Page "Lyre" Paragraph 20

Lyres appearing to have emerged independently of Greco-Roman prototypes were used by the Teutonic, Gallic, Scandinavian, and Celtic peoples over a thousand years ago.

Dates of origin, which probably vary from region to region, cannot be determined, but the oldest known fragments of such instruments are thought to date from around the sixth century of the Common Era.

After the bow made its way into Europe from the Middle-East, around two centuries later, it was applied to several species of those lyres that were small enough to make bowing practical.

There came to be two broad classes of bowed European yoke lyres: those with fingerboards dividing the open space within the yoke longitudinally, and those without fingerboards.

The last surviving examples of instruments within the latter class were the Scandinavian talharpa and the Finnish jouhikko.

Different tones could be obtained from a single bowed string by pressing the fingernails of the player's left hand against various points along the string to fret the string.