Yunday/Seal Woman’s Sea joy

I first heard this song on a podcast, in a conversation between Sharon Blackie and Pat McCabe (hear the episode here). It is an old Gaelic song, with vocatives (nonsense sounds). I have heard two stories about its origins - one that this is a song that Gaelic women used to sing to the sea in order to lure seals to the shore, in order to kill and eat them. The other, which Sharon Blackie, told in the podcast, is that this song is part of a story about the Selkies (magical creatures from Celtic folklore who are seals in the sea and humans on land), and that this is the part of the story where the Seal woman refinds her true seal skin after being separated from it. Either way, it speaks of a deep intertwining with the sea and seals in particular.

I have sang a few different harmonising options but really it is a song that can be played with and improvised as much as you like.