Volume 2 — 113 THE GREAT SILKIE OF SULE SKERRY
Reading edition
Proceedings of The Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, I, 86, 1852. Communicated by the late Captain F. W. L. Thomas, R. N.; written down by him from the dictation of a venerable lady of Snarra Voe, Shetland.
This Shetland ballad[187] was reprinted in Colburn's New Monthly Magazine, April, 1864, with spelling Scotticized, and two or three other uncalled-for changes.
"Finns," as they are for the most part called, denizens of a region below the depths of the ocean, are able to ascend to the land above by donning a seal-skin, which then they are wont to lay off, and, having divested themselves of it, they "act just like men and women." If this integument be taken away from them, they cannot pass through the sea again and return to their proper abode, and they become subject to the power of man, like the swan-maidens and mer-wives of Scandinavian and German tradition: Grimm's Mythologie, I, 354f. Female Finns, under these circumstances, have been fain to accept of human partners. The Great Selchie, or Big Seal, of Shul Skerry, had had commerce with a woman during an excursion to the upper world. See Hibbert's Description of the Shetland Islands, pp. 566-571, and Karl Blind in the Contemporary Review, XL, 404, 1881. A correspondent of Blind gives stanza 3 with a slight variation, thus:
I am a man, upo da land, I am a selkie i da sea; An whin I'm far fa every strand My dwelling is in Shöol Skerry.
1 An eartly nourris sits and sings, And aye she sings, Ba, lily wean! Little ken I my bairnis father, Far less the land that he staps in. 2 Then ane arose at her bed-fit, An a grumly guest I'm sure was he: 'Here am I, thy bairnis father, Although that I be not comelie. 3 'I am a man, upo the lan, An I am a silkie in the sea; And when I'm far and far frae lan, My dwelling is in Sule Skerrie.' 4 'It was na weel,' quo the maiden fair, 'It was na weel, indeed,' quo she, 'That the Great Silkie of Sule Skerrie Suld hae come and aught a bairn to me.' 5 Now he has taen a purse of goud, And he has pat it upo her knee, Sayin, Gie to me my little young son, An tak thee up thy nourris-fee. 6 An it sall come to pass on a simmer's day, When the sin shines het on evera stane, That I will tak my little young son, An teach him for to swim the faem. 7 An thu sail marry a proud gunner, An a proud gunner I'm sure he'll be, An the very first schot that ere he schoots, He'll schoot baith my young son and me.
62. Quhen.