The Grey Selchie
SSA choral/piano score
PEL2010-Choir and Piano
Instrumental part
PEL2010-Organ
Synchronization License
PEL2010-Synch License Fee
A WORK FOR SSA CHOIR AND PIANO WITH OPTIONAL ORGAN OR SYNTH PADS
"The Grey Selchie" is a haunting and very atmospheric arrangement of the traditional Scottish folksong which tells the tragic legend of the grey selchie (a man upon the land, a seal in the sea) and his beloved little son.
For harried souls in troubled times, “Untraveled Worlds” CD offers a room with a panoramic view of images beckoning from beyond the scope of everyday experience.”
- Jennifer Kolmes, The American Organist magazine
Video
Notes
About this work, notes by Vanessa Halley, daughter of Paul Halley, for the Capella Regalis Men and Boys Choir recording "Songs of the Sea" (2025):
"Paul first heard this song in its entirety from Irish folk singer Karan Casey while they were collaborating on a Paul Winter Consort project at the Cathedral Church of St John the Divine in New York City. Paul arranged the song for his children’s choir in Connecticut, and years later re-arranged it for Capella Regalis Men & Boys.
The legend of “The Great Silkie” or “The Grey Selchie” comes from the Orkney and Shetland Islands. Selkies are mythological creatures who are seals in the water but change to human form when on land by shedding their seal skin. There are both male and female ‘selkie folk’. In the folklore of the Northern Isles of Scotland, selkies often have intimate relationships with humans, including marriage and child-rearing, but while on land a selkie will pine for the sea, and return to it as soon as opportunity arises. The “Su Skerry” that is named as the Selchie’s homeland in the song is Sule Skerry, a small, remote outcrop in the Atlantic 60 kilometres (32 nautical miles) west of the Orkney mainland. An interesting bit of trivia: Sule Skerry bears a lighthouse that was the most remote manned lighthouse in Great Britain from 1895 until 1982, at which point the lighthouse became automated."
Texts
The Grey Selchie
Words and music: Traditional Scottish
Arranged by Paul Halley (1952 - )
In Noraway there sits a maid.
Bye-loo my baby she begins.
Little know I my child’s father,
Or if land or sea he’s living in.
Then there arose at her bed feet
An grumley guest, I’m sure it was he,
Saying here am I, thy child’s father,
Although that I am not comely.
I am a man upon the land,
I am a selchie in the sea,
And when I am in my own country,
My dwelling is in Su Skerrie.
Then he hath taken a purse of gold
And he hath put it upon her knee,
Saying give to me my little wee son,
And take thee up thy nurses fee.
And it shall come to pass on a summer’s day,
When the sun shines hot on ev’ry stone,
That I shall take my little wee son
And I’ll teach him for to swim in the foam.
And you will marry a gunner good.
And a proud good gunner I’m sure he’ll be.
And he will go out on a May morning,
And kill both my wee son and me.
And lo! she did marry a gunner good.
And a proud good gunner I’m sure it was he,
And the very first shot that e’re he did shoot,
He killed the son and the grey selchie.
Reviews
"For harried souls in troubled times, “Untraveled Worlds” CD offers a room with a panoramic view of images beckoning from beyond the scope of everyday experience.” - Jennifer Kolmes, The American Organist magazine
