DEN SVARTE SOT
(The Black Sickness)

proud noble warrior and father am I / I tipped beer to the gods when they darkened the sky
Fearless in battle when many have died / The cause of my death [bad word] from the inside
It spread to my feet my fingers and hands / And the use of the parts that do make me a man
My eyes became yellowed as sun and the sand / My [bad word] dark and ashen as dust of this land

My skin, so hardened, it bears many scars / From enemies weapons from conquests afar
Lashed by a [bad word] wind ‘neath a cold northern star / Must I now watch helpless as it blackens to tar
Discolouration from my brow to my feet / My blood it is blackened by fate’s [bad word] deceit
I’d known only victory never defeat / Now rotting and broken like pieces of meat

strange kind of jaundice survived by so few / I watch myself take on this unearthly hue
I’ve seen it before know what it can do / Know what kind of monster it turns you into
I have the black sickness, a scourge of mankind / No cure waiting out there my kinfolk might find
Death lies before me, my life lies behind / The way of my ending has long been defined

All-father, you traitor – Hear now my call / Why take me by sickness? – Not to enemies, fall
Have I not done your bidding? – Now [bad word] by this pall / To die on my belly – Like the serpents that crawl
The Valkyries spurn me – won’t show me the way / O’er the bridge to Valhalla – at the end of my days
For my death has no honour – as I slowly decay / Not finished in battle – but in bed do I lay

Some call it the Svartsot; the [bad word] disease / That leaves warriors helpless to die on their knees
Not in glorious battles or cold Baltic seas / But withered and crippled, un-wild un-free
They sing of the Svartsot, destroyer of men / They fear of the sickness from mountain to fen
Know not of its causes, nor who, and nor when / But hear of it now, from the words I have penned