Karkaþað

Verse

Iron on the jawbone where the jawbone turns to stone

The ash tree's root is older than the gods I've known

I gnaw through what the world forgets before it's gone

Not for honor — just to see the wound go on

Odin's ravens watch from above, their eyes still cold as mine

Ratatoskr scurries back with stories every time

The tree remembers the names of gods long dead

I remember the ones who forgot the debt

Pre-Chorus

Before Yggdrasil stood — before the first frost thawed

Something in me was eating roots, just because it could

Every world born on this ash still feeds me, grows

Nothing I do changes what's next, nothing that shows

Chorus

Karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Eating through what's left when worlds fall through — karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Roots remember everything before the gods arrived

I'm older than the oldest, eating what survives

Karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Verse

Grótr — the serpent — winds around — he don't understand why

Hvergelmir — his head in Niflheim's dark below the sky

I see the line between the roots still wet and green

See every debt that Yggdrasil tries to clean

Every oath the living break before they're dead — I know

Yggdrasil's heartwood answers me, not Ratatoskr or Odin's blow

The wolf beneath the root tree learns my rhythm by the bite

Not a hunger for destruction — just the hunger of the light —

Karkaþað is what the gods forgot to name before it was time —

Pre-Chorus

Before Yggdrasil stood — before the first frost thawed

Something in me was eating roots, just because it could

Every world born on this ash still feeds me, grows

Nothing I do changes what's next, nothing that shows

Chorus

Karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Eating through what's left when worlds fall through — karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Roots remember everything before the gods arrived

I'm older than the oldest, eating what survives

Karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Bridge

The world forgets Ymir first, not me — I already ate the bone

Odin hung above and thought he gave me life alone

He gave me hunger — that was all the debt I needed —

I didn't ask for purpose — I asked to be unsealed —

Karkaþað's the root of every legend in the cold —

Chorus

Karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Eating through what's left when worlds fall through — karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —

Roots remember everything before the gods arrived

I'm older than the oldest, eating what survives

Karkaþað — the gnawing never stops — it's always true —