Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 09.djvu/635

* HAROLD I. HARP AGON. given up to Emma for Hardecanute. Slie fixed licr residence at Winchester, and established lier autliority over her son's share of the liingdoni. ]m 1037 the thanes and people of U'essex, dis- gruntled by Ilardecanute's prolonged absence in Denmark, submitted to Harold, and he was crowned King of all England. He is said treach- erously to have slain the -Etheling .Elfred, the younger of the two sons of Ethelred and Emma, whom lie had invited to England. He died at Oxford, JIarch 17, 1040. Consult Freeman, The Korman Conquest, vol. i. (Oxford, 1809). HAROLD IL (1022?-G6). King of England in 10(j(i. He wa5 probably the second son of the ]Miwerful Earl Godwine. In 1045 Harold was ]'"arl of East Anglia. In 1051, when Godwine fell into disgrace with Edward the (_'onfessor, Harold raised troops in Ireland, and plundered the Eng- lish coast until reestablished in his earldom. Af- ter his father's death, in 1053. Harold inlierited the Earldom of Wessex, and all his father's prop- erty and power, and became the head of the Na- tional Party, which sought to counteract the Norman influence at the Court of Edward the Confessor. In 1062-63 with his brother Tostig he invaded Wales, and inflicted such a terrible chastisement on the inhabitants that the English frontier was safe from their raids for three-quar- ters of a century. It was jnobably in 1064 that he made his visit to Normandy, and took an oath to assist William in obtaining the English crown. The common legend is that Harold was ship- wrecked on the coast of Normandy, and fell into the power of Duke William, who forced him to swear on a chest full of sacred relics that he would aid him in his design. On the death of Edward the Confessor, January 5, 1006, the Witan (q.v. ), in the exercise of its rights, set aside the claims of Edgar Atheling. the grand- son of Edmund Ironside, and, ignoring the re- puted bequest of the late sovereign in favor of the Duke of Normandy, elected Harold to fill the vacant throne. Dnke William immediately as- serted his claim, which was supported by Har- old's brother Tostig. who had l)een dispossessed of his Dukedom of Xorthurabria. and Harald Haardraade, King of Norway, his ally. Tostig and the Norwegian King landed on the coast of Yorkshire, and after defeating Eadwine and llorkere. Earls of Northumbria and Jlercia, ad- vanced to York, but were met b}' Harold at Stam- ford Bridge, and totally routed September 25, 1060. A few days later William landed in Eng- land; the contending armies met at Senlac, about seven miles from Hastings (see Hastings, Bat- tle of), where Harold's defeat and death, Octo- l)er 14, 1060, made the Duke of Normandy undis- j)uted ruler of England. Consult : Freeman, The yoniinn Conquest, vols. ii. and iii. (Oxford, 1875) ; Green, The Conquest of Knatand (London, 1883), See Anglo-Saxoxs: Exnilvyn, HAROLD I. AND HAROLD III. Kings of Norway. See Haralb. HAROLD EN ITALIE, a'rM'dli ne'tfl'le'. The fourth of Berlioz's five syni])honies, cojn- posed in 1834 and founded on Byron's ChihJe Bnrohl. HAROLD, OR THE LAST OF THE SAX- ON KINGS. An historical novel, founded on the life of Harold II. of England, by Bulwer- Lytton (1848), HAROUN AL-RASHID, lia-rnnn' al ru- shed'. See 1I.RIN AL-liAsmi), HARP (AS. hearpe, Icel. harpa, OHG. harpha, Ger. Uarfe, l^at. harpa, of unknown etymology). A musical stringed instrument, niueli esteemed by the ancients. In Egypt the figure of the harp is found didineated from the earliest ages in many dill'erent forms. The Celtic bards held the bar]) in the greatest honor. In the Highlaiuls of Scotland the instrument has disappeared, but it is still in use in Wales, and to some extent it lingers in Ireland, where, from its former preva- lence, it is adopted as a national symbol. The harp was used as an accompaniment to the psalms sung by the early congregations of Chris- tians. There are three kinds of harps now known. The ordinary Italian harp is stnnig with two rows of wire strings, separated by a double sounding-board; this kind is now prac- tically obsolete, being very imperfect. The double harp, or, as it is also called, David's harp, is a more useful instrument in the form of a tri- angle, with a sounding-board and gut strings; it is always tuned in the principal key of the music, while the strings are altered to suit any modulations out of the key', by pressure of the thumb, or turning the timing-pins of certain notes. These defects led gradually to the inven- tion of the pedal harp, which has seven pedals, by which each note of the diatonic scale, in all the difl'erent octaves, can be made a semitone higher. A celebrated harpist, Hochbrucker, in Donauwdrth, invented the pedals in 1720; while J. Paul Velter, in Nuremberg, in 1730, added the piano and forte pedal. After numerous attempts at further improvements, the bar]) at length readied a degree of perfection by the invention of the double-action pedal harp by Erard in Paris in 1820. By means of Erard's invention, each string can be sharpened twice, each time a semi- tone; so that the C string may be C Hat, its full length, C natural by the first movement of the pedal, and C sharp by tlie next movement. The double-action harp is tuned with all the pedals half-down, and in the ke.v of C natural. It has 40 or 47 strings and a compass of over six oc- taves from ,C'-g'. The music is written on two staves, exactly as for the pianoforte. The instru- ment is now found in all large orchestras. For producing beautiful arpeggio effects the harp has no rival. In the final scene of Das Rhcingold (the entrance of the gods into Walhall) Wagner employs no less than eight harps. HARP,, or Saddleback Seal. A hair-seal of the North Atlantic (Phoca Grwtilandica) which wanders widely, but usually is numerous off the coasts of Greenland and southward to Newfound- land, gathers in herds about the ice-floes, and is slaughtered by sealers in great numbers. It is yellowish-white when fully adult (when the males have a black head). with an irregular circle of dark marks on the back, inclosing a space which somewhat resembles a harp or a saddle. To the Eskimos these seals are of value for food, and summer clothes as well as tents are made of the skins. HARPAGON, iir'pA'goN'. A miser who near- ly starves his horses, lets his servants go half- clothed, and begrudges himself even the expense of a decent wedding banquet. He is the principal character in Molifere's L'Aiare.