Seal songs

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From the album Like a Bird on the Wing

Legends of the silkies are found all along the shores of Great Britain and Ireland, and especially around the many islands beyond Scotland (Orkney, Shetland, and Hebrides).

There is a belief that the seals sing - an otherworldly, magical song of the skerries and the ocean's deep.
Certainly the seals - mythical creatures, half-human half-seal, are attracted by certain lullabies.

They are believed to shed their seal skins when they venture onto land and assume mortal form, their magical skins giving them the power to change back into seals.

The Song of the Seals is a relatively modern song referring to the same magical world of the seals.

The Silkie of Sule Skerry is a fragment of an epic ballad of 93 verses known as The Lady Odivere.

The Great Silkie of Sule Skerry is another version of the same tale.

The Fisherman's Song for Attracting the Seals can be heard at the beginning of the track entitled "The Seals" on the CD "Like a Bird on the Wing". This is from Patrick MacDonald's 1784 collection. It was in Ireland that David Thomson (The People of the Sea) heard about this, but in Scotland that he found the tune.