Hibbert gave the story in 1822. The Ve Skerries are, in popular belief, the retreat of the sons and daughters of the sea, defended by a raging surf. The men of Papa Stour went there at certain times of year to attack the seals.
A boat's crew landed at one stack, stunned a number of seals, stripped them of their skins and fat, and left the bodies on the rock. As they were about to leave a great swell rose and all but one man got to the boat. He had lingered and was left behind as the surge worsened. During the stormy night he saw the escaped seals come to the skerry, shed their hides and appear as human beings. The stunned ones came to and they all began to mourn, in a song to the storm, the loss of the skins that would keep them from their home under the sea, and above all for Olavitinus, son of Gioga, who would be an outcast on land.
Gioga offered to carry the stranded man on her back to Papa Stour in return for her son's skin. He was afraid of the rough sea and asked to cut holes in her shoulders and flanks to hold on by. She agreed. She landed him at Acres Gio, and he went to a skeo at Hamna Voe, fetched the skin and kept his side of the bargain.
A variant, also in the 1903 collection, has the mate of the seal-person carry him, and calls it the Great Silkie of Sule Skerry. The skerries are said in modern tellings to have been thrown into the sea by a giant, Atla of Weisdale.
Comments