Carved Wood Serbian Folk Fiddle Violin Gusle Animal Skin String Instrument For Sale

You are offerding on a very unique musical instrument. I purchased it second hand over 65 years ago, so it is probably much older. It is called a Gusle and is a Southeastern European musical instrument similar to the violin only with one string, originally made of horse hair. The wood is a very light color (almost tan) and the entire body is beautifully engraved. Not sure what kind of wood is was cut from but it is certainly ornate. Usually you find gusles with only one animal head at the top, this one is rather unique in that it has two which look like horse heads. A bottom of the drum there is another small animal head which looks like that of a bear or a big dog. The drum is covered with the original dried animal skin, but the pegs that were holding it on are missing. Even without the pegs the skin is quite attached to the instrument. It measures about 27\" long from the tip of the bear\'s head to the top of the horses heads. The drum part measures about 9\" x 7\". It is usually used with a bow, but that is not included in this sale. You can probably use a standard violin bow.Here is a description of the gusle from Wikipedia: \"The gusle (Serbian Cyrillic: гусле, Albanian: lahuta) is a single-stringed musical instrument (and musical style) traditionally used in the Dinarides region of the Southeastern Europe. The instrument is always accompanied by singing; musical folklore, specifically epic poetry. The gusle player (guslar) holds the instrument vertically between his knees, with the left hand fingers on the strings. The strings are never pressed to the neck, giving a harmonic and unique sound.\"No refunds on this. Ask questions and study the photos. This is a very unique instrument not to be missed, so find some horse hair andoffer now and don\'t regret it later.