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.)
