Joan Baez - Silkie [HD]

Joan Baez sings the traditional song 'Silkie' from her 1961 Vanguard album 'Joan Baez, Vol. 2'. This traditional song from the Orkney Islands of Scotland is Child Ballad #113. The song lyrics are in the video and listed below, The following synopsis of the song is from Wikipedia: 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 silkie — a changeling 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 (the man who fires the harpoon on a whaling ship) who will shoot both him and their son. [Vinyl/Lyrics/40-Images] Silkie Singer - Joan Baez An earthly nurse sits and sings And aye she sings, "Ba lilly wean And little ken I my bairn's father Far less the land where he dwells in" For he came one night to her bed foot And a grumly guest I'm sure was he Saying, "Here am I, thy bairn's father Although I be not comely" "I am a man upon the land I am a silkie on the sea And when I'm far and far from land My home it is in Sule Skerrie" And he has ta'en a purse of gold And he had placed it upon her knee Saying, "Give to me my little young son And take thee up thy nurse's fee" "And it shall come to pass on a summer's day When the sun shines bright on every stane I'll come and fetch my little young son And teach him how to swim the faem" "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're he shoots Will kill both my young son and me" Traditional Song (from Orkney Islands)