I don't know anything about Transylvania.
But did it work?

Yes. Look at the Romania/Hungary travelogue from last year on my website - I have some links from there to Transylvanian fiddling samples (though I was more interested in whistle). Or just search "Zerkula Janos" on YouTube.

In many places there has been a long tradition of blind fiddlers. Katherine Campbell's "The Fiddle in Scottish Culture" has a chapter about them in Scotland. Since a blind fiddler can't even watch what the other guy's fingers are doing, they end up even more idiosyncratic. The blind fiddler "Financ" (Zoltan Antal) from Gyimes has a left hand position like no other I've seen, much higher up than usual and occasionally curling his thumb round to stop a B drone on the G string. You should be able to see that on some the video on the web.