But Wales would have had as much right to the harp as symbol as has Ireland; it had, however, its own ancient arms--the four lions quarterly. According to the Triads there were formerly in use three harps--that of the king, that of the bard, and that of the gentleman. The first two were valued at 120 pence, and the last at 60 pence; but we do not know in what consisted the distinction. The performers let their nails grow to claws, and the strings were twanged with them. In the _Romance of Prince Horn_:-- “The King came into hall Among his knights all He calleth Adhelberus His steward and him said thus: ‘Steward, take thou here My foundling him to lere (learn) To play upon the harp With his nails sharp.’” And Chaucer, in his _House of Fame_, says:-- “For though that the best harper upon live Would on the beste sounid jolly harpe That ever was, with his fingers five Touch all one string, or aie one warble harpe, Were his nails pointed never so sharp,” etc. The most ancient harp had but a single row of strings, then a second row was introduced, and, lastly, a third; and the final improvement was the addition of pedals. The number of strings varied from 54, 56, 58 to 60. Formerly the Welsh harp was rested by the performer on the left shoulder--the treble was played with the left hand, and the bass with the right--but now the position is reversed. That Edward I. ordered a massacre of the Welsh bards and minstrels is a mere fiction. “That Edward did this,” says Sharon Turner, “seems rather a vindictive tradition of an irritated nation than an historical fact. The destruction of the independent sovereignties of Wales abolished the patronage of the bards, and in the cessation of internal warfare, and of external ravages, they lost their favourite subjects and most familiar imagery. They declined because they were no longer encouraged.” The early Welsh harps seem to have been strung with hair. Dafydd ab Gwilym, a contemporary of Chaucer, boasts that his harp had not “one string from a dead sheep” in it, but “hair glossy black.” The Irish harp was strung with wire. Some of the Welsh harps of an inferior kind were of leather, and Dafydd pours scorn on such:-- “The din of the leathern harp” (presupposes it shall not be played with a horny nail), “of unpleasing form, only the graceless bears it, and I love not its button-covered trough, nor its music, nor its guts, sounding disgustingly, nor its yellow colour ... nor its bent column; only the vile love it. Under the touch of the eight fingers, ugly is the bulge of its belly, with the canvas cover; its hoarse sound is only fit for an aged Saxon.” The bards, according to Taliessin, himself one of them, do not seem to have had a high character, although, according to the Triad, the bard is equal to the king.