Fiddle strings must be made of Adders and Serpents, but of their guts, or membrane that joynes to the backbone, which you must take forth of a running River... fit these strings to a Fiddle or Cythern, and playing on it with your fingers, it will make a pleasing soft, gentle, sound, and will make those that hear it sleep soundly, that they will shut their eyes whether they will or no, and sleep will be propounded.
--Johann Jacob Wecker, Eighteen Books of the Secrets of Art & Nature (1661)
From a wonderful blog I just discovered, Ask the Past.
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