Benjamin plays the Crwth ! Enjoy this lovely ancient instrument!

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Le crwth ou crouth (prononciation « crou-th ») est un instrument d'origine galloise ou irlandaise, probablement du xe -- xie siècle, date à laquelle l'emploi de l'archet est devenu commun en Europe occidentale. Il s'agit de l'un des derniers instruments dont aient joué les bardes historiques de la fin du Moyen Âge et de la Renaissance.
Le mot gallois crwth et le mot gaélique cruit étaient des termes génériques renvoyant aux instruments à cordes pincées en général, y compris les premières harpes, et les lyres à six cordes communes à toute l'Europe « barbare » du Haut Moyen Âge (cf. la célèbre lyre de Sutton Hoo conservée au British Museum). Le crwth gallois est manifestement apparenté à ce dernier instrument (tout comme le sont d'autres lyres à cordes frottées, par ex. la strakharpa scandinave) ; en revanche, il n'est aucunement un ancêtre du violon.The name crwth is originally a Welsh word, derived from a Proto-Celtic noun *krotto- ("round object"[1]) refers to a swelling or bulging out, of pregnant appearance, or a protuberance, and it is speculated that it came to be used for the instrument because of its bulging shape. Other Celtic words for violin also have meanings referring to rounded appearances. In Gaelic, for example, "cruit" can mean "hump" or "hunch" as well as harp or violin.[2] Like several other English loanwords from Welsh, the name is one of the few words in the English language that is written without one of the five standard English vowel letters.
The traditional English name is crowd (or rote), and the variants crwd, crout and crouth are little used today. In Medieval Latin it is called the chorus or crotta. The Welsh word crythor means a performer on the crwth. The Irish word is cruit, although it also was used on occasion to designate certain small harps. The English surnames Crowder and Crowther denote a player of the crowd, as do the Scottish names MacWhirter and MacWhorter.
In this article crwth denotes the modern, or most recent, form of the instrument (see picture).The crwth consists of a fairly simple box construction with a flat, fretless fingerboard and six gut strings, purportedly tuned gg´c´c´´d´d´´. The original report of that tuning (Edward Jones, Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards; London: 1784), from which most subsequent others appear to draw their information, uses arbitrary pitch designations for illustrative purposes. Jones also states that the tuning procedure began by tightening the highest string as much as possible without breaking it, subsequently tuning the others to it intervalically. Such was not an uncommon practice in the days before standardized pitch and was, in fact, mentioned in other manuals on string instrument playing.
While Jones's report was widely read and used as the basis of a number of subsequent accounts, and therefore today is often considered to be evidence of a standard tuning, it is more likely that a variety of tunings were experimented with and in some cases employed, as was and still is the case with many other string instruments, particularly those within folk cultures. A second tuning, reported by William Bingley (A Tour Round North Wales; London: 1800), features the drones tuned in octaves, with the strings over the fingerboard tuned in paired fifths rather than seconds. However this tuning is almost certainly derived from later violin playing and is impractical given that the crwth is equipped with a flat bridge and therefore designed to play all six strings simultaneously.
Traditionally the soundbox, or resonator, and a surmounting yoke in the shape of an inverted U (see picture of player), were carved as a single unit from a block of maple or sycamore. The soundboard, or belly, a separate piece (the upper surface, nearest the strings), was most often made of deal or some other soft wood, and the bridge was usually made of cherry or some other fruitwood. Two soundholes, or circular openings about an inch to an inch and a quarter in diameter, were cut into the soundboard to allow pulsating air from the soundbox to escape and strengthen the tone. The two G strings (to use Jones's terminology - see above) ran parallel to the fingerboard, but not over it, so those strings were used as fixed-pitch drones which could be plucked by the player's left thumb. The remaining strings, which were tightened and loosened with metal harp wrest-pins and a tuning key or wrench, were usually bowed with a horsehair and wood bow. One characteristic feature of the crwth is that one leg of the bridge goes through a soundhole (see picture of player) and rests on the back of the instrument (the bottom of the soundbox). Although it has been conjectured that this is a primitive attempt at a sound post, or anima, something the instrument lacks,</p>