Origins: The Great Silkie

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Great Silkie
From: Barry Finn
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 12:52 AM

I did get that, thanks Bill.
I'm not done rolling the tune around but I'm leaning more towards the Waters tune, it's no wonder that so many folks have taken to it over the traditional tune.

Barry

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Great Silkie
From: Langtonian
Date: 10 Mar 09 - 02:37 AM

I was sent a private email about my recordings of this mentioned above, so just to clarify for anyone else that's interested, and hopefully deflect any further attacks, here's some background.

I originally learned the tune from print, circa 1967, following the publication of it in Bronson where it is attributed to John Sinclair of Orkney.

I learned the tune specifically for a recording project by Argo Records, "Poetry and Song" On that occasion I was accompanied by two fellow members of the Critics Group, John Faulkner and Terry Yarnell, both playing fiddle. My text came from an amalgam of sources and was deliberately not John Sinclairs

Many years later, John Purser added some seal sounds in the background, and as much as I love and admire John's work, I cannot accept any responsibility for the seal sounds. :-) (For those unfamiliar with John's work it is well worth reading his book "Scotland's Music" and if possible listen to the 30 radio programmes that parralled the book)

Over the last 40 years or so since I first learned them, my tune and the text will have no doubt undergone changes, and for that I make no apologies - it is the way of the tradition.

Bob Blair

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Great Silkie
From: GUEST,Atlanticarc
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 11:51 AM

Good version on Naked Voice by Elspeth Cowie, ex Seannachie and Chantan

mp3 album and trax from http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/elspethcowie

artist website htpp://www.elspethcowie.com

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Great Silkie
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 12 Jun 12 - 05:00 PM

Thread drift - related(?) subject:

A parody on the theme, titled "You picked a fine time to leave me, you Seal" (to the tune of the pop song "You picked a fine time to leave me, Lucile") was mentioned in a thread here some time ago, but I didn't find it with a quick search.

Lyrics were published in !Sing Out, and IIRC were posted here.

Info for the the curious (or demented) only. The rest may resume the serious and scholarly discussion.

John

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Great Silkie
From: GUEST,Brian Tyson
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 03:56 AM

In Archie Fisher's beautiful version of this song, we have the verse:
"My dear, I'll wed thee with a ring,
Wi' a ring, my dear, I'll wed wi' ye;
Now thou may wed with whom thou wilt
For I'm sure we'll never mair atwee."*

I'm quite sure the Fisher version is accurate. Of the hundreds of versions of the lyrics of this ancient ballad, he is the only one who makes sense of this verse. "I'm sure we'll never mair atwee" is a variant of "we'll never mair atwin" (i.e. "separate.") It is akin to the line in the ballad of Clerk Saunders, where May Margret says:
                        "Your faith and troth ye never shall get,
                         Nor our true love shall never twin"
He is saying, in effect,I'll marry you (with a ring)--then, afterwards you can "marry" any human you wish; for I'm sure you and I will never be separated." The other versions make no sense. Their verses begin with the Silkie saying "I'll wed you" and end with his saying "You'll never wed me!"

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: The Great Silkie
From: GUEST,Banjiman
Date: 11 Mar 13 - 08:45 AM

Here's a pipes, harp, guitar and vocals version from Wendy Arrowsmith and John & Caroline Bushby.

Great Silkie

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Reinhard
Date: 17 Nov 16 - 08:43 PM

Roberto asked in 2005: the John Sinclair noted by Otto Andersson in 1938 and the John Sinclair recorded on Peter Kennedy's anthology Sailormen & Servingmaids (I think in 1961) are the same person?

The booklet of the Caedmon/Topic album "Sailormen and Servingmaids" noted:
A brief version of it appears as no. 113 in Child without a tune, but this is no match for the variant which old John Sinclair of Flotta in the Orkney Isles turned up with in January 1934. He has since been visited by Swedish folklorists [i.e. Otto Anderson] and recorded for the BBC. [which I assume is the version on "Sailormen and Servingmaids"]

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: GUEST,Corwen Broch
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 03:58 AM

We recorded the Play O'de Lathie Odivere version of this recently on our CD Fishe or Fowle, along with various other Selkie pieces (Seal Woman's Lament, Seal Woman's Sea Song etc).

We anglicised the dialect somewhat, singing broad Scots in an English accent just sounds wrong, but we did it in its full length, 93 verses, 25 minutes. We used the Sinclair tune collected by Otto Andersson.

Although its often claimed to be a Victorian forgery, I suspect its not, or at least not just that. The piece is divided into 5 parts, and the dialect of each varies exactly as you would expect if it were collected from various singers in fragments. Dialect is very local in Orkney, and would have been more so in the 19th century, and the piece reflects this.

The piece makes sense, but still follows ballad logic and does not, for instance, include details such as the heroine's name which I suspect a Victorian forger would have added.

There is a tradition of performance called a 'foy' in Orkney, which is defined in the Orkney Dictionary as an entertainment consisting of readings and music. The primary entertainment at a foy is a reading, by several people, of a text somewhat like a play text. It is very like a read through of a play, sometimes containing songs, and occasionally symbolic items of costume, but not acted in any way (the performers usually sitting around on chairs on stage). This is a written literary art-form. The Odivere text bears a great similarity to other foy texts and I suspect was at some point a composed foy which has cross fertilised with oral tradition, inspired by it and inspiring it. One could suspect a distant linkage with ring-dance traditions from Iceland and the Faroe islands as well as earlier forms of entertainment from elsewhere in the UK.

The primary source for Odivere cited by Traill-Dennison, a minister's wife called Mrs Hiddleston, was a real person with a known interest in folklore and quite well known locally for her musical skills. If Odivere was composed, then it was by her, in which case a piece of folk culture composed 170 years ago by someone inside that tradition is still 'genuine' as far as I'm concerned.

Ultimately having read a lot of genuine and Victorian ballads Odivere simply feels authentic, though possible slightly improved, rather than having the heavy fingerprint of Victorian composition upon it.

Anyhow it's simply a masterpiece of both poetry and storytelling, wherever it came from.

You can read our rendering into singable English here:
http://www.ancientmusic.co.uk/files/lady%20odivere%20parallel.pdf

Or you can hear it here:
https://katecorwen.bandcamp.com/album/fishe-or-fowle

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: GUEST,Rigby
Date: 21 Nov 18 - 04:49 AM

For the sake of completeness, I don't think anyone has mentioned the rather good version by the band Trees, which I think is to the Waters tune.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4D-kY5j1bE

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Mrrzy
Date: 14 May 19 - 07:38 PM

Our very own Anne Lister did a great version of this. Seems earlier, and the gunner kills the wife, not the silkies.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Oct 19 - 05:53 PM

There is no mention of the version by June Tabor,

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 12:45 AM

Our very own Anne Lister has a version of this in which the cuckolded husband shoots the unfaithful wife when she tries to trick him into shooting the silkie. Excellent variation. He was a gunner good...

Also I grew up with that Cynthia Gooding album, love Queen of Hearts too...

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 03:42 AM

"I met a distant cousin by the name of O'Shea with roots where my family has roots in Dingle, Ireland.."

We recorded this from Traveller, Mikeen McCarthy, who came from Caherciveen, in County Kerry in the 1970s
Jim Carroll

Mermaid of Filemore
M Mc   Well back in Caherciveen years ago the old..... my mother was often telling me about it, there was a place called Filemore, and all the fishermen out of Filemore'd fish in this particular place, we used call it over the water.    So there was Murphys, 'twas a great name in that parish like, Murphy, ‘twas nearly all Murphys, O'Sullivans and all that.    So there was one Murphy man anyway, and he went out fishing.   'Twas about four or five o'clock in the evening when he went out that time anyway.   
My mother often told me. He went on his own.   
Bejay, whatever way the nets got tangled anyway.    He didn't know what it was, he thought he'd a monster of a fish or something, and he had to tow it behind the boat anyway, into the strand. And when he landed in the strand he found out what he had was a mermaid.   
So she done her best to get away, but she'd a fishes tail like, now like that is called the mantle. It used come away easy enough, d'you know.    So when he got the mantle anyway he had a magic wand anyway, she had to follow the mantle because she couldn't go anywhere without it.   So he took home the mantle anyway and when he got it home he put it... there was what we the roofs of the houses that time, there was coarse bags they used call them and they have them all pinned on to the roof, nailed up like, and they have them whitewashed as well.    They were very warm and anything that they wanted to put away like, they'd put it up there and 'twould be quite safe and dry for the following summer evening to their fishing nets now and all that. So he put up the mantle up there anyway unknown to her.
So bejay, they claimed that she worked with him and stopped with him for seven or eight years.   But for every time, she still spent all her time looking for the mantle and he knew himself if she ever got the mantle that she was gone.
But she was supposed to be the loveliest looking girl around that area anyway.   And as far as I hear they had two or three kids.   
But eventually he went out one day, out fishing and bejay, wasn't she whitewashing the roof of the house, the bags.   And the bags was giving away like, they were too long there.    Here she finds her mantle and she takes to the sea for it,   
So she said before she went back to see, she said, “any Murphy”, she said, “that ever go out fishing”, she said, “at the hour I was caught”, she said, “Their boat'll go down”.   
So from that day until this there was never a Murphy seen out fishing from Filemore until after five o'clock in the evening, never no more.   
But there was one family of the Murphys, the father and son and they went out fishing, they disbelieved her, and bejay, the boat went down and the son went down but the father got saved. So that put them all right off anyway, they never went out after that,   
They don't even go out since.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Lighter
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 09:44 AM

I want to believe!

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 10:28 AM

I don't know if it's available now but one of the best renditions of The Great Silkie I ever heard was by Fifer Bob Blair on a series of albums of poetry and song for schools entitled 'Voices' - exquisite
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Reinhard
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 10:32 AM

Jim, Bob Blair's lyrics, CD name, and his own comment can be found above on 31 Jul 05 and on 10 Mar 09.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Mrrzy
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 08:14 PM

Roan Inish (movie) has magnificent music, too.

Subject: RE: Origins: The Great Silkie
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 31 Oct 19 - 08:35 PM

Thanks Reinhard
I never knew anybody added sound - I know Bob wouldn't approve
Can I say that the two Argo sets, 'Poetry and Song' and 'Voices' are among the most albums Argo released - a perfect combination of those two genres with the best of poetry reading and of folk singing, John Faulkner's 'Johnny Armstrong' is the best I have ever heard him
I have all P and S but would give my right arm (or a digitised copy of P and S) for a full set of 'Voices'
Bob promised me a copy but.... so far !!
Jim