Rebec
Adventures with 'other' instruments...
Yay! I'm thrilled for you!
You should order several replacement gut strings in advance from the fellow I mentioned.
They are expensive, but some are actually twice the length you need, so may wind up giving you two string replacements if you are stingy when winding the peg.
You will be skipping the violin low G string. Order the equivalent of the gut violin e, a, and d strings. Order an extra e because that's the one at highest tension that will more likley break. Order the medium thickness type for each string (he gives choices of light, medium, etc.) Be SURE to check out his offerings in his SALE area- I saved good money that way! His gut strings are higher quality and won't break as easily as the rougher gut strings that come on it.
You will need to rosin the bow quite a bit at first.
If it's hard to hold, try a piece of that rubbery shelf liner stuff- on the part of your body you hold it against.
I strongly advise not tuning it all the way up to fiddle standard, at least for the first week. I keep mine tuned (low to high): CGd instead of DAe. I just read the music and pretend i am tuned higher. 
After a while you may get good at transposing tunes to better places on your rebec. Try out centering a tune so that the tonic note falls on an open string...that helps me often. i play alone so I don't have to worry so much about what key im in.
Be sure to start with a very very simple tune.
