This is a seasonal myth that turns the weather into two characters. Each spring around the vernal equinox the two spirits battle, and their quarrelling causes gales and heavy seas. The Sea Mither eventually wins and the summer is warm and calm.
Her efforts wear her out. By autumn Teran sees his chance and takes the sea back in the Gore Vellye, the autumn tumult, so winter returns. Teran means furious anger in Orkney dialect.
The Orkney folklorist Ernest Marwick described the pair as pure personifications of nature. The tale ties into the nuckelavee, which the Sea Mither holds under in the summer. Shetland fishermen are said to have asked the Sea Mither for protection. This record has no fixed place, so the pin is a general sea point off the Mainland.
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