The Great Silkie

I love the melody of this song. I first heard it sung by Judy Collins as "The Great Silkie of Skule Skerry" and Joan Baez does a version as well, both lovely. The lyrics, however, always disappointed me. They are mostly nonsensical to anyone who doesn't know the legend behind the song. I wanted a version that even a modern American could understand, without the benefit of folklore study.

Here's an mp3 file of me singing my version. If you'd like to record it with me, let me know!

By an Orkney shore there stands a maid

Waves at her feet on a midsummer's eve

And from her eyes there fell seven tears

But don't think that her heart did grieve

From the sea so deep the grey silkie came

Cast off a seal skin upon reaching land

And then he spoke to the yearning maiden

As they walked along hand in hand

"I am a man upon the land

I am a silkie on the sea

And when I'm far and far from land

My home it is in Sule Skerrie"

That night they spent on a bed of flowers

And when they awoke to a fine morning

Her lover gave her a bright golden chain

Saying, "It's for our child who'll be born next spring"

"And it shall come to pass on a summer's day,

When the sun shines bright on every stane

I"ll come and fetch my little young son

And teach him how to swim the waves."

It was seven years till she saw the man

Unearthly father of her dear son

The boy was wearing his golden chain

As he swam to sea in the evening sun

And she did marry a seal hunter

With two grey seals he one day came home

And around the neck of the younger one

Was the golden chain still wet with foam.

"Alas it hurts," the mother cried

"To feel the pain of a son who has died

If only I had not beckoned the silkie

With the seven tears of yearning that night."