“The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry” (from English - “The Great Village of Sul-Skerry”; Child 113 , Roud 197 [1] ) is a folk ballad of Scottish origin. Francis James Child, in his collection, cites her only version, recorded by Captain Thomas in 1852, according to a woman from the Shetland Islands . He notes that if he had learned about this ballad before, he would have included it in the body at number 40 [2] . Alan Bruford in 1974 leads all known 8 texts and fragments of this ballad, as well as 2 melodies. He points to the similarity of the story with the song “The Play o de Lathie Odivere” , first published in 1894 under the guise of folk, but probably the author’s fake [3] .
Story
The woman at the cradle of her son sighs that she knows almost nothing about the boy's father. Suddenly, a man appears who says that the father is he, that he lives on the island of Sul-Skerri and is a village , a representative of the “sea people" who look like people on land, and at sea take the appearance of seals. He gives the mother a purse of gold for her efforts and takes her son with him, saying that he will teach him to swim on the waves. She also predicts that one day a woman will marry a brave harpooner, who will later kill both her son and himself with one shot [2] .
Child notes that the sea people, like mermaids and swan-maidens from the Germanic tradition, cannot return to the sea if their sealskin is burnt, and thus, according to legend, it was possible for a person to gain power over a similar creature [2] . The story of a young man who is forced to put on his skin to be transformed into a beast is widespread in folklore. His first mention is found in the history of the Panchatantra Sanskrit manuscript, in which a Brahmin burns the serpentine skin of his son in order to preserve his human appearance [3] .
Modern adaptations
The melody for which the ballad is most often performed today is written by James Waters in the late 1950s. It was also used by Pete Seager to perform the English version of Nazım Hikmet ’s poem Kız ocuğu , dedicated to the bombing of Hiroshima [3] .
Notes
- ↑ Vaughan Williams Memorial Library
- 2 1 2 3 Scottish Popular Ballads , volume 2
- 2 1 2 3 Great Silkie of Sule Skerry, The [Child 113] (English) . The Traditional Ballad Index. An annotated source of folk song from the English-speaking world . Robert B. Waltz. The date of appeal is January 6, 2017.