I bought an instrument in southern Spain recently. It is called a laúd, (if that looks funny on your browser, it's the word "laud" with an accent on the "u"). It is about the size of a mandola but has 6 pairs of strings, tuned to fifths and ending on a low A (that last is a guess going on the note at a sensible tension with the strings that were on it when I bought it). I assumed it was Spanish, the book about how to play it is in Spanish (but then I bought it in Spain...). Since then I have shown it to many people, one of whom confidently identified it as a German instrument of name similar to laúd but more German. Another said with equal certainty that it is Algerian. Any ideas or knowledge?