#Great Silkie of Sule Skerry

[letsgethaunted]

Celtic Songs - Great Silkie of Sule Skerry

[pod-together]

Pod-Together Day 2 Reveals 2024

coal-fire heart (The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry - Anonymous (Song)) written by Aether, performed by Beryllinthranox Summary: The sea was the perfect wind-roughened blue, the kind that made her want to take a deep breath and step over the rail and into the deep.

Today’s Top Story: An End to the Plagues? [text, audio] (Good Omens (TV)) written by BookGirlFan, performed by 1happydaiz Summary: “Good morning, and welcome to Ancient Egypt News. Our top story this morning, the Israelites, and the plagues they have brought on our nation. This morning, families all across the capital have woken to the news their eldest son has died during the night. Abubakar, our man on the ground, coming to us live from the streets with more.”

Convergence (Stray Kids (Band)) written by Chanlixbolt, performed by InterstellarBlue Summary: con·ver·gence /kənˈvərj(ə)ns/ noun noun: convergence; noun: convergency Convergence is when two or more things come together to form a new whole, Chan finally gets out of his head about his feelings, and Hyunjin and Jeongin start wooing him with utter enthusiasm.

Gritty Thoughts (Men's Hockey RPF) written by FandomisOhana, performed by eafay70 Summary: Thoughts on Gritty!

That's not how it happened! (Shadowhunters (TV)) written by Hagar, performed by kittona Summary: In which Magnus tells a story to Jace and Clary's kids - and everyone has opinions.

That Clear and Simple Path (Merrily We Roll Along - Sondheim/Furth) written by klb, ShakespeareStoleMyURL, and rockinhamburger, performed by horchatapods, elledubs, klb, and ShakespeareStoleMyURL Summary: Three phone calls, the night (and then the day) after Frank's party. A podfic musical.

Dirt Cake. Because Why Not? (One Piece (Anime & Manga)) written by ScarletSorceress, performed by stereden Summary: Thatch really thought he'd learned his lesson about Ace and 'cakes'. Mainly that, if Ace wanted him to bake a cake, it would never be a normal cake. The first one had pork in it. The second was an actual war crime. Now the third one...had dirt in it? What occasion could Ace possibly plan for that required a dirt cake??? Well, Thatch was just going to have to make it to find out. Yay...

Dare Me to Tell You the Truth (Hacks (TV 2021)) written by schwanenkoenigin, performed by wilfriede0815 Summary: Ava desperately wants to get Deborah to play Truth or Dare with her. Deborah tries to resist.

just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go [text, audio] (魔道祖师 - 墨香铜臭 | Módào Zǔshī - Mòxiāng Tóngxiù) written by unitaryexectheory, performed by Gavilan Summary: "A'Yu, A'Yu..." Nie Huaisang sighed."Not even my own sect brothers call me Nie-zongzhu." He pouted, but Mo Xuanyu didn't speak, looking guarded. "The only Nie-zongzhu was my brother and Nie Mingjue's dead." "That must have been very hard for you." Mo Xuanyu said blandly. Nie Huaisang gave a little acknowledging giggle, feeling disgust and pleasure at how Mo Xuanyu glazed past Da-ge's name. It's good. This is good, he reminded himself. So, Nie Huaisang smiled, gently placing the cup onto Mo Xuanyu's hands. The skin of his wrists and hands was a shade lighter than Nie Huaisang's own, clutching the cup lightly.

When We Meet Again (Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order Series (Video Games), Star Wars - All Media Types) written by xazz, performed by Ceewelsh Summary: Bode made good plans but there was a saying that even the best plans didn’t survive first contact. He’d expected he would have more time. He didn’t expect the plan to start to fall apart at his first meeting with Cal Kestis.

The Hospital [text, audio] (The Hotel (Podcast)) written by zombified_queer, performed by tipsy_kitty Summary: The Manager, Owner, and Lobby Boy have to deal with the repetition of Madam Hotel’s very tragic accident.

[meluisart]

In Noroway there lived a maid, Bye-loo my baby, she begins, Oh know not I my babe’s father Or if land or sea he’s living in. I am a man upon the land, I am a silkie in the sea, And when I’m in my own coutrie My dwelling is in Sule Skerry.

I had to do something when Annika series 2 opened up with Annika using The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry for an analogy. Gosh what a song to use.

[saltwaterandstars]

The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry - I've been singing this song all day round the house. It's such a classic strange and tragic folk song. I love the Unthanks and I love Julie Fowlis and this version is wonderful.

[greencheekconure27]

All right, The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry it is.

[gingesbecray]

Annika series 2 has started and it's awesome and it's Nicola Walker and she's brilliant and I hope you're all watching!

My recap of Annika S2:E01:

[wakingfromthewater]

Do you have a favorite cover (...is it a cover if it's a folk song?) of the The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry?

Honestly, it's just one of those traditional songs that exists in my head. I don't know where I learned it from and I'm not sure who's done a recording of it!

[stars-and-spice]

The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry

Papercut.

[readingtheentrails]

Thanks for the tag @weemssapphic!

I did a version of this before I did an Irish theme and a queer theme, but this time I'm just going to choose songs I like. Wish me luck!

R - Rousseau - Nerina Pallot

E - Earth Not Above - Haelos

A - Anahorish - Lisa Hannigan

D - Don't Let It Trouble Your Mind - Rhiannon Giddens

I - I'm Fine - Self Esteem*

N - New Shoes - The Overcoats

G - Grand Amuseur de Filles - De Temps Antan

T - The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry - The Unthanks

H - Hurricane Drunk - Florence + The Machine

E - Edge Hill - Groove Armada

E - Election Night - Bic Runga

N - None of My Friends - Liz Lawrence

T - The Dull Flame of Desire - Björk & Anohni

R - Rambling Man - Laura Marling

A - Atticus - The Noisettes

I - I Should've Danced More - Joan Osborne

L - Lowlands of Holland - Ye Vagabonds

S - Slow Slow Disco - St. Vincent

*seeing Self Esteem perform this live and barking like dogs together as an audience was cathartic in a way I cannot describe.

As always, there is a playlist of all these songs here if you want to listen to them :)

Some no pressure tags if you want to take part: @corleyan, @goldrushdiary, @errolplane

Rules: Spell out your name or url with songs!

Tagged by @notinmyvocab @milfsloverblog @autumn-leaves-chasing-breeze - thank you, lovely people 🧡

When I Kissed The Teacher - ABBA

Easy - Troye Sivan

Everywhere - Fleetwood Mac

Musta Been A Ghost - Próxima Parada

Spillways - Ghost

Square Hammer - Ghost

Angeleyes - ABBA

Paper Rings - Taylor Swift

Proud Mary - Tina Turner

How Dare You Want More - Bleachers

If You Love Me - Lizzo

Candle Flame - Jungle

No pressure tags: @readingtheentrails @agathaandgwenslesbian @h-doodles @bigolgay 🤍

[the-busy-ghost]

If my selkie lover told me that I’d marry a gunner who would one day kill our bonnie bairn, I simply would not get hitched to a gunner, I mean RIP to that Orcadian* lassie but I’m different

*Norwegian, Shetland, whatever

[scribefindegil]

hold up guys apparently in 1989 Gordon Bok recorded a folk opera based on a longform selkie ballad collected in Orkneys in the 1800′s and i will be able to think about nothing else until i can listen to it

[goddamnshinyrock]

#pls pls pls let the child ballads be the next weirdly popular phenomenon

I am having horrible premonitions of Child Ballad Discourse, my god. 

lads, is it #problematic to impregnate your own sister and then murder her and hide her body in the woods? the king in willie o’winsbury is #canceled for sexually harassing his daughter’s boyfriend! Tam Lin’s labor was exploited by the fairy queen! The great silkie of sule skerry mentions sealing, which is Bad, obviously, so we we’re not allowed to sing that one! The lover in the unquiet grave is persistently harassing his (dead) girlfriend and not getting that no means no! The the lord in Glasgow Peggy kidnaps Peggy, so that one is right out, even if he does have ten thousand sheep and fifty acres land (plowed and sewn already). The jolly beggar is dubcon because the dude was only pretending to be a beggar when they fucked and didn’t own up to his true identity. The trooper in the trooper and the maid is cheating on his wife, he’s very canceled. Lady Isabel keeps a parrot in a cage, when parrots need a lot of space, interaction, and enrichment to be responsibly kept. 

...okay I was trying to find something to cancel the Twa Corbies for but actually that one may be the only wholesome unproblematic Child Ballad, since it’s about recycling :) 

[justforbooks]

The Legend of the Selkies | Mythology

Perhaps one of the most notable mythical sea creatures in Irish and Scottish legends are the Selkies who are also called Seal Folk. They are mythological beings capable of changing from seal to human form by shedding their skin.

Most of the myths involving selkies recount the tales of female selkies who were forced into relationships with humans by someone stealing and hiding their sealskin.

Scottish Legends

There is a famous legend in Scottish folklore that revolves around a selkie wife and her human lover. According to the tale, a man finds a female naked selkie on the seashore, so he steals her skin and compels her to become his wife. Throughout her captivity, the wife longs to return to her true home in the sea and always gazes longingly at the ocean.

Although she may appear to settle into her human life and may even have children with her human husband, as soon as she can find her skin, she will immediately flee and return to the sea.

The story varies from place to place, as some say that she discovers the whereabouts of her skin, and some others say that one of her children comes upon it by accident. Some also say that she had a first husband from her own kind.

In some versions of the story, the selkie revisits her human family on land once every year, but in most versions of the tale, she is never seen again by them.

One version states that although the selkie wife was never seen again in human form, her children would sometimes witness a large seal approaching them and greeting them wistfully.

Are Selkies Male or Female?

Although most stories revolve around female selkies, there are also tales of male selkies who are said to have very handsome human forms, as well as seductive powers that are irresistible to human women.

As the tales go, the male selkies usually seek those who are dissatisfied with their lives, such as married women waiting for their fishermen husbands. If these women wish to contact their male selkies, they would shed seven tears into the sea.

The number seven shows up in the stories once again as some say that the selkie could only assume human form once every seven years because they are bodies that house condemned souls. They are also thought by some to be either human who had committed sinful wrongdoing or fallen angels.

What about Selkie Children?

Not only are they abandoned by their selkie parent, children born between man and seal-folk may have webbed hands or feet and that trait can be passed down to their descendants.

The Pinocchio Effect

We’ve all heard the story of Pinocchio, the young wooden boy who wishes he can be human and is finally granted his wish. Well, some legends say that selkies could turn human every so often when the conditions of the tides were correct.

Superstitions

Just like any other supernatural tales in Scotland, there are several superstitions related to selkies. For example, it was thought that killing a seal would bring misfortune for the perpetuator.

Tales From All Over the World

The selkie-wife tale had its version for practically every island of Orkney. In one tale, a confirmed bachelor falls in love with a selkie and steals her skin. When he’s not around, she searches the house and finds her seal-skin thanks to her youngest daughter.

In Shetland, some stories bring us tales of selkies luring islanders into the sea where the lovelorn humans never return to dry land. The sea-folk were also believed to revert to human shape and breathed air, but they had the ability to transform into seals as well, using their seal-skin, each of which was unique and irreplaceable.

The Scottish ballad The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry details the shape-shifting nature of selkies:

‘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.’

In Iceland, Jón Árnason published the folk-tale “Selshamurinn” (which translates to “The Seal-Skin”) that revolves around a man from Mýrdalur who forced a seal woman to marry him after stealing of her seal-skin. She finally discovers the key to her husband’s chest and is reunited with the male seal who was her betrothed partner.

Another famous selkie story comes from the Faroe Islands and is titled The Legend of Kópakonan, as Kópakonan means “seal woman”.

The story tells of a young farmer from the village of Mikladalur who, after learning about the local legend that seals could come ashore and shed their skins once a year on the Thirteenth Night, goes to see for himself.

The farmer takes the skin of a young selkie woman, who, unable to return to the water without her skin, is forced to follow the young man back to his farm and become his wife.

The two stay together for many years, even producing several children. The man locks the selkie woman’s skin in a chest, keeping the key to the lock on his person at all times, so his wife may never gain access.

However, one day the man forgets his key at home and comes back to his farm to find that his selkie wife has taken her skin and returned to the ocean.

Later, when the farmer is out on a hunt, the man kills the selkie woman’s selkie husband and two selkie sons. Enraged, the selkie woman promises vengeance for her lost kin. She exclaims that “some shall be drowned, some shall fall from cliffs and slopes, and this shall continue until so many men have been lost that they will be able to link arms around the whole island of Kalsoy.” Deaths that occur on the island are thought to be due to the Selkie woman’s curse.

Origins of the Selkie Myths

You might wonder where these strange stories of selkies and fairies came from and how they came to be. Before the advent of modern medicine, many physiological and physical conditions were unexplainable and physicians were unable to treat them. Consequently, when children were born with abnormalities, it was common to blame the fairies.

The MacCodrum clan of the Outer Hebrides claimed to be descendants from a union between a fisherman and a selkie sp they became known as the “MacCodrums of the seals”. This was an explanation for a hereditary growth of skin between their fingers that made their hands look like flippers.

Children born with “scaly” skin were also thought to be the descendants of Selkies.

In Popular Culture

Selkies have appeared in numerous works of pop culture, such as novels, songs and films, including A Stranger Came Ashore, a young adult novel by Scottish author Mollie Hunter.

The plot takes place on the Shetland Islands in the north of Scotland, and it revolves around a boy who must protect his sister from the Great Selkie.

The Secret of Roan Inish, a 1994 American/Irish independent film based on the novel Secret of the Ron Mor Skerry, by Rosalie K. Fry, follows a young girl who uncovers the mystery of her family’s Selkie ancestry.

A 2000 Australian made-for-TV film titled Selkie also portrayed the story of a teenage boy who begins to notice changes in his body, such as growing scales and webbed fingers, that suggest he is somehow connected to a legendary line of Selkies.

Perhaps our favourite adaptation is Ondine, a 2009 Irish romantic drama film starring Colin Farrell. The film was shot on location in Castletownbere, Ireland, and it discusses the possible existence of the mythological selkies through the story of an Irish fisherman who comes upon a woman in his fishing net and how his precocious daughter begins to believe that the mysterious woman might be a selkie.

Final Thoughts

The legend of the selkies has been around for hundreds of years and maybe we’ll never find out if there a trace of truth to them, but just like the myth of the Loch Ness Monster, people will never stop looking into it and searching for the truth behind the legends.

In the meantime, the stories you can find are totally fascinating and can be found everywhere around Ireland, Scotland and many countries in Northern Europe.

Since most myths are based on realistic stories, I guess we can assume that the myths of the selkie folk can have a basis in reality as well. Whether due to mysterious illnesses or unexplained disappearances, the stories of the selkies might be more realistic than we think.

Video above: "Kópakonan" selkie-statue, Mikladalur, Kalsoy, Faroe Islands.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

[effulgentpoet]

favorite Child Ballads

THE GREAT SILKIE OF SULE SKERRY

And thou shalt marry a proud gunner, and a good proud gunner I'm sure he'll be, and with the very first shot that e'er he'll shoot, he'll kill both my young son and me.

A woman, nursing a baby, laments that she does not know the child's father or where he lives. A man arrives to tell her that he is the father, and that he is a selkie - a being that takes the form of a man on the land and a seal in the sea, and that he lives on a remote rocky island called Sule Skerry. He gives her a purse full of gold, takes his son, and predicts that she will marry a gunner (the man who fires the harpoon on a whaling ship) who will kill both him and their son. LISTEN

[unseelie1963]

A Familiar Name In An Unexpected Place

When a song appeals to me I lock onto it,especially if it's a traditional folk tune old enough to have variants.The most recent has been The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry;for those not in the know,a silkie or selkie is a being who is a seal in the sea and a man or woman upon the land.I found a site referencing three different versions,one with a completely different title and much longer than the other two.This particular version is called " The Play o' de lathie Odivere",and was collected in the Orkneys in the 1800s by a Walter Traill Dennis.His source? A lady referred to simply as MRS.HIDDLESTON(!),who lived on the Orkney mainland and was said to have had a great deal to communicate about bygone times.It doesn't necessarily mean this lady is related to Tom in any way,of course,but wouldn't it be interesting if she was? To make things more fun,the lathie(Lady) Odivere was wooed and won by her husband having taken " Odin's oath"! What interesting coincidences there are out there!

[lessthansix]

tonight's aesthetic is lying on my bed nursing a nosebleed and listening to 'the great silkie of sule skerry'