Archie Fisher - The Norway Maid (Scottish Folk Song)

Описание: A traditional song from Orkney and Shetland usually titled "The Grey Selkie of Sule Skerry" or "The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry". Several Orcadian versions begin with the line "in Norway land there lived a maid", obviously leading to the title Fisher went with here. Selkies are mythological creatures that can shapeshift between seal and human form by removing or putting on their seal skin. They feature in many tales passed down from the old days, especially ones of Celtic or Norse origin. Sule Skerry is a remote island north of Scotland and west of the Orkneys.

A synopsis of the story is as follows: a woman, nursing a baby, laments that she does not know the child's father or where he lives. A man rises up to tell her that he is the father, and that he is a selkie — a shapeshifter that takes the form of a man on the land and a seal in the sea — and that he lives on a remote rocky island called Sule Skerry. He gives her a purse full of gold, takes his son, and predicts that she will marry a gunner who will shoot both him and their son.

This version is from Archie Fisher's second album, "Orfeo", released in 1970. Fisher was born in 1939 and is still around.

Painting by Norwegian artist Hans Dahl (1849-1937), "Kvinne, mann og barn i oselver" / "Woman, man and child in rough weather".