The Hildina Ballad - Shetland's oldest song
Foula, 1774
The Hildina Ballad was written down in 1774, from the recitation of William Henry, a crofter in Foula. George Low, who was a Scottish minister in Orkney, inspired into Natural Philosophy through working with Joseph Banks and Daniel Solander fresh from their tour of the South Pacific, wrote the words down phonetically. His text has been studied and has has several reconstructions carried out over the years.
My approach
I was fortunate enough in December 2024 to obtain funding from Creative Scotland to study and rebuild the Hildina Ballad in a form that could be sung and danced in the Ring Dance tradition that it very likely formed part of.
I approached the project as a musician, travelling to the Faroe islands to learn more about the sister-tradition that is still kept alive there. Informed by reconstructions by Sophus Bugge (c1894), Marius Haegstad (1900), Jon Helgasson (1951), Egil Lehmann (1984) and Frances Fischer (1999), I aimed to produce a singable, coherent version of the ballad in both Norn and the Shaetlan language now spoken in the isles that remains as faithful as possible to George Low's original writing down of the text. I also applied my own knowledge and feel for the language as a native Shaetlan speaker,
Recording
In November 2025, I gathered 29 Shetland singers at Mareel, and we recorded a high-quality audio of the full ballad in both Norn and Shaetlan. Recording and production was done by the inestimable Ken Blair of BMP Recording Ltd.
There is a streamable link to these recordings below.
Dancin da ‘Hildina’
At the Shetland Folk Festival 2026, May 1st, over 60 people gathered to learn about an dance the Hildina. With da chorus learned, the steps learned, the whole group danced all 35 verses of the song in Shaetlan.
A 'hard core' of 28 remained an danced the whole ballad again, this time in the original Norn - see the video above, filmed by Anthony Olsson.
This represents the first time a Shetland ballad has been danced in Shetland for over 200 year, possibly since the ballad wis first collected in Foula in 1774.
Further Projects
This continues apace! I'm working up several more Norn songs, as well as writing in that language alongside my native Shaetlan and an accented English. We intend to produce a high-quality vinyl of the Hildina recordings, and will be launching a crowdfunder soon. We'll run a workshop on the Hildina Ballad, teaching the refrains and the dance at the Orkney International Science Festival in September 2026.
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