Story of the Flute
formerly applied to all Instruments of the pipe or whistle class, either with or without reeds. According to Hawkins and Grassineau, the name was derived from fluta, a lamprey or small Sicilian eel, which has seven breathing-holes on each side below the eyes, like the finger-holes on the primitive pipe or flute. Surely it is much more probable that the eel may have been called after the instrument! Cotgrave, in his Dictionary (1632), says, "A lamprey is sometimes called a Fleute d'Aleman, by reason of the little holes which he hath on the upper part of his body." The true origin of the name is to be sought for in the Latin flatus, a blowing or breathing.
The origin of the primitive pipe is lost in the mists of antiquity, and its early history is extremely difficult to Classic
Legendstrace. The legendary date of its invention is given in the Parian Chronicle in the Arundelian Marbles (now in Oxford) as 1506 B.C. It was probably suggested by the whistling of the wind over the tops of the river reeds—"there's music in the sighing of a reed" (Byron). The classical legend relates how
Arcadian Pan, with such a fearful dread";
and how her prayer that she should be changed by the Naiads into reeds by the river bank was granted—
Nought but a lovely sighing of the wind
Along the reedy stream! a half-heard strain,
Full of sweet desolation—balmy pain."—Keats.
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