SYMBEL LYRICS

1. Intro - A Chant To Woden

[I A Fire Burns In Readiment In The Solemn Hall]
[II A Chant To Woden]
[III The Voices Of Battle Are Summoned - It Is Time To Push Forward...]

2. The Screech Of Deepest Wynter

Screech the ghouls of deepest wynter
The wolves howl as I prowl the perimetre
Cursed with Negative maegen wounds
We search our servile souls.

Tears rain like blood from Thunor's sky
(leave) grief bleached bones behind.

Smash through wooden shield like snow
Our swords will cut with Woden's words
Weep and ask your god for help
Upon your virgin lips.

Tears rain like blood from Thunor's sky
(leave) grief bleached bones behind.

Woden... Thunor.... Tiu..... Freo

Hail them.... Wassail!!!

We're here, your there,
In here, in there,
Come here, we're there
In here, we're there.

(Heed the) screech of deepest wynter.

3. Saecsen Drynking Song

In drinking spirits, the ancestors sing many songs, of which this is one....

This is a story of what we often call warriors
Where I've gone now I have died
Is a Hall in the sky
That lies
Across a shimmering rainbow bridge
I see my brothers here
Drinking in the hall
I see my mother's tears
Lakes of glass before
I see my people living
Back through the before
They know that I am here
Toasting (death) them
At the gates Waelhall

Men and women the folk
Live your lives with honour
Keep the fires alight on the hills
Remember the only thing you really
Have to do
Is cross that rainbow bridge

Some folk have heaven that is their path
Some folk have nothing
That is their loss
Let each man or woman
Have his or her own fate
But I'll...
I'll take the shimmering rainbow bridge.

4. A Journey With Oak Staves

After a short piece of music, a story is told of runes and the magic of Wyrd.
Gifts are exchanged to fortify old bonds.

It hailed so fast
We could not see the headland through it
Send for crows send the ravens
Thought and memory
Came back to me
Painted runes upon my starry eyes
Through twisted creaking boughs
Three sisters slice trough time
We raised our horns to the three norns
Our forefather's philosophy
Creaks in the green trees
Aching to be embraced again
The staves tell a tale
Of what was once
And what is now
And what could be
And what could be

Gifu is the gift I aspire to give
To drink from fountains
Deep wells that stare
All through my starry eyes.
If I stop to take it
It just drifts away
But all things come to
Those who live by
The steel and the rune

5. Lord Of The Hanged

A rant of shamanic fury

Lord of the hanged
You present with many faces
Inciting strife, bezerker rage
In the valleys of starlight
Forged maegen sculpts my frame
Through the conquest
Of fear of insanity

Much maligned by history
You're the dark so far away
Dare I trust the drighten
Of nine nights of suffering

Lord of the hanged
You choose the slain
You are the ferryman
Dare I look into your hollow eye
And see the truth inside
You breathe life into
My darkest thoughts

The wild hunt washes across my retina
My face is still but I thrash inside
And join you as you race the torrid skies.

You are all aspects of my heathen soul
Your many names are within me to be called
You inspire me and unbind my threads
Walked through death and back again.

6. The Willing Suspension Of Disbelief

A song of heathen defiance and a redefinition of faith.

Take a new look at god
In the dust it's the wrong way round
Speak the place names and days
Let the honey drip from your tongue
The dew that runs from the before
We're not scared of believing
In the gods of before
Inside us they are breathing
We can wake them all
A wise man knows himself
And a fool knows the rest
Universalism sets our eyes in the sand
I know where the cool blue air
Waits for the children
Just be there, in how you feel
Just be there, await the steel
We're not scared of believing
In the gods of before
In our lands they are breathing
Time to wake them up
In our lore...
In our hearts....
In our minds...
Don't be scared of believing
In the gods of before
In our lives shallow breathing
I and I and us.

I pick up the spear that our
Ancestor has thrown
Clean it of its darkness
Ignorance and corruption
And throw it on
Newly shined
For another 1500 years.

7. Wassel Grove

Of an experience in a heathen wood.

A line of fire
Flickers on mist enshrouding knees
Hooded carriers of torches file
Through the dark and twisted trees

The trees, the forest,
The trees in the forest
We worshipped in sacred groves
Effigies on wooden poles
Whispering with dead souls
I once did this

Scuffing through groves
That whisper old songs
And riddles to solve
We longed for the mead hall
The symbel and boast

To walk and crackle through the soft bracken
I see what this hidden world was for
And what it meant to the heathen mind
A gateway to interaction with gods
I acknowledge my bloody past
Of sacrifice within these trees
It is part of us
And so I return here
In modern ways
Drink to the evolution
Of our new heathen hearts!

Woden!

The trees, the forest
The trees in the forest.

8. Heathen I Am

Of the ancestors shunning the missionaries, and that same spirit in us today.

I feel through the ancient sunsets
I breathe in the wind and the trees
I once had the girl and the hillsides
And a fighting family
I loved my family
And my sword.
I think of whoring 'til sunrise
I think of the day I will die
I know my path is destined
I trudge it with a smile
I laugh with the beautiful children
I cry with the wrinkled hag
I cry...

Heathen yes I am
Heathen yes I will
Accept what we are
Heathen through our death

I don't need your salvation
Your god is not for me
I once had the girl and the hillsides
And my family
Take it as read
Despite what you said
I have no need for change
I cry...

This is my way
There's no contest
I hail all the gods of the wind and the rain
Of pleasure and pain and more
I climb to the top of the hillside
My beautiful girl at my side
I swing my sword at the sky
And we cry...

9. Sittaen Aet Symbel

The hall is ready with ale, mead
And music, and the hearth is glowing
On the faces of those who attend.
Solemnly, a man speaks of his ancestor,
Connecting with him through the web of Wyrd.

'Sittaen Aet Symbel
A beot I read
Of my great-grand-father's deeds
Of the life he betrothed me
He cut through the flax
With his ready tongue
Sweet mead from his lips
Flowed in yellow paths'

'Sittaen aet symbel
Come brothers and maids'

'We drink!

To Woden, for victory,
To Njord and Freo
For the qualities of ice and gold.'

'We drink!'

'Sittaen Aet Symbel
Raise the horn to your lips
Taste the secrets behind the staves
Between measured sips
A toast to the dead
That see at the symbel
And a declaration
Of their intent in our flesh

Sittaen Aet Symbel
A gielp to the hall
Around this table of ash
That has known the nine worlds
Witness my wyrd
I will craft it to this end'.

One by one those attending shout their appreciation

'Hail!'

The Symbel is done,
The beots and gielps made.
A voice sings over the mead bench
And the crackling fire,
Whilst those present drink to the past,
Present and their future...







SYMBEL LYRICS