The charota, is a musical instrument played in Ireland, whose exact description is contested.
According to Irish historian
Gratton Flood, it was a small harp played with a bow. The instrument could be rested on knees or on a table.
Flood notes that the historian Gerbert had described the charota as an oblong instrument with six strings, four of which on a fingerboard and two off of it.
Historian
Carl Engel noted that a 6th-century CE Italian writer,
Venantius Fortunatus
Venantius Honorius Clementianus Fortunatus ( 530 600/609 AD; ), known as Saint Venantius Fortunatus (, ), was a Latin poet and hymnographer in the Merovingian Court, and a bishop of the Early Church who has been venerated since the Middle Ages. ...
, had mentioned the "Charota Britanna" in a poem, but did not mention any bow.
See also
*
Crwth
:''See Rotte (psaltery), Rotte for the psaltery, or Rotte (lyre), Rotte for the plucked lyre.''
The crwth ( , ), also called a crowd or rote or crotta, is a bowed lyre, a type of string instrument, stringed instrument, associated particularly w ...
, a similar Welsh instrument
*
Rotte
References
{{reflist
Bowed lyres
Irish musical instruments
Early musical instruments
Lost and extinct musical instruments