Scan 85
Researches into the early history of the violin family, 1883
8 lines. Read by computer on 3 September 2026. Printed page 75. See the scan on archive.org.
1but he examines it thoroughly, especially in its inside. Our musical historians are apt to erect edifices which have an inviting front aspect, with a rather shaky framework, on a weak foundation.
3The following assertion by Edward Jones is noteworthy as an example of the biassed spirit which prevails in his dissertation on the antiquity of the crwth. He remarks ("Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards," p. 33, London, 1794) that the French word jongleurs, designating the perambulating minstrels, who formed a lower class of musicians than the troubadours, is derived from the Celtic languages, being a corruption of the Welsh bôn-y-glêr, which signifies "a low class of minstrels," and from which he also traces the English word bungler. Now, whatever may be the origin of the English bungler, it is well known that jongleur (old French, jougléor) is derived from the Latin joculator; and, therefore, if the Welsh term has any connection with jongleur, it must have been borrowed from a continental language.
5Again, Edward Jones, on page 115 of his work just quoted, says that the lowest of the strings which, on the crwth, are placed by the side of the bridge is called in Welsh vyrdon (English, burden). Also the Irish language has this term, which, it must be remembered, designates in music either "a refrain" or "a drone." In the Welsh reference to the strings of the crwth, it designates a drone, because the string called the vyrdon produces the lowest tone of all, and the pitch of this tone cannot be altered by the finger of the player. The mediæval viol in use on the Continent was also generally supplied with a drone-string or two, which had much the same function as the drone of the bagpipe. The Germans used to call the drone hummel, on account of its continuous humming sound.
7Now, the recorded vyrdon is pointed out by Edward Jones and his followers as a proof that our musical term burden (Anglo-Saxon, byrthen; French, bourdon; Italian, bordone) has been derived from the Welsh. Having adopted the opinion that the crwth is the parent of the violin, they find it no doubt difficult to concede that a term which was
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