The gue is an extinct type of two-stringed bowed lyre or zither from the Shetland Isles.[1] Now extinct, the instrument was alive as recently as 1809, and was described in the writings of Sir Arthur Edmondstone.[2]
The exact details of the gue are unclear, but it possibly resembled extinct bowed lyres such as the Norwegian giga, or the extant Swedish and Estonian talharpa or Finnish jouhikko. However, other ethnomusicologists believe the gue more resembled the Icelandic fiðla, a two-stringed bowed zither. Peter Cooke notes the prevalence of the tautirut bowed zither among the Inuit peoples in areas of Canada influenced by Orkney and Shetland sailors, as possible evidence that the Inuit bowed lyre is based on a Shetland model.[3]