New, interesting book I’m reading on the fiddle has a very long title but its Amazon page has the most succinct (if almost equally long) summary of the instrument that I’ve seen:
“A 16-ounce package of polished wood, strings, and air, the violin is perhaps the most affordable, portable, and adaptable instrument ever created. As congenial to reels, ragas, Delta blues, and indie rock as it is to solo Bach and late Beethoven, it has been played standing or sitting, alone or in groups, in bars, churches, concert halls, lumber camps, even concentration camps, by pros and amateurs, adults and children, men and women, at virtually any latitude on any continent.”
It’s also been cursed, as “the devil’s box,” and, indeed, it’s origin remains unclear. In Texas, they used to say (might still do, for all I know) that the only people who played guitars were those who weren’t good enough to play the fiddle. Oh, and just as a warning: learning to play one is quite addictive.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
Affordable? That’s a new angle for me, and I always thought about fiddles one works the whole life to purchase.
You can spend a lot or a little. As little as $30 on ebay, I’m told. As much as $100,000 if you’re a big time performer like Perleman.
A fiddle is quite adaptable to bagpipe music, for all the Scots who settled Texas in the early years. That goes a long way to explain the genre.
The Irish have more fiddle tunes than anybody, though they started playing them on the harp (O’Carolan, for one) before the fiddle came around, but they quickly adopted it. Harpers, nowadays, are mostly for show.
Crockett, you may have heard, is reported to have played his fiddle at the Alamo, including the old standby “Arkansas Traveler” which my pickup dance band still plays.
Custer had mounted fiddlers in his 7th Cavalry to play his favorite Irish quickstep the “Garryowen.” Nowadays they have pipes and drums. Maybe they had them then, but I only ever heard about the fiddlers.