The Appalachian dulcimer, nicknamed the hog fiddle, is central to a Scotch-Irish mountain tradition, yet it has no precedent in Ireland, Scotland, or northern England. This episode traces its ancestry to European box zithers such as the Swedish hummel, Norwegian langeleik, German scheitholt, and French epinette des Vosges, carried into the mountains through German settlement in Pennsylvania. West Virginia luthier Charles Maxson’s theory explains why frontier settlers built a flat “raft” of a box instead of the high-tension “suspension bridge” of a violin.

The hosts break down the instrument’s construction, diatonic fretting, noter-and-drone playing with a bamboo dowel and feather quill, and why laying it on a kitchen table turns the table into a second soundboard. They follow it from J. Edward Thomas’s Kentucky workshop and a 1917 Vogue appearance with singer Loraine Wyman to Jean Ritchie’s New York folk clubs, Richard Farina, the Rugg brothers’ Capritaurus company in 1969, the controversial six-and-a-half fret and equal temperament, Brian Jones playing an electric dulcimer on “Lady Jane,” Joni Mitchell’s Blue, Bing Futch at the International Blues Challenge, courting dulcimers, the water-filled Aquavina, and cardboard classroom builds.

• Why the dulcimer’s missing frets are a feature, not a bug
• How noter-and-drone playing builds a bagpipe-like drone into a wooden box
• Whether geared tuners and the 6.5 fret saved the instrument or erased its mountain accent
• How the courting dulcimer worked as a chaperoned date in strict frontier communities
• Why a box, a stick, and some strings became open-source hardware for modern players