The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #31375   Message #1530883
Posted By: Malcolm Douglas
28-Jul-05 - 11:27 PM
Thread Name: Origins: The Great Silkie
Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Great Silkie
Generally when people post what they call "versions" of old songs here, they are just arrangements they have heard on records made by modern professional or semi-professional entertainers; not traditional forms in their own right. That's certainly the case in this thread; and I'm afraid that Lady Odivere is almost certainly a self-conscious late Victorian fake made by Walter Traill Dennison, not the "ancestor" of this song; though partly based on it.

There are perhaps three tunes that have been found in genuine tradition associated with the song, and a few more texts. Not many, though.