cooperman
Violas can be tuned as a large-bodied baritone violin, i.e. playing G-D-A-E but one octave lower than violin, as follows :-

I tried tuning a viola up a tone giving D-A-E-B where the bottom three strings are an octave below the top three strings of a violin. You can play a lot of the folk repertoire without using the bottom string of a fiddle anyway so that gave me an octave fiddle without having to reach with my little finger for the top B.
Unfortunately, it did give me shoulder problems probably due to bad posture because I wasn't getting lessons.

One advantage - after half an hour on the viola, the fiddle feels like a toy.