The Crwth is a rare Welsh instrument, supposed to have been the "Chrotta Brittanna" mentioned in one of the odes of Venantius Fortunatus, written about A.D. 617, and published under the title of "Venantii Fortunati Poemata"; but following the analogy of the Gaelic "cruith," and the phonetic "crot" of the Book of the Dean of Lismore (a sixteenth-century collection of Ossianic fragments), the British Chrotta was more likely to have been an early form of the Celtic Harp. Of original Welsh Crwths known there are three--one from the Engel collection in the South Kensington Museum, another less perfect in the Warrington Museum, and the one here drawn, which belongs to Colonel Wynne-Finch of Voelas, Bettws-y-Coed, North Wales. They have been hollowed out of single pieces of wood, the sound-board being glued on--a very primitive manner of structure akin to the old Celtic Harps. The dimensions of Colonel Wynne-Finch's Crwth are--length, 22-1/2 inches; width, between 10-1/2 and 9 inches; depth, 2 inches. This instrument has six strings, although nearer examination shows that it had originally only five; four are on a finger-board played with a bow, and two are off the finger-board, intended to be twanged by the player's thumb. These open strings are a comparatively late fancy, adopted in the theorbo, lyra, and baryton viols. It is said there was a three-stringed crwth (Crwth thrithant) probably bowed, and tuned as the first, fifth, and octave, but I am disposed to agree with the late Carl Engel (_Researches into the Early History of the Violin Family_: London, 1883) that this could be no other than the mediæval Rebec. From observations made, more than a hundred years ago, by the Hon. Daines Barrington (published in the _Archæologia_ of the Society of Antiquaries, London, Vol. III. p. 20), who had the advantage of hearing a performer claiming to be the last upon the instrument, the accordance of the six-stringed crwth was-- [Music] The strings were of catgut. Another authority, Bingley, heard the crwth played at Carnarvon as late as 1801. He gives a different accordance, in which, however, the octave arrangement remains:-- [Music]