The Last Shield of the North (Version 2)

Intro

(Hear me, sons of the north)

The ice will break before we fold

This is my shield — these are my words

Verse 1

I stood against a wall of steel they'd forged in blood and prayer

A hundred axes waiting for the breath I'd borrow later on the beach and not share

But I raised up Höfuðlausn — verse for the head, not the hand

Paid with praise instead of blood — still paid out same land

They said every word would count as a blow — I told them they're wrong

The sword cuts once where the axe hits true — my words cut forever long

I wrote what their hands could never take — that's why the shield broke and mine stayed awake

Pre-Chorus

Tell me how many swords it took for one word to bleed

Show me the wound that a kenning left in lead

I carry every name that they tried to erase

One more verse than one more axe

Chorus

Steel bends — steel breaks beneath the first blow

But the verse that was written last night still tells who's alive and who's low

Níð on my tongue, not just blood on the blade

The shield of words stays standing when the shield of armor's been laid down in a grave

Verse 2

Viking kings built a name from the bodies they'd left behind

I'm building one from the ones they tried to erase off time — same kind

Their gold would corrode but my lines stay bright like a beacon on stone

One battle-song kept them alive for three hundred winters alone

Egill at the block taught me: words can be a shield and a blade

Buy back your head with a kenning instead of a trade

That's the law behind every legend — the verse before the name

The deed itself dies, but the telling stays, unchanged

Every man who ever carried an axe would trade it for one more line

Nothing the sword can do that the pen can't erase in its time

Pre-Chorus

Tell me how many swords it took for one word to bleed

Show me the wound that a kenning left in lead

I carry every name that they tried to erase

One more verse than one more axe

Chorus

Steel bends — steel breaks beneath the first blow

But the verse that was written last night still tells who's alive and who's low

Níð on my tongue, not just blood on the blade

The shield of words stays standing when the shield of armor's been laid down in a grave

Bridge

I'm not the one they fear because I hold a sword alone

It's because every Viking buried learns their legacy before they've grown — that's how we stay home

One verse makes a thousand warriors, even if the battlefield sleeps

That's why no shield can ever stop what my mouth still speaks

Outro

I stood against the wall — the word-shield still stands

Níð on my tongue and the north in my hands