Last Updated on March 4, 2026 by Jack
This post began life when I saw a music video which I had shared with a friend last summer. It’s a beautiful haunting song from the movie The Last of the Mohegans. When I first saw the video I had no idea what the instruments were that sounded so “from the old country”. As it turns out, my heritage is Irish/Scotch but it has never been the pull for me that it has been for much of my family, this song however hit the chord in a big way.
As it turns out the instruments in question were the hurdy-gurdy and the nyckelharpa. Now anyone that I know who has heard of a hurdy-gurdy, heard of it in the Donovan song Hurdy Gurdy Man. As it turns out there is no hurdy-gurdy in that song. I have included a link so you old folks can remember.
In addition to the song from The Last of the Mohegans being beautiful, the movie is well worth watching. The movie takes place in upstate New York during the French and Indian War (1754-1773), pre-revolution for you non historians. Specifically the movie is about the siege and massacre of Fort William Henry. The story is entertaining, educational and well worth the watch. For me the word “forest” took on a new meaning.
I’m pretty sure the war was covered in about five minutes when I was in grade school, so here is a little refresher. With much help from ChatGPT:
The French and Indian war was basically between Great Britain and France with both sides having various alliances with Native American tribes. The war was actually the North American theater of the global Seven Years War which I know nothing about and you can look up yourself. The French were ultimately defeated in North America and lost most of their holdings east of the Mississippi and Britain got Canada. What was significant is that the war bankrupt Britain leading to new taxes on the colonies, ultimately leading to the American Revolution.
From wikipedia.org:
The hurdy-gurdy is a string instrument that produces sound by means of a hand-cranked rosined wheel which rubs against the strings. The wheel functions much like a violin (or nyckelharpa) bow, and single notes played on the instrument sound similar to those of a violin.
From nyckelharpa.org:
The nyckelharpa is a traditional Swedish instrument that has been played, in one form or another as it evolved, for more than 600 years. At least four different versions of the nyckelharpa are still played today, an uncommon situation for most folk instruments.