Ken, a while I posted a picture of a very large lady holding an instrument. the site I was following labeled it Dulcimer. Yes, a far cry from what we think of today. 

Many folks who have been part of the mountain dulcimer for a while are aware of European instruments that share some characteristics of our mountain dulcimer, most notably a diatonic fretboard and drone strings. Back in 1952 Stig Wallin wrote about The Swedish Hummel for the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. This work has been available on the interned for many years. The problem is that it is in German with quotes in Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, etc. After writing an article about the term "Scheitholt" and sharing it with some friends, one of them sent me a link to the Wallin's manuscript. I thought it would be good to have it available in English and set about translating. You can find a link to it in a thread here called The Schwedische Hummel. It is a large file so the link allows you to download the 150 pages from my Dropbox.

Ken

"The dulcimer sings a sweet song."