---
title: "Gaita de fuelle"
slug: gaita-de-fol
type: concept
definition: "The Iberian family of double-reed bagpipes. In Asturies it's called “gaita de fuelle” (fuelle = the bag, the air bladder); “gaita de fol” or “de fole” is the Galician-Portuguese variant of the same name. The Asturian gaita, the Galician gaita and the gaita de fole share this common trunk within the Atlantic arc."
synonyms: ["gaita de fol", "gaita de fole", "gaita de fuelle family", "Iberian double-reed bagpipe"]
publishedAt: 2026-06-30
---
**Gaita de fuelle** is the Asturian name for the **double-reed bagpipe**
(*fuelle* = the bag, the air bladder). In Galician and Portuguese the same
instrument is called **gaita de fol** or **de fole**. Here the term names
the **family** shared by the [Asturian gaita](/concepto/gaita-asturiana),
the [Galician gaita](/concepto/gaita-gallega) and the gaita de fole of
Sanabria, Aliste and Trás-os-Montes.

This isn't saying "they're all Celtic": it's a **family with a shared
organological logic and a real geography**, within which the Asturian
branch has its own identity. The three branches come from a single trunk
that gradually diverged —the gaita de fole "can't be explained without the
Galician or Asturian gaita"— and share a common root: the double reed and
a diatonic scale in
[non-tempered tuning](/concepto/afinacion-no-temperada), even though each
branch later evolved its own way (the Asturian one, toward temperament).

## Its place within the Atlantic arc

The gaita de fuelle is the Iberian branch of the
[Atlantic arc](/concepto/arco-atlantico): it links the north-western
Iberian Peninsula with the bagpipes of Scotland, Ireland and Brittany
without being confused with them. Against the Scottish bagpipe —the
best-known bagpipe in the world—, the gaita de fuelle family keeps its own
sonic and technical profile.