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Overview

The Ve Skerries account printed from Hibbert describes hunters stunning seals and stripping off their skins before returning toward Papa Stour. A sudden rising sea leaves one man stranded. Surviving seal people return, shed their coverings and attempt to revive the injured companions. Their greatest grief is for Ollavitinus, Gioga’s son: without his skin he cannot return to their underwater dwelling and must remain in the upper world. Gioga recognizes that the stranded hunter can help recover what her son has lost.

She offers to carry the man on her back to Papa Stour if he returns Ollavitinus’s skin. After they agree, she resumes seal form and transports him through the storm to Acres Gio. He then goes to the drying shed at Hamna Voe, retrieves the skin and fulfils the bargain. The printed scene includes the man making handholds in Gioga’s covering to secure himself during the crossing; it is an extraordinary narrated injury tolerated for the rescue, not a recommended way to handle a seal. A following version attributed to Captain Thomas makes the rescuer the mate, rather than the mother, of the skin’s owner. Gioga’s named relationship therefore belongs to Hibbert’s telling.

Seal and human formsMother of OllavitinusStorm crossingReturned-skin bargain
01

Origins & earliest records

Black and Thomas’s County Folk-Lore III (London: David Nutt, 1903), pp. 180–183, preserves the earlier account identified in its source note.

02

Records & interpretation

The complete printed account supplies these actions. The 1903 compilation preserves earlier attribution; original earlier publications are not independently collated here.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    County Folk-Lore III: Examples of Printed Folk-Lore concerning the Orkney & Shetland Islands

    Collected by George Fraser Black; edited by Northcote W. Thomas · 1903

    pp. 180–183. Ve Skerries narrative cites Hibbert pp. 567–569; immediately following Thomas version differs in rescuer’s relationship.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Primary printed compilationBlack and Thomas 1903, pp. 180–183Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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