The Silkie

Song #296 | 4/10/1998 | CD: Breathing Underwater

Once there was a fisherman
On The salty sea
Who felt so very alone
That he dreamed of a wife
who would keep him company
And give to him a child
And a happy home

One northern summer day,
He was paddling his way
Through the tiny islands
Not far from shore
When what did he espy
From his hunter’s practiced eye
But a maiden dancing on t he rocks
So wild and pure

But the sun was in her eyes
And he caught her by surprise
After he had hidden her seal skin
She was a Silkie you see,
A magic creature of the sea
Who sometimes come ashore
To walk in human form

Refrain:
Oh to be a Silkie of the sea
Oh to be a magic creature swimming free
Oh to know the secrets of the foam
Oh to love the ocean and to call it home

She begged to be let free
But he said, “please come with me”
Seven years from now your skin I will return
So sadly she obeyed
And turned her back upon the waves
Took a path that led her to an early grave

in the passing of the days,
She gave birth to a babe
A human son with web between his toes
But she’d begun to fade
And to wither all away
A little more with every single passing day

But she told the child tales
Seals and fish and whales
She taught him how to sing and play the drum
She told him of the times
When she was strong and fine
She told him of the drier days
That were to come…

Refrain:

Six Years she’d struggled on
Now she was almost gone
And the fisherman grew silent and grim
Yet still he did deny
The quiet pleading of her eyes
As he told himself that somehow
She could change her mind

Then one night the child awoke
To a strange unearthly note
A sound from deep beneath
The moonlit sea
It was old grandfather seal
A legend, now made real
Calling to his own
To bring his daughter home

The boy tripped in the sand
And reaching out his hand
Touched the softness
Of her lost seal skin
The man had thrown it to the deep
Hoping so his wife to keep
But the Spirit of the sea
Had washed it in again

Refrain:

Well, the boy took it to her
and she slipped into it’s fur
And once again her eyes
Were full of life
She was a Silkie you see
And would have died if not set free
She was never meant to be a human wife

The boy began to cry
As she slipped into the tide
But he could not save her any other way
And on certain moonlit nights
He would sometimes catch her sight
and then they’d swim together
In the healing waves

Refrain:

He grew into a man
Who knew the ways of land
As well as the secrets of the sea
And I met him one time
Though he was old and almost blind
And he played the drum
And sang this very story

Refrain:

Copyright 1998-2015 by Mark Shepard. All Rights Reserved. Used with permission.