to create the definitive version of Scrooge's biography and a family tree accompanying it. This was supposed to end decades of contradictions between stories which caused confusion to readers. The project was to become The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
. The family tree accompanying it was first published in Norway
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
on July 3, 1993.
In the process of working on Scrooge's biography, Don studied Barks' old stories mentioning his past. Then he added several ideas of his own. Among them were biographical information for Scrooge's supporting cast. In a way Scrooge's biography was also their own biography.
The Seat of Clan McDuck
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
story The Old Castle's Secret
The Old Castle's Secret
The Old Castle's Secret is a Donald Duck story written by Carl Barks. Besides having status as one of Barks' best stories, The Old Castle's Secret is also notable for being Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie's first treasure hunt with their uncle, Scrooge McDuck.- Plot :Scrooge McDuck, in his second...
in Donald Duck Four Color
Donald Duck Four Color
Donald Duck is a comic book starring the Disney character Donald Duck and published by various publishers since 1952. Initially, the series was a "try out" magazine that featured Four Color Comics characters that didn't have their own titles...
#189. Barks' only other story to have McDuck Castle was in The Hound of the Whiskervilles.
Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
used the castle in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
, 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
Rannoch Moor
Rannoch Moor is a large expanse of around 50 square miles of boggy moorland to the west of Loch Rannoch, in Perth and Kinross and Lochaber, Highland, partly northern Argyll and Bute, Scotland...
(a non-fictional location in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
). The nearest village is the fictional MacDuich. The McDuck family (except for a few family ghosts) vacated the castle in 1675, relocating to MacDuich, and later to Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
due to the depredations of "a monstrous devil dog."
Other comic book artists have used the Castle too. The most famous use of the McDuck Castle outside of the Barks/Rosa universe is an Angus/Vicar
Vicar
In the broadest sense, a vicar is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior . In this sense, the title is comparable to lieutenant...
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. It is most probably based upon Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie
Andrew Carnegie was a Scottish-American industrialist, businessman, and entrepreneur who led the enormous expansion of the American steel industry in the late 19th century...
's Skibo Castle
Skibo Castle
Skibo Castle is located to the west of Dornoch in the Highland county of Sutherland, Scotland overlooking the Dornoch Firth. Although the castle dates back to the 12th century, the present structure is largely of the 19th century, and early 20th century, when it was the home of industrialist...
, befitting the character of Scrooge McDuck as a loose caricature of Carnegie. Upon the death of his father, Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
became Laird
Laird
A Laird is a member of the gentry and is a heritable title in Scotland. In the non-peerage table of precedence, a Laird ranks below a Baron and above an Esquire.-Etymology:...
of The Clan McDuck and owner of the castle and its lands. Indeed, Scrooge had supported the castle financially for many years prior, enabling the McDuck family to reoccupy it in 1885.
In the show DuckTales
DuckTales
DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes...
, 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.
Tartan of Clan MacDuck
Two TartanTartan
Tartan is a pattern consisting of criss-crossed horizontal and vertical bands in multiple colours. Tartans originated in woven wool, but now they are made in many other materials. Tartan is particularly associated with Scotland. Scottish kilts almost always have tartan patterns...
patterns are registered with the House of Tartans, MacDuck, and MacDuck Final version (note spelling variation: MacDuck vs. McDuck). These were created and registered by the Walt Disney Corporation, the MacDuck Final version in 1942, and MacDuck in 1984. Both tartans are non-fiction in nature and are available as bolts of cloth or finished kilts and other garments.
Some sources state Disney created the MacDuck Final version with Scrooge McDuck in mind. This is unlikely, as Scrooge McDuck made his first appearance in 1947, in the story Christmas on Bear Mountain
Christmas on Bear Mountain
Christmas on Bear Mountain is a Donald Duck story by Carl Barks, first published in Dell Comics Four Color Comics #178. It was the first appearance of Scrooge McDuck...
.
A tartan which looks like Mac Duck Final version is shown on some Don Rosa stories, such as The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home
The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home
The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home, is Don Rosa's sequel to The Crown of the Crusader Kings.-Plot:Scrooge McDuck and his family return to Castle McDuck to find the treasure of the Knights Templar. Donald Duck tells Huey, Dewey and Louie to tell the new caretaker of the castle about...
.
Motto of Clan McDuck
Scrooge McDuck's gravestone epitaph reads "Fortuna Favet Fortibus." This is the best candidate for a clan motto. Translated into English, it means "Fortune Favors the Brave" (or "Bold," or "Strong").Sir Eider McDuck
Sir Eider McDuck is mentioned in the story "The Old Castle's SecretThe Old Castle's Secret
The Old Castle's Secret is a Donald Duck story written by Carl Barks. Besides having status as one of Barks' best stories, The Old Castle's Secret is also notable for being Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie's first treasure hunt with their uncle, Scrooge McDuck.- Plot :Scrooge McDuck, in his second...
" by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and later appeared in Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's Duck Family Tree.
Sir Eider was born in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 880. Later in his life, he became the leader of The Clan McDuck. In 946, the castle was under siege by Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
, raiders who did not care about the treaty that King Edmund I of England
Edmund I of England
Edmund I , called the Elder, the Deed-doer, the Just, or the Magnificent, was King of England from 939 until his death. He was a son of Edward the Elder and half-brother of Athelstan. Athelstan died on 27 October 939, and Edmund succeeded him as king.-Military threats:Shortly after his...
and King Malcolm I of Scotland
Malcolm I of Scotland
Máel Coluim mac Domnaill was king of Scots , becoming king when his cousin Causantín mac Áeda abdicated to become a monk...
signed in 945. Sir Eider did not supply arrows for his men (because they were expensive) and paid them only 30 pieces of copper
Copper
Copper is a chemical element with the symbol Cu and atomic number 29. It is a ductile metal with very high thermal and electrical conductivity. Pure copper is soft and malleable; an exposed surface has a reddish-orange tarnish...
an hour. His under-paid men abandoned their lord to save their lives, and Sir Eider died fighting the raiders alone.
Sir Eider was buried in the family cemetery, and his armour was placed in one of the castle's hallways.
Sir Quackly McDuck
Sir Quackly McDuck is mentioned in the story "The Old Castle's SecretThe Old Castle's Secret
The Old Castle's Secret is a Donald Duck story written by Carl Barks. Besides having status as one of Barks' best stories, The Old Castle's Secret is also notable for being Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie's first treasure hunt with their uncle, Scrooge McDuck.- Plot :Scrooge McDuck, in his second...
" by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and later appeared in Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's Duck Family Tree. He also appears as a ghost
Ghost
In traditional belief and fiction, a ghost is the soul or spirit of a deceased person or animal that can appear, in visible form or other manifestation, to the living. Descriptions of the apparition of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to...
in Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
.
Sir Quackly was born in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in the year 1010. He later became the leader of The Clan McDuck. In 1057 King Macbeth I of Scotland offered him a small treasure
Treasure
Treasure is a concentration of riches, often one which is considered lost or forgotten until being rediscovered...
chest in exchange for his support in the ongoing war for the throne. Sir Quackly agreed and served the king during the war, but became obsessed with protecting the treasure, and accidentally trapped himself inside the walls with his treasure, where he subsequently died.
Sir Quackly became a legend among the McDucks, who claimed that his ghost protected the treasure and the castle. In the story "The Old Castle's Secret", the villain Diamond Dick disguises himself as Quackly's ghost to scare Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
away, while in the later "The Last of the Clan McDuck", Quackly's ghost appears in person, advising a young Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
without revealing his true identity. Sir Quackly's remains and the treasure chest were found by Scrooge McDuck in 1948.
Sir Roast McDuck
Sir Roast McDuck is mentioned in the story "The Old Castle's SecretThe Old Castle's Secret
The Old Castle's Secret is a Donald Duck story written by Carl Barks. Besides having status as one of Barks' best stories, The Old Castle's Secret is also notable for being Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie's first treasure hunt with their uncle, Scrooge McDuck.- Plot :Scrooge McDuck, in his second...
" by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and later appeared in Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's Duck Family Tree.
He was born in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1159. He was very gluttonous. The clan was until then one of the richest in Scotland, but that changed in 1189. He was asked by King William I of Scotland
William I of Scotland
William the Lion , sometimes styled William I, also known by the nickname Garbh, "the Rough", reigned as King of the Scots from 1165 to 1214...
to offer most of his clan's treasure in order to fulfill King Richard I of England
Richard I of England
Richard I was King of England from 6 July 1189 until his death. He also ruled as Duke of Normandy, Duke of Aquitaine, Duke of Gascony, Lord of Cyprus, Count of Anjou, Count of Maine, Count of Nantes, and Overlord of Brittany at various times during the same period...
's terms for a treaty that been signed between them. The treaty said that if William offered to Richard 10.000 marks he would be free. William would be freed of his oath of subservience to Richard. Out of patriotism Roast obeyed his king's wishes. That later led to financial problems and decline of the clan. Later Roast's relationship with the king became tensed. In 1205 he raided the king's cellar. He died a little later due to indigestion. He was buried in the family cemetery. His armour was placed in one of Castle McDuck's hallways.
Sir Swamphole McDuck
Sir Swamphole McDuck is one of the ancient McDucks, created by Carl BarksCarl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
.
Sir Swamphole was born in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1110, and later became the leader of The Clan McDuck. He was a very successful leader, and the clan became richer under his leadership. He died in 1175. He was buried in the family cemetery and his armor was placed in a hallway of Castle McDuck.
Sir Stuft McDuck
Sir Stuft McDuck is mentioned in the story "The Old Castle's SecretThe Old Castle's Secret
The Old Castle's Secret is a Donald Duck story written by Carl Barks. Besides having status as one of Barks' best stories, The Old Castle's Secret is also notable for being Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie's first treasure hunt with their uncle, Scrooge McDuck.- Plot :Scrooge McDuck, in his second...
" by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and later appeared in Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's Duck Family Tree.
Sir Stuft was born in 1190 Under his leadership the Clan suffered from financial problems. In 1220 he decided to seal Castle McDuck, the clan's main castle, dungeons in an attempt to decrease the maintenance cost of the castle. He did however create a secret passageway that led from one of castle's hallways to the sealed dungeons, and from there to the family cemetery out of the castle. The passageway was useful for transportation when the castle was being under siege by rival clans. Stuft McDuck died in 1260. The entrance to the passageway in the cemetery was disguised as his tomb. His bones remained in his armour, placed in front of the castle's entrance to the passageway.
Sir Donald McDuck
Sir Donald McDuck is mentioned in "The History of The Clan McDuck" by Don RosaDon Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
, a chapter created for The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
though it never got a place in the story at the end.
Sir Donald McDuck, nicknamed "Black Donald" because of his foul temper, is said to have invented Golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, Hammer Throw
Hammer throw
The modern or Olympic hammer throw is an athletic throwing event where the object is to throw a heavy metal ball attached to a wire and handle. The name "hammer throw" is derived from older competitions where an actual sledge hammer was thrown...
and Caber Toss
Caber toss
The caber toss is a traditional Irish athletic event practised at the Irish Highland Games involving the tossing of a large wooden pole called a caber. It is said to have developed from the need to toss logs across narrow chasms to cross them. In Irishtown the caber is usually made from a Larch tree...
in 1440. His temper while playing golf resulted in James II of Scotland
James II of Scotland
James II reigned as King of Scots from 1437 to his death.He was the son of James I, King of Scots, and Joan Beaufort...
outlawing the sport.
Sir Simon McDuck
Sir Simon McDuck is mentioned in A Letter From Home by Don RosaDon Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
. According to his tombstone he lived from 1437 to 1509. He was treasurer of the Knight Templars and responsible for hiding their treasure underneath McDuck Castle.
Pah-Peh-Rheo
Pah-Peh-Rheo, is featured as the direct ancestor and founding father of The Clan McDuck.He first appeared in the eight-part saga Storia e gloria della dinastia dei paperi (History and glory of the Duck Dynasty) by Guido Martina, Romano Scarpa
Romano Scarpa
Romano Scarpa was one of the most famous Italian creators of Disney comics.-Biography:Growing up in Venice he developed a particular love for American cartoons and Disney comics, that, at the time, were published in the big format of the Topolino Giornale which was then printing now classic Floyd...
, Giorgio Cavazzano
Giorgio Cavazzano
Giorgio Cavazzano is an Italian comic strip artist. He started his career at age 14, as an inker for Romano Scarpa...
and Giovan Battista Carpi
Giovan Battista Carpi
Giovan Battista Carpi was an Italian comics artist. He worked mainly for Disney comics, mostly on books featuring Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck, although he occasionally drew Mickey Mouse as well...
, first published between April 5, 1970 and May 24, 1970.
He was presumably a distant descendant of Scrooge Shah, the last King of Sagbad (a pun on the name of Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
). The latter was featured in the story King Scrooge the First by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and Tony Strobl
Tony Strobl
Anthony Joseph Strobl was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually got some help from Strobl creating Superman...
, first published in October, 1967, as the earliest known ancestor of Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
. According to that story Sagbad was sacked in 2033 BC
21st century BC
The 21st century BC is a century which lasted from the year 2100 BC to 2001 BC.- Events :Note: all dates from this long ago should be regarded as either approximate or conjectural; there are no absolutely certain dates, and multiple competing reconstructed chronologies, for this time period.* c....
by the troops of young immortal King Khan Khan (2050 BC
21st century BC
The 21st century BC is a century which lasted from the year 2100 BC to 2001 BC.- Events :Note: all dates from this long ago should be regarded as either approximate or conjectural; there are no absolutely certain dates, and multiple competing reconstructed chronologies, for this time period.* c....
-1967) but King Scrooge Shah and his apparent heir Prince Donduk managed to escape. The immortal lost their tracks but would much later locate their distant descendants.
In any case according to his origin story Pah-Peh-Rheo was born an Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
ian.
He was supposedly a non-royal uncle to a Queen of Egypt who herself was the great-grandmother of Cleopatra VII of Egypt
Cleopatra VII of Egypt
Cleopatra VII Philopator was the last pharaoh of Ancient Egypt.She was a member of the Ptolemaic dynasty, a family of Greek origin that ruled Egypt after Alexander the Great's death during the Hellenistic period...
.
Angus "Pothole" McDuck
Angus "Pothole" McDuck is Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's uncle. He was mentioned in "The Great Steamboat Race" by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and later appeared in person in a handful of stories by Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
.
Angus McDuck was born in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1829 to Dingus McDuck and Molly Mallard. He had two younger brothers named Fergus McDuck and Jake McDuck.
Angus migrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
during the late 1840s. In 1850 he was working as a cabin boy in the Mississippi River
Mississippi River
The Mississippi River is the largest river system in North America. Flowing entirely in the United States, this river rises in western Minnesota and meanders slowly southwards for to the Mississippi River Delta at the Gulf of Mexico. With its many tributaries, the Mississippi's watershed drains...
riverboat Drennan Whyte when it sunk. He was the only survivor. He continued working on Mississippi riverboats and he had obtained his own by 1861, named Cotton Queen. Around the time of the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
(1861–1865) he became quite successful as a riverboater. Soon after the end of the war in 1865 he and fellow riverboater Porker Hogg became the co-owners of Cornpone Gables, a Southern plantation
Plantations in the American South
Plantations were an important aspect of the history of the American South, particularly the antebellum .-Planter :The owner of a plantation was called a planter...
that had gone bankrupt. The two were unable to settle their differences and they decided to have a riverboat race in 1870 to decide who would be the owner. Both riverboats sank. Porker had two more riverboats but Angus spent the next ten years as a professional card player.
In 1880, in a poker game with Porker, Angus won the rights to one of his rival's riverboats, named Dilly Dollar. Porker soon lost his other riverboat to Blackheart Beagle and his sons, the first generation of Beagle Boys
Beagle Boys
The Beagle Boys are a group of fictional characters from the Scrooge McDuck universe. Created by Carl Barks, they are a gang of criminals who constantly try to rob Scrooge McDuck. Their introduction and first appearance was in Terror of the Beagle Boys, in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #134,...
, a family of outlaws, and retired. Angus on the other hand hired his nephew Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
and a penniless inventor named Ratchet Gearloose as his crew. Business wasn't going well and Angus decided to retire in 1882 . He left his riverboat to his nephew and settled down in New Orleans.
He became the writer of a series of dime novel
Dime novel
Dime novel, though it has a specific meaning, has also become a catch-all term for several different forms of late 19th-century and early 20th-century U.S...
s under the title The Master of Mississippi, based on a highly exaggerated description of his life. His dime novels became very popular and to have more material to add he occasionally travelled through the country. In the story "The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff" by Don Rosa, he is seen appearing at Buffalo Bill
Buffalo Bill
William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody was a United States soldier, bison hunter and showman. He was born in the Iowa Territory , in LeClaire but lived several years in Canada before his family moved to the Kansas Territory. Buffalo Bill received the Medal of Honor in 1872 for service to the US...
's Wild West. After the show's money is stolen by the Dalton Brothers, Angus rides out with Bill, Scrooge, P.T. Barnum, Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley
Annie Oakley , born Phoebe Ann Mosey, was an American sharpshooter and exhibition shooter. Oakley's amazing talent and timely rise to fame led to a starring role in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, which propelled her to become the first American female superstar.Oakley's most famous trick is perhaps...
, and Geronimo
Geronimo
Geronimo was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars. Allegedly, "Geronimo" was the name given to him during a Mexican incident...
to stop the bandits.
Angus' exact date of death is unknown.
In 1955, Porker's nephew, Horseshoe Hogg, and Scrooge McDuck would bring their uncles' steamboat
Steamboat
A steamboat or steamship, sometimes called a steamer, is a ship in which the primary method of propulsion is steam power, typically driving propellers or paddlewheels...
s back to the surface to finish the race for Cornpone Gables. Scrooge won, only to learn that 85 years of disuse made the mansion so fragile that he accidentally destroyed it with a sneeze
Sneeze
A sneeze is a semi-autonomous, convulsive expulsion of air from the lungs through the nose and mouth, usually caused by foreign particles irritating the nasal mucosa...
.
Dingus McDuck
Dingus McDuck, nicknamed "Dirty Dingus", was created by Don RosaDon Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
for his Duck Family Tree and has not appeared in person. Dingus, who was Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's grandfather, was a coal miner
Coal mining
The goal of coal mining is to obtain coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content, and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from iron ore and for cement production. In the United States,...
.
He married Molly Mallard and had three sons: Angus McDuck, Jake McDuck, and Fergus McDuck.
In a 1960s story by Bob Gregory
Bob Gregory
Robert P. Gregory was an American comics artist and writer best known for writing and/or drawing hundreds of Gold Key comics starring the Walt Disney Pictures character Donald Duck.-Biography:...
and Tony Strobl
Tony Strobl
Anthony Joseph Strobl was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually got some help from Strobl creating Superman...
Scrooge's grandfather is referred to as Titus McDuck.
Fergus McDuck
Fergus McDuck (1830-1902) is a prominent character in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuckThe Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
. He was Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's father.
He was born in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1830 to "Dirty" Dingus McDuck and Molly Mallard, both working as coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
miners at the time. He spent most of his life as a mill worker.
According to a story by William Van Horn
William Van Horn
William Van Horn has been a Disney comics artist and writer since 1988. He draws mostly Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and he has also written and/or illustrated stories based on the animated series DuckTales...
, Fergus at some point had a short marriage with an unidentified woman, with whom he had the son Rumpus McFowl. He later married Downy O'Drake, his wife in Rosa's stories, who became the mother of three of his children: Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
, Matilda McDuck, and Hortense McDuck. An Italian character, Gideon McDuck, might also be a son of Fergus.
The rest of Fergus' biography is shown in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. In 1877 he encouraged his son to work to have his own money. Scrooge's obvious intelligence, skill at hard work and ambition made his father believe that Scrooge would be able to restore The Clan McDuck to its former glory.
In 1885 the Clan's hereditary lands would have been seized due to Fergus' inability to pay his taxes. But Scrooge spent his savings at the time, 10,000 dollars, to pay the taxes and became the new owner of their lands. While Scrooge was away Fergus and his family moved back to Castle McDuck, abandoned for centuries, in Dismal Downs. The family continued to work to pay for the taxes and Scrooge sent them most all of the money he earned while traveling. Fergus became a widower in 1897.
Scrooge became rich in the Klondike
Klondike, Yukon
The Klondike is a region of the Yukon in northwest Canada, east of the Alaska border. It lies around the Klondike River, a small river that enters the Yukon from the east at Dawson....
and returned to Scotland in 1902 as a billionaire. Scrooge's intention was originally to settle in Dismal Downs but he quickly changed his mind and decided to settle in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. He wanted to take his family with him. His sisters accepted but Fergus decided to stay. He died during the night, aged 67, and his spirit was re-united with his wife Downy and the rest of the McDuck-clan as his three children left Scotland.
In the NES
Nintendo Entertainment System
The Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
game DuckTales 2
DuckTales 2
DuckTales 2 is a 1993 video game produced by Capcom, based on the TV Series DuckTales, and is a sequel to the original DuckTales game.-Plot:...
, Scrooge and his nephews found a piece of a treasure map that apparently belonged to Fergus. It claimed to lead to Fergus' lost treasure. However, due to Fergus' inability to pay taxes, it is presumed that this map is not canonical to The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, unless such treasure was obtained later in his life.
In Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's "A Letter from Home
The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home
The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home, is Don Rosa's sequel to The Crown of the Crusader Kings.-Plot:Scrooge McDuck and his family return to Castle McDuck to find the treasure of the Knights Templar. Donald Duck tells Huey, Dewey and Louie to tell the new caretaker of the castle about...
", it's revealed that Fergus tried to find the Knight Templar
Knights Templar
The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon , commonly known as the Knights Templar, the Order of the Temple or simply as Templars, were among the most famous of the Western Christian military orders...
treasure hidden in the castle McDuck by one of his ancestors, a Knight himself. Even though Fergus decided not to tell Scrooge about the treasure, he learns about it through other ways and, like Matilda McDuck, thinks Fergus kept the secret from him because he disapproved Scrooge. In the middle of their way to the treasure, Scrooge, Matilda and Scrooge's nephews find a letter from Fergus, who believed Scrooge would eventually find it, revealing the reason he hid the secret from Scrooge is that Scrooge would feel better building his own fortune instead of inheriting one.
Hugh "Seafoam" McDuck
Captain Hugh "Seafoam" McDuck first appeared in an untitled Carl BarksCarl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
story (known as "The Horseradish Story"), where the story of Swindle McSue's trickery on Seafoam is used as back-story. The character's story was later expanded by Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
, and he appears among the McDucks in heaven in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
.
Hugh McDuck was born in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1710. He settled in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
in 1727 and turned to the sea for a living. He became successful and obtained his own ship, named "The Golden Goose". He grew wealthy transporting merchandise between the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and the West Indies.
In 1753 his luck was over. He signed a contract with Swindle McSue to deliver a chest full of horse radish to Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
. Three weeks later his ship sunk along with the chest before reaching Jamaica. It was sabotaged by Swindle. When Hugh returned to Scotland he found out that his contract had some small print letters that his failing sight did not allow him to see. The term in small letters said that if Hugh failed to deliver the chest to Jamaica all of his belongings would go to Swindle. Hugh kept just his clothes, his silver watch in his pocket and his golden dentures in his mouth. Swindle wanted them too but Hugh escaped.
The only thing known about his later life is that he died in 1776, aged 66. It is presumed he was involved in the American Revolutionary War
American Revolutionary War
The American Revolutionary War , the American War of Independence, or simply the Revolutionary War, began as a war between the Kingdom of Great Britain and thirteen British colonies in North America, and ended in a global war between several European great powers.The war was the result of the...
. His descendant Quagmire McDuck inherited the silver watch, known by then as "the heirloom watch".
According to Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
, Seafoam McDuck and Hugh McDuck are the same character; "Seafoam" is just a nickname.
Jake McDuck
Jake McDuck is Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's uncle. He was mentioned in the story "A Christmas for Shacktown
A Christmas for Shacktown
A Christmas for Shacktown is a Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge story written and drawn by Carl Barks and first published in the comic book Donald Duck, #367 in January, 1952. The story line revolves around the Duck family attempting to raise money to throw a Christmas party for the poor children of the...
" (1952) by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
, in which Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
dresses up as Jake in an attempt to trick Scrooge into giving money to charity.
The character was later used by Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
, and appears in three of twelve original chapters of Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
. He lived in the same house as his brother Fergus McDuck and helped Fergus and his wife Downy O'Drake to raise their children. He settled in McDuck castle along with his brother in 1885. However, it appears that by 1902, Jake was no longer living there.
According to Rosa's sketches and timelines, Jake was born in 1832 to coal
Coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...
miners Dingus McDuck and Molly Mallard, and grew up to become a stockyard hand in Glasgow. His date of death is unknown, but it appears that both Scrooge and Donald believed him to be alive in 1952.
Malcolm McDuck
Malcolm "Matey" McDuck appeared in the story "Back to Long Ago!" by Carl BarksCarl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
, in a scene where Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
is hypnotized into seeing events in the lives of his previous incarnations. The character was later used Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
. He appeared on Rosa's Duck Family Tree, and he appears among the McDucks in heaven in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
.
Malcolm McDuck was born in 1530. He belonged to a branch of the Clan McDuck that had settled in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
He served in the English navy. In 1563 he became the first mate of the frigate HMS "Falcon Rover". He served under Captain Loyal Hawk. The ship raided Spanish Caribbean Sea between 1563 and 1564. He and boatswain Pintail Duck, who would later be reincarnated into Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
, buried potatoes under the employment of Captain Loyal Hawk and for the Queen of England.
Malcolm McDuck is said to have lost his life on December 9, 1564 when the Spanish fleet sunk the "Falcon Rover" along with its entire crew, though this is not true. In 1579, he became in command over the newly founded Fort Drakeborough, an establishment that in 1818 was taken over by Cornelius Coot and later renamed Fort Duckburg
Quagmire McDuck
Quagmire McDuck was first mentioned by Carl BarksCarl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
in the story "The Heirloom Watch", published on June, 1955.
Quagmire was a brother of Dingus McDuck. He had inherited his ancestor Hugh McDuck's silver watch. Apparently he was wealthy enough to have his own estate. When he died his watch was inherited by his nephew Fergus McDuck. His estate remained unclaimed until the time that his grandnephew Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
, by then owner of the watch, tried to claim it.
Locksley McDuck
Locksley McDuck is mentioned in "The History of The Clan McDuck" by Don RosaDon Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
, a chapter created for The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
though it never got a place in the story at the end.
Locksley McDuck joined renegade Robert Roy MacGregor
Robert Roy MacGregor
Robert Roy MacGregor , usually known simply as Rob Roy or alternately Red MacGregor, was a famous Scottish folk hero and outlaw of the early 18th century, who is sometimes known as the Scottish Robin Hood. Rob Roy is anglicised from the Scottish Gaelic Raibeart Ruadh, or Red Robert...
sometime after 1707. The alliance ended later when Locksley had a hard time doing the last part of "Stealing from the rich and giving to the poor"
Molly Mallard
Molly Mallard was created by Don RosaDon Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
for his Duck Family Tree and has not appeared in any stories. She was the wife of Dingus McDuck and had three sons: Angus McDuck, Jake McDuck, and Fergus McDuck.
Molly's name might be a reference to a Dublin fishmonger
Fishmonger
A fishmonger is someone who sells fish and seafood...
Molly Malone
Molly Malone
"Molly Malone" is a popular song, set in Dublin, Ireland, which has become the unofficial anthem of Dublin City....
from a famous Irish
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
folk song
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
of the same name. However Don Rosa has admitted he does not remember anymore how he came up with the name.
Downy O'Drake
Downy O'Drake is Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's mother. She was created by Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
and appears in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
and on the Duck Family Tree.
Of Irish origin, she was born in 1840. She married Fergus McDuck and became the mother of three children: Scrooge, Matilda, and Hortense.
She was a very devoted housewife
Homemaker
Homemaking is a mainly American term for the management of a home, otherwise known as housework, housekeeping or household management...
and mother. She settled in Castle McDuck at Dismal Downs, the Clan McDuck's old castle, along with her family in 1885. She died in 1897, and was buried in the McDucks' cemetery.
Douglas
Douglas is a cousin of Scrooge who appeared in some Danish Disney comic stories. He looks like Scrooge not only in appearance but also in temperament. In the story "Smarter Than The Toughies", Douglas was portrayed as a friendly uncle of Abner "Whitewater" Duck.Gideon McDuck
Gideon McDuck (Gedeone de' Paperoni in original Italian) is presented as Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's younger brother, and mainly appears in Italian
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
comic stories; in those stories, Gideon is the editor of the newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
"The Cricket", the most credible newspaper in Duckburg. Gideon also has an antagonistic relationship with his brother Scrooge.
The character was created by Romano Scarpa
Romano Scarpa
Romano Scarpa was one of the most famous Italian creators of Disney comics.-Biography:Growing up in Venice he developed a particular love for American cartoons and Disney comics, that, at the time, were published in the big format of the Topolino Giornale which was then printing now classic Floyd...
, and first appeared in a story published on February 10, 1956.
Gideon's existence is inconsistent with Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
's view of Scrooge as presented in "The Old Castle's Secret". In this story, Scrooge states that he is the last of the Clan McDuck. Though Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
hasn't used him in his family tree or his timelines it has been purposed that he could be an illegitimate son of Fergus McDuck born somewhere between the death of Fergus' wife on 1897 and Fergus' own death on 1902. That would mean that Scrooge is the last legitimate McDuck. Gideon is now considered the last of Fergus' five children and a younger half-brother of Rumpus McFowl, Scrooge McDuck, Matilda McDuck and Hortense McDuck.
Hortense McDuck
Hortense was introduced as a relatively well-connected member of her family. A daughter-in-law to Grandma Duck, a sister to Matilda McDuck and Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
, wife to Quackmore Duck, sister-in-law of Goosetave Gander and Daphne Duck, aunt to Gladstone Gander, mother to Della Duck and Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
and finally grandmother to Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck.
Hortense was born in 1876 in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
as the youngest child of Fergus McDuck and Downy O'Drake. In Barks's tree, her older brother was Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
and her older sister Matilda McDuck. Some non-Barks writers gave Scrooge two half-brothers, Rumpus McFowl and Gideon McDuck, though these do not appear in Barks's conception of the family. Jake McDuck, her paternal uncle was also living with them.
Hortense was born in a working class
Working class
Working class is a term used in the social sciences and in ordinary conversation to describe those employed in lower tier jobs , often extending to those in unemployment or otherwise possessing below-average incomes...
family living in relative poverty. In 1877 her ten-year-old brother Scrooge started working as a shoe polisher in an effort to help support his family. At the time Hortense was merely an infant sucking on her thumb. She observed from a distance with her father and sister while her brother earned his Number One Dime. Scrooge would spend some of his leisure time with his younger sisters, and occasionally repaired their doll
Doll
A doll is a model of a human being, often used as a toy for children. Dolls have traditionally been used in magic and religious rituals throughout the world, and traditional dolls made of materials like clay and wood are found in the Americas, Asia, Africa and Europe. The earliest documented dolls...
s. Otherwise Hortense spent most of her time clinging to her older sister.
By 1880, Scrooge came to realise that his earnings were not enough despite his hard work and efforts. He emigrated to the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in hopes of earning his own fortune. He was hired as a cabinboy on a merchant ship heading to New Orleans, Louisiana. Scrooge noted that Hortense's "Bye, Scroogey" were her first spoken words. Before that, all she could say was "glxblt".
From an early age it was obvious Hortense had a fairly nasty temper combined with considerable strength. In 1882, Scrooge was hired as a cowboy
Cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...
by Murdo MacKenzie
Murdo MacKenzie
Murdo Mackenzie was twice manager of the Scots-owned Matador Land and Cattle Company, and founding president of the American Stock Growers Association, for whom he testified before congress and the Interstate Commerce Commission...
. To do this he had to ride Widow Maker, a mare who had already managed to dispose of five other cowboys. Scrooge soon managed to become her rider although he never really managed to tame her. He renamed the horse Hortense after his spirited six-year-old sister. The latter found this idea unflattering at best.
In 1885 The Clan McDuck's hereditary lands were in danger of being seized due to her father being unable to pay taxes. The lands also included Dismal Downs, the Clan's castle which had been abandoned since 1675. The Whiskervilles, traditional enemies of the McDucks since the 15th century, planned to gain ownership of the lands and were already trying to plunder the castle and its graveyard in search of old relics and treasure. Fergus and Jake guarded the Castle in order to stop them. Nine-year-old Hortense offered to help them and proved more effective in conflict than either of the elder McDucks. The Whiskervilles came to fear her.
In 1902 Scrooge McDuck returned to Scotland to fetch Hortense and their sister Matilda McDuck. When Scrooge established Duckburg, Calisota, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
as his homebase he started journeying the world trying to expand his financial empire. One of her proudest moments was when she singlehandedly caused the entire United States Military to flee Killmotor Hill, armed only with a broom, and her bad temper, much to the shame of the current president, Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore Roosevelt
Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt was the 26th President of the United States . He is noted for his exuberant personality, range of interests and achievements, and his leadership of the Progressive Movement, as well as his "cowboy" persona and robust masculinity...
, and the fear of the soldiers. From 1902 till 1930, she and Matilda ran Scrooge's empire from his homebase while he was away. During these years Hortense met her boyfriend Quackmore Duck whom she married on 1920. Later the same year she gave birth to twins. Her son was named Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
and her daughter Della Duck. Of the two only the boy inherited his mother's temper. A fight with Scrooge in 1930 ended all relationships between Scrooge and his family and she retired. She was thought deceased by 1948, because in this year Scrooge claimed he was the last McDuck. However, Matilda has since turned up alive and well, in a story by Don Rosa; there she also refers to Hortense, though Hortense is not seen. In the notes to the Danish publication of the story (Hall of Fame - Don Rosa Book 10), it is stated that the publisher decided that Hortense was "officially dead".
Scrooge may have claimed that he is the last McDuck, as he is the only male left. Hortense and Matilda changed their names to Duck after marriage, so, technically, Scrooge is the last McDuck.
Lurch McDuck
Lurch McDuck, also known as Sheik Beak, is Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's cousin in the 1968 story "The Doony Desert Dilemma" Vic Lockman
Vic Lockman
Vic Lockman is a Christian, American cartoonist and comic strip writer. He started cartooning from a young age taught by his father. He was once head of the art department for the School of Aviation Medicine at Randolph Field, Texas. He was married and had children...
and Tony Strobl
Tony Strobl
Anthony Joseph Strobl was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually got some help from Strobl creating Superman...
. An imposter calling himself Lurch Duck and claiming to be Scrooge's long-lost cousin attempts to defraud Scrooge of half his fortune.
"Mani buche" De' Paperoni
"Mani buche" De' Paperoni is presented as Scrooge's twin brother in the Italian story "Paperino e l'Uomo del West" (Donald Duck and the Man from the West), written by Guido Martina and drawn by Giovan Battista CarpiGiovan Battista Carpi
Giovan Battista Carpi was an Italian comics artist. He worked mainly for Disney comics, mostly on books featuring Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck, although he occasionally drew Mickey Mouse as well...
.
"Mani buche" is a philanthropist and lives in Arizona.
Matilda McDuck
Matilda McDuck is one of Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
's two sisters. She was first mentioned in Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
' 1950s sketch for a Duck Family Tree, where she was shown to have adopted Gladstone Gander. The Matilda McDuck character was dropped in Barks' 1991 Duck Family Tree sketch (where Gladstone Gander is the biological grandson of Grandma Duck and not related to Scrooge), but Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
picked up the name, and used Matilda McDuck as a prominent character in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
.
Matilda McDuck was born in Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
in 1871 to Fergus McDuck and Downy O'Drake. She is the younger sister of Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
. She would have a younger sister named Hortense McDuck.
In contrast to Scrooge's and Hortense's fiery tempers, she was always amazingly calm. In 1902 Scrooge returned to Scotland and took both of his sisters with him to go to America. When he established his base in Duckburg, Calisota, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
he left Matilda and Hortense to run his empire from 1902 to 1930. In the meantime he traveled the world expanding his financial empire. In 1930, a conflict with Scrooge ended all relationships between him and his family, and his sisters are believed to have left Duckburg.
In the story "The Old Castle's Other Secret or A Letter From Home" (2004), Don Rosa used Matilda McDuck in a non-Life and Times story for the first time. In this story, it is shown that she was hired by her nephew Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
(son of Hortense) to tend the McDuck castle in Scotland. The story shows the reconciliation between Matilda and Scrooge. It is suggested that Donald deliberately set them up for a reunion. Unfortunately, he did not get the thanks he expected. This is the first time Huey, Dewey and Louie
Huey, Dewey and Louie
Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck are a trio of fictional, anthropomorphic ducks who appear in animated cartoons and comic books published by the Walt Disney Company. Identical triplets, the three are Donald Duck's nephews. Huey, Dewey, and Louie were created by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro, and first...
met their great aunt. In that story, Scrooge returns to the McDuck Castle for another treasure and learns from Matilda that his family already knew about the treasure but their father Fergus decided not to tell Scrooge about it. Both Scrooge and Matilda thought that was because of Fergus' disapproval of Scrooge's greedy ways but after finding a letter on the way for the treasure (hence the other title "A Letter from Home") they learn Fergus's real motive was the fact he thought Scrooge would feel better building his own fortune instead of simply inheriting one.
Matilda, while trying to leave the castle, mentions Hortense. However, in the commentary in the American printing of the story, Don Rosa states that he was prevented from using Hortense because he would have had to explain why she had abandoned her family. So Hortense's fate remains a mystery. In the notes to the Danish publication of the story (Hall of Fame - Don Rosa Book 10), it is stated that the publisher decided that Hortense was "officially dead".
Matilda is usually drawn with a flower on her hat, which loses a petal in each panel in which she appears.
Don Rosa has suggested that Matilda McDuck could have married the well-known Disney character Ludwig von Drake
Ludwig Von Drake
Professor Ludwig von Drake is one of Walt Disney's cartoon and comic book characters. He was first introduced on September 24, 1961, as the presenter in the cartoon An Adventure in Color, part of the first show of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color on NBC...
.
Moocher McDuck
Moocher McDuck is the beggar cousin of Scrooge who appeared for the first time in the story "Too Many McDucks" by Tony StroblTony Strobl
Anthony Joseph Strobl was an American comics artist and animator. He was born in Cleveland, Ohio and attended Cleveland School of Art from 1933–37, with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, who actually got some help from Strobl creating Superman...
. Moocher's look is very similar to Scrooge's one, except for the fact that he wears tattered clothes, but, unlike his very rich cousin, Moocher is a sweetheart. He was used in some Brazilian comic stories in the 70's.
Rumpus McFowl
Rumpus McFowl was created by William Van HornWilliam Van Horn
William Van Horn has been a Disney comics artist and writer since 1988. He draws mostly Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge, and he has also written and/or illustrated stories based on the animated series DuckTales...
and introduced as a lazy and greedy cousin of Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
. It was soon revealed that he was Scrooge's half-brother. His exact relationship with the other characters from the Scrooge McDuck universe is unknown. It has, however, been stated that his mother had been briefly married to Fergus McDuck.
Rumpus is a proud collector of rock
Rock (geology)
In geology, rock or stone is a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals and/or mineraloids.The Earth's outer solid layer, the lithosphere, is made of rock. In general rocks are of three types, namely, igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic...
s. He has a humongous appetite and snores a lot. At first Rumpus had an antagonistic relationship with Donald, his nephews and Scrooge but they began to get along better in later stories.
See also
- Duck family (Disney)
- Don RosaDon RosaKeno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's Scrooge McDuck chart - Rannoch MoorRannoch MoorRannoch Moor is a large expanse of around 50 square miles of boggy moorland to the west of Loch Rannoch, in Perth and Kinross and Lochaber, Highland, partly northern Argyll and Bute, Scotland...
: The region where Dismal Downs is located; a real location in Scotland.