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Overview

The ballad printed under The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry begins with a mother singing to her child while admitting she knows neither the father’s identity nor his homeland. A strange visitor appears beside her bed and claims the child. He identifies himself as a man on land and a silkie in the sea, with his distant home at Sule Skerry. The woman objects that he has fathered a child with her. He places gold on her knee, offers it as payment for nursing and asks to take their son.

He foretells that on a warm summer day he will teach the boy to swim. His final warning says the mother will marry a proud gunner whose first shot will kill both father and son. The printed text ends with that prediction; it does not narrate a completed shooting or a later discovery of bodies. Black and Thomas identify Captain F. W. L. Thomas’s 1851 Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland contribution as the source. His surrounding commentary reports a mournful tune and considers the ballad too regular in construction to be very old. That is the collector’s judgement, not a securely established composition date.

Human on land, seal in seaSule Skerry homeNursing paymentSon claimed by fatherFatal prophecy
01

Origins & earliest records

Black and Thomas’s County Folk-Lore III (London: David Nutt, 1903), pp. 183–184, 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. 183–184. Ballad and commentary cited from F. W. L. Thomas, Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 1851, vol. I, pp. 86–89.

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. 183–184Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

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