This postI was reading along in Sir Orfeo for my Middle English class earlier today when I came across these lines:
Þer were trompours and tabourers,
Harpours fele and crouders;
Now, I’ve known for a while that my last name — Crowder — came from the “crowd,” a Celtic fiddle of sorts (”crwth” was another way to write it). But here, finding it in the wild! Too good to be true. But it’s true. And it really is my name. After that I couldn’t help but see if it was in the OED. It was! “One who plays a crowd; a fiddler.” Words can’t express how excited I was to find that my surname is in the OED. Not only that, but it’s the first definition listed for “crowd”:
[a. Welsh crwth m. violin, fiddle; also, a swelling or bulging body, a paunch, a kind of round bulging box, akin to croth fem. swelling, protuberance, belly, womb. These words correspond as the masc. and fem. of adjs.: cf. crwm, crom crooked, etc. The fem. form alone is found in the other Celtic langs., but in both senses: cf. Gaelic cruit fem. harp, violin, croit fem. hump, hunch, Ir. cruit fem. violin, and hump, hunch; OIr. crot (genit. croite, cruite, dat. acc. croit) harp, cithara, in late L. crotta a British musical instrument mentioned by Venantius Fortunatus c 600.]
prop. An ancient Celtic musical instrument of the viol class, now obsolete, having in early times three strings, but in its later form six, four of which were played with a bow and two by twitching with the fingers; an early form of the fiddle.
(I’m in a rush so we’ll have to skip on the italics this time.)
This made my day. :P
