Kraka Was Always Áslaug

Intro

(Kraka! Áslaug!)

They burned the bloodline — missed one thread still living...

(Hu-ha!) Sigurðr's daughter — Heimir's harp was giving

Shelter to the last root worth the giving —

(Kraka! Áslaug!) The Völsung crow was always a queen in the making...

Verse 1 — Áslaug

Heimir wrapped me in the harp-wood before the burning —

Brynhildr's fire still bright — the gold still turning —

Carried me through Norway — every crossing learning

To hold the name inside until the right ship's returning.

Kraka — crow — that's what the fishers gave the hiding —

Spangereid shoreline — fog — the secret residing

In every movement — bearing — the dividing

Of what I was from what I showed — the Völsung biding.

Andvari's curse had eaten three bloodlines to the marrow —

Sigurðr fell, Guðrún's brothers crossed the frozen barrow,

Hamðir died in stones — the gold's accounting narrow

Enough to miss one seed inside a harpist's hollow.

I carried what I was beneath the fog and ashes —

Waited for the test worth giving Brynhildr's flashes

Of foresight — waited for the ship that crashes

No wall — that reads the queen beneath the crow-lashes.

Pre-Chorus — both

Ragnar: my men came back with fire in their description (description)

Áslaug: I read the rune-task — solved its inscription —

(I knew it...)

Both: come neither dressed nor undressed — no contradiction —

The Völsung heir answered every condition. (uh!)

Chorus — both

Net-wrapped, onion-bitten, one hound beside (hound beside!)

The impossible task met with Völsung pride (Völsung pride!)

Kraka was always Áslaug — nothing to hide (nothing to hide!)

The cursed blood made a queen — the crow survived! (Hu-ha!)

Verse 2 — Ragnar

Pitch-lined leggings — heath-worm dead at the clearing —

Þóra won me that — until the loss was nearing

Another shore — I sailed north — the fog adhering

To everything my men described — worth the hearing.

She stood in shore-smoke and the morning assembled

Something I'd not sailed toward before — unresembled

By anything in Þóra's hall — the ground trembled

Beneath the quality the fog could not have dismembered.

I sent the task that separates the ordinary:

Come neither dressed nor bare — neither stationary

In hunger nor in fullness — visionary

Or go home — she came and made me the adversary

Of every lesser thought — the fishnet, the onion,

The hound at heel — the total communion

Of impossible met clean — I felt the union

Before I asked her name — before the reunion.

She told me: Áslaug — Sigurðr's daughter — carrying

Brynhildr's fire through Heimir's harp — not tarrying

Once the right ship came — the bloodline marrying

Itself to life again — done with the burying.

Pre-Chorus — both

Ragnar: my men came back with fire in their description (description)

Áslaug: I read the rune-task — solved its inscription —

(I knew it...)

Both: come neither dressed nor undressed — no contradiction —

The Völsung heir answered every condition. (uh!)

Chorus — both

Net-wrapped, onion-bitten, one hound beside (hound beside!)

The impossible task met with Völsung pride (Völsung pride!)

Kraka was always Áslaug — nothing to hide (nothing to hide!)

The cursed blood made a queen — the crow survived! (Hu-ha!)

Bridge — trading

Áslaug: I bore him sons with the serpent's mark at birth —

(the mark...)

Sigurðr Snake-in-the-Eye — Fáfnir still has worth

(the eye...)

In the next generation's blood — rebirth —

(still burning...)

The gold curse broke against what I was worth.

Ragnar: Björn Ironside, Ivar, Hvítserkr, Ubba — four —

(four sons...)

Plus Sigurðr's eye — the Völsung at the core —

(the core...)

The Great Heathen Army rode to England's shore —

(England's shore...)

Their grandmother's bloodline opened every door.

Both: the gold burned in Atli's hall — or so they said —

(it burned...)

The Völsung root survived inside the harp instead —

(in the harp...)

Raised as a crow — rose as a queen to wed —

(Skál to Áslaug! Skál — the bloodline never bled out!)

(Kraka became the queen — the curse ran out!)

Drop — Instrumental

Chorus — both

Net-wrapped, onion-bitten, one hound beside (hound beside!)

The impossible task met with Völsung pride (Völsung pride!)

Kraka was always Áslaug — nothing to hide (nothing to hide!)

The cursed blood made a queen — the crow survived! (Hu-ha!)

Outro

(Kraka! Áslaug!)

The harp kept the bloodline alive...

(Hu-ha!)

Sigurðr's daughter.

Brynhildr's fire.

The crow became a queen.

The sons launched armies.

The gold was spent.

(The blood

was not.)