by Aonghus » Fri Mar 30, 2007 5:01 am
The following falls short of hard evidence as its not concrete (Wartons comments are Un-provenanced as they say in archeology i.e. not dated) and does not mention just how early the Welsh connection is. Though we know the Irish were setting up colonies and small kingdoms in Wales during the 5th cent.
Still you may find it of interest and I think it the best my library can come up with on the subject.
While the modern Irish word for the harp is “clairsech”, “Cruit” is the old Irish word for it. Note the etymological similarities between the Irish word “cruittera” and Welsh “crwthr”.
Cruittera is made from two root words “Cruit” and “aire”. Aire basically meaning “one who tends to or oversees” This is the same “aire” that give us “Boaire” – cattle lord, and “Airechta” – lord of vengeance.
These pages are scanned excepts from P.W. Joyce’s “A social History of Ireland” pgs 573 – 580 - this was quickly OCRd so there are likely to be typos.
Warton, in his” History of English Poetry.” says :—“ There is sufficient evidence to prove that the “Welsh bards were early connected with the Irish. Even “so late as the eleventh century the practice continued “among the Welsh bards of receiving instruction in the “bardic profession [of poetry and music] from Ireland.” The Welsh records relate that Gryffith ap Conan, king of Wales, whose mother was an Irishwoman, and who was himself born in Ireland, brought over to Wales—about the year 1078—a number of skilled Irish musicians, who, in conference with the native bards, reformed the instrumental music of the Welsh.
But the strongest evidence of all—evidence quite conclusive as regards the particular period—is that of Giraldus Cambrensis, who seldom had a good word for anything Irish. He heard the Irish harpers in 1z85, and gives his experience as follows :
They are incomparably more skilful than any other nation I have ever seen. For their manner of playing on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons [or Welsh] to which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the melody is both sweet and sprightly. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers the musical proportions [as to time] can be preserved; and that throughout the difficult modulations on their various instruments, the harmony is completed with such a sweet rapidity. They enter into a movement and conclude it in so delicate a manner, and tinkle the little strings so sportively under the deeper tones of the bass strings - they delight so delicately and soothe with such gentleness,
* Schubiger, Die Sangerschule St. Galleas, p. 33 Lanigan, irs. z85.
vol. r., Diss. i. Harris’s Ware, Antiqq., 124.
The Irish had a small stringed instrument called a Timpan, which had only a few strings—from three to eight. It was played with a bow, or with both a bow and plectrum, or with the finger-nail; and the strings were probably stopped with the fingers of the left hand, like those of a violin or guitar. That the bow was used in playing it appears evident from a short quotation from the Brehon Laws given by O’Curry, in which it is stated that the timpanist used “a [bended] wand furnished with hair” and he gives another quotation (p. 364) that plainly points to the use of the finger-nail. This little instrument was evidently a great favourite, for we constantly meet with such expressions as the” sweet-stringed timpan.” Giraldus mentions the harp and the timpan by the names “ cithara” and” tympanum” : but the timpan is noticed in two native authorities much older: Cormac’s Glossary and Saltair na Rann. From the explanation of the name given by Cormac (p. 163), we see that the frame—like that of the harp—was made of willow, and that it had brass strings.
The instrument usually denoted—outside Ireland— by the Latin tympanum, or in its shortened form tympan, we know was a drum of some sort: and to Irish antiquarians it has been a puzzle how the word came to be applied in Ireland to a stringed instrument. Probably the Irish timpan was really a small flat tympanum or drum, with a short neck added, furnished with three or more strings, stretched across the flat face and along the neck, and tuned and regulated by pins or keys and a bridge—something like the modern guitar or banjo, but with the neck much shorter. The drum—with a few small openings in the side-—gave resonance ; and probably
• Er. Laws, v. 107, bot. t Man. & Cust., II. 363.
during the playing, the body, or the stretched membrane of the drum, was struck now and then with the hand, as players now occasionally strike the body of the guitar so that to some extent it still preserved the character of a drum. There can be hardly a doubt that Giraldus’s tympanum” was the Irish timpan ; and he would scarcely have given it that name unless it was really a drumshaped instrument—a drum furnished with neck and strings.
There was a small harp called a ceis [kesh], which was used to accompany the ordinary harp, and which will be again mentioned farther on (p. 587). On one panel of the north high cross of Castledermot is a figure seated playing on a small harp, which is represented as about sixteen inches high : it is square-shaped : the top corner farthest from the player is sharp: the other three corners are much rounded—so that the bottom of the little instrument forms almost a semicircle. Possibly this may be intended to represent a ceis : but then there is no player with a larger instrument near this harper as we might expect in case of a ceis.
The harp—as well as the timpan—was furnished with brass strings, as is seen by the explanation of “ ceis,” as meaning, in one of its applications, ‘a small pin which fastens the brazen string of the harp.’* The tuning-key was made with a wooden handle tipped with steel, like the modern piano-key. It was called crann-glésa (‘tuningwood’) ; and it was considered so important—inasmuch as the harp was silent without it—that provision was made in the Brehon Law—with penalties—for its prompt return in case the owner lent it. Both harp and timpan, when not in use, were kept in a case, commonly of otter skins, called a coimét (‘case’ or ‘ keeper ‘), and croti-boig (‘ harp-bag ‘) A harper was called cruitire (cruttera) : the word senmaire was sometimes applied to a musicion in general from senm (sound).
• Rev. cdt,. xx. i6. t Man. & Cust., II. 256.
Tam bo Fraifn, p. i.ji Silva Gad., 217, mid.
The following falls short of hard evidence as its not concrete (Wartons comments are Un-provenanced as they say in archeology i.e. not dated) and does not mention just how early the Welsh connection is. Though we know the Irish were setting up colonies and small kingdoms in Wales during the 5th cent.
Still you may find it of interest and I think it the best my library can come up with on the subject.
While the modern Irish word for the harp is “clairsech”, “Cruit” is the old Irish word for it. Note the etymological similarities between the Irish word “cruittera” and Welsh “crwthr”.
Cruittera is made from two root words “Cruit” and “aire”. Aire basically meaning “one who tends to or oversees” This is the same “aire” that give us “Boaire” – cattle lord, and “Airechta” – lord of vengeance.
These pages are scanned excepts from P.W. Joyce’s “A social History of Ireland” pgs 573 – 580 - this was quickly OCRd so there are likely to be typos.
Warton, in his” History of English Poetry.” says :—“ There is sufficient evidence to prove that the “Welsh bards were early connected with the Irish. Even “so late as the eleventh century the practice continued “among the Welsh bards of receiving instruction in the “bardic profession [of poetry and music] from Ireland.” The Welsh records relate that Gryffith ap Conan, king of Wales, whose mother was an Irishwoman, and who was himself born in Ireland, brought over to Wales—about the year 1078—a number of skilled Irish musicians, who, in conference with the native bards, reformed the instrumental music of the Welsh.
But the strongest evidence of all—evidence quite conclusive as regards the particular period—is that of Giraldus Cambrensis, who seldom had a good word for anything Irish. He heard the Irish harpers in 1z85, and gives his experience as follows :
[quote] They are incomparably more skilful than any other nation I have ever seen. For their manner of playing on these instruments, unlike that of the Britons [or Welsh] to which I am accustomed, is not slow and harsh, but lively and rapid, while the melody is both sweet and sprightly. It is astonishing that in so complex and rapid a movement of the fingers the musical proportions [as to time] can be preserved; and that throughout the difficult modulations on their various instruments, the harmony is completed with such a sweet rapidity. They enter into a movement and conclude it in so delicate a manner, and tinkle the little strings so sportively under the deeper tones of the bass strings - they delight so delicately and soothe with such gentleness,[/quote]
* Schubiger, Die Sangerschule St. Galleas, p. 33 Lanigan, irs. z85.
vol. r., Diss. i. Harris’s Ware, Antiqq., 124.
The Irish had a small stringed instrument called a Timpan, which had only a few strings—from three to eight. It was played with a bow, or with both a bow and plectrum, or with the finger-nail; and the strings were probably stopped with the fingers of the left hand, like those of a violin or guitar. That the bow was used in playing it appears evident from a short quotation from the Brehon Laws given by O’Curry, in which it is stated that the timpanist used “a [bended] wand furnished with hair” and he gives another quotation (p. 364) that plainly points to the use of the finger-nail. This little instrument was evidently a great favourite, for we constantly meet with such expressions as the” sweet-stringed timpan.” Giraldus mentions the harp and the timpan by the names “ cithara” and” tympanum” : but the timpan is noticed in two native authorities much older: Cormac’s Glossary and Saltair na Rann. From the explanation of the name given by Cormac (p. 163), we see that the frame—like that of the harp—was made of willow, and that it had brass strings.
The instrument usually denoted—outside Ireland— by the Latin tympanum, or in its shortened form tympan, we know was a drum of some sort: and to Irish antiquarians it has been a puzzle how the word came to be applied in Ireland to a stringed instrument. Probably the Irish timpan was really a small flat tympanum or drum, with a short neck added, furnished with three or more strings, stretched across the flat face and along the neck, and tuned and regulated by pins or keys and a bridge—something like the modern guitar or banjo, but with the neck much shorter. The drum—with a few small openings in the side-—gave resonance ; and probably
• Er. Laws, v. 107, bot. t Man. & Cust., II. 363.
during the playing, the body, or the stretched membrane of the drum, was struck now and then with the hand, as players now occasionally strike the body of the guitar so that to some extent it still preserved the character of a drum. There can be hardly a doubt that Giraldus’s tympanum” was the Irish timpan ; and he would scarcely have given it that name unless it was really a drumshaped instrument—a drum furnished with neck and strings.
There was a small harp called a ceis [kesh], which was used to accompany the ordinary harp, and which will be again mentioned farther on (p. 587). On one panel of the north high cross of Castledermot is a figure seated playing on a small harp, which is represented as about sixteen inches high : it is square-shaped : the top corner farthest from the player is sharp: the other three corners are much rounded—so that the bottom of the little instrument forms almost a semicircle. Possibly this may be intended to represent a ceis : but then there is no player with a larger instrument near this harper as we might expect in case of a ceis.
The harp—as well as the timpan—was furnished with brass strings, as is seen by the explanation of “ ceis,” as meaning, in one of its applications, ‘a small pin which fastens the brazen string of the harp.’* The tuning-key was made with a wooden handle tipped with steel, like the modern piano-key. It was called crann-glésa (‘tuningwood’) ; and it was considered so important—inasmuch as the harp was silent without it—that provision was made in the Brehon Law—with penalties—for its prompt return in case the owner lent it. Both harp and timpan, when not in use, were kept in a case, commonly of otter skins, called a coimét (‘case’ or ‘ keeper ‘), and croti-boig (‘ harp-bag ‘) A harper was called cruitire (cruttera) : the word senmaire was sometimes applied to a musicion in general from senm (sound).
• Rev. cdt,. xx. i6. t Man. & Cust., II. 256.
Tam bo Fraifn, p. i.ji Silva Gad., 217, mid.