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The Great Selkie of Sule Skerry — A setting for unaccompanied choir (SATB) by Mark Goddard.
THe anonymous text was adapted by Stephen Pegg.

The “Great Selkie of Sule Skerry” is a traditional folk song from Orkney and Shetland. A woman has her child taken away by its father, the great Selkie of Sule Skerry, who can transform from a seal into a human. The woman is fated to marry a gunner, who will harpoon the Selkie and their son.

1. An earthly nurse sits and sings,
And aye, she sings, by Lily wean!
And little ken I my bairn’s father,
Far less the land that he dwells in.

2. He came one night to her bed feet,
A grumly guest I’m sure was he:
Saying “Here am I, thy bairn’s father,
Although that I be not comelie”.

3. “I am a man upon the land,
An’ I am a Selkie in the sea,
And when I’m far and far frae land,
My dwelling is in Sule Skerrie”.

4. It shall come to pass on a summer’s day,
When the sun shines bright on ev’ry stone,
I’ll come and fetch my little young son,
And teach him for to swim the foam.

5. “And ye shall marry a gunner good,
And a right fine gunner I’m sure he’ll be,
And the very first shot that e’er he shoots,
Will kill both my young son and me”.

The front cover image features an enhanced illustration from Vernon Hill’s 1912 book “Ballads, Weird and Wonderful” by Richard Chope.