The harp has been played in the Nordic countries for centuries: Numerous museum instruments, historical sources, folk tales and ballads tell of their existence.

Iceland has quite many sagas, where musicians called hörpuslagari and instruments called harps are mentioned. Although the term "harp" has been (and still is) used in a very broad sense in the Scandinavian languages, where several stringed instruments were called harp (plucked lyre, bowed lyre, psaltery, langeleik, keyed fiddle, hurdy-gurdy and more), there is also plenty of iconographical evidence showing "real" harps in Denmark, Norway and Sweden since Medieval times: Both on stone reliefs, church paintings and wood carvings.

Further evidence from more recent centuries comes from instruments which are preserved in various museums: Norwegian folk harps from the 17th to 18th centuries are preserved in the Historical Museum in Bergen, the Glomsdal Museum in Elverum, the Norwegian Folk Museum in Oslo and the Music Museum in Stockholm. The Music Museum in Stockholm has also some diatonic harps made by Swedish instrument makers from the 18th century onwards, e.g. royal instrument maker Mathias Petter Kraft.

From Denmark, historical documents tell about court harpists (e.g. Edvard Adam, Magnus Maxi, Darby Scott and Carolus Oralii at the court of Christian IV). Numerous Danish town musicians played a "David's harp", and the Music History Museum in Copenhagen stores several small diatonic harps (called "amateur harps") from the 18th to 19th centuries, some of which were produced by Danish instrument makers.

Also from Finland, we know about harpists in court music, entertainment music and street music: "Mikael harpolekare" played court music in Turku Castle, 1580. Many years later, the blind girl Charlotta Seuerling (who was living in Turku about 1810) played a small pedal harp to accompany her melancholic Swedish songs. Henryk Sulkawa from Virrat (Western Finland) built a small diatonic harp in 1818, which is quite similar to the harp of Kalvsvik (Småland in Sweden); and Kreeta Haapasalo, the most famous Finnish kantele player of the 19th century, was greatly inspired by Central-European wandering harpers touring the Nordic countries and playing on markets, in streets and taverns.

Nowadays, several harpists and harpers live in Nordic countries and play all different kinds of music - ranging from early music to folk music and creative modern music - without necessarily being aware of each other's existence, since one lives in Copenhagen, the other one in Helsinki, another in Oslo, another in Stockholm, yet another in Pajala... The time has come to meet and get to know each other!