ABSTRACT
Of Scotland’s three national instruments—the harp, the pipes and the fiddle—the harp or clarsach is undoubtedly the oldest. The instrument appears on stone carvings in Scotland from the early ninth century onwards. The Harper’s Pass in Mull referred to is the place of a folk tale of how a harper broke up his harp and made a fire with it to save his wife from perishing with cold while they were on a journey in the midst of winter. References to the harp by early writers are numerous. Though some of Roderick Morison's poetry has survived his reputation as a harper rests upon tradition alone, for none of his harp music has survived, at least in recognizable form. One may mention a musical manuscript in the library of Edinburgh University which may have an important bearing on the question of what happened to the harp music.
