I'm sure I have told this story before, but when the man who made my 34 string harp - the first harp he had made - he brought it to a folk weekend when it was at the stage of having strings on, but not finished yet. As he was carrying it to his car when he was leaving the wind started blowing through the strings and making beautiful music. He was so fascinated with it that he put it in the car, then drove away, and when I turned to go back inside the hall he had left behind his beloved mountain dulcimer - a finely crafted and beautiful instrument - lying there all forlorn. I rang him up when I got home and asked if he had forgotten something and he still hadn't realised he had left it behind.

Those sounds in the strings were hauting, ethereal, from another world.

Helen