Released 8/23/2022
About
Silkie 2: “The Great Silkie” is an arrangement of the tune composed by James Waters.
Francis J. Child collected only the texts/lyrics of traditional Scottish and English ballads and published them in 1860. “The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry” is Child Ballad #113. “Child” refers to his name, not to children. The tune commonly associated with “The Great Silkie” was written by James Waters in the 1950s. As the text explains, a silkie is a seal-like creature, able to take the form of a man when on land. He fathers a child with a human woman (“an earthly nurse”), then returns to take his son back to the sea. He foretells that the son’s mother will eventually marry a “gunner good,” who will shoot and kill both the Silkie and his son. Lyrics can be found here: https://www.8notes.com/scores/6316.asp.