An earthly nurse sits and sings,
and oh, she sings, "woe is me!
I don't know who my baby's father is,
even less the land that he comes from.
Then someone stood at her bed feet,
and a grim-looking guest was he, saying,
"I am the father of your baby,
though I may look strange to thee."
"For I am a man, when I'm on the land,
and a selkie in the sea.
When I'm far out from the strand.
I live in Skule Skerry."
"It wasn't well for me!" she said.
"It wasn't well," said she,
"That the grey selkie of Skule Skerry
should have a child by me."
He's taken out a purse of gold,
and placed it on her knee.
Saying, "I will take my little son away.
Here is your nurse's fee."
"But it shall come to pass on a summer's day,
when the sun shines hot on every stone,
that I will take my little son
and teach him to swim in the foam.
And you shall marry a gunner so proud.
A proud man he will be.
The very first shot that ever he will shoot,
he'll shoot my young son and me."
................................................................................
(I love the ballads that concern shape-shifting. This one originates from the
Orkney Islands...Skerry is an old Norse word for an island.
The Selkies are were-seals...able to take off their seal skins and assume the shapes of humans.
I adapted my lyrics from the single version shown in Francis Child's "The English And Scottish Popular Ballads," altering most everything a bit to work with a tune of my own invention.