Medieval Fyddle

 

 

An instrument from the family of bowed Lyres, this has been around since the 11 century at least.  It is very flexible, as in other bowed instruments, it can be bowed and plucked, but since this one is tuned in a drone tuning, all the strings can be used to provide a background to the tunes.

There are no surviving instruments so reconstruction has had to be from medieval artwork, which is not to scale so it is supposition as to the proportions of the instruments.  This also goes towards the tuning.  I tune mine in a drone tuning as this worked best with the hurdy gurdy’s and bagpipes in the band that I worked with in the past.  It also suited the tunes as well.