[Intro][Bare fingerpicked guitar and the sound of water over small stones.]

[Verse 1: Höðr, dark male baritone]
I knew your voice before I knew the dawn,
Knew every step when the lamps were gone.
You placed warm bread where my hand could find,
Never spoke softly because I was blind.
Then laughter circled the winter hall;
Each god threw iron and watched it fall.
A stranger guided my wrist in the glow—
This was the hand that loosed the mistletoe.

[Chorus: Höðr, dark male baritone, rising]
This is the hand that loosed the mistletoe,
Blind to the shaft, not blind to what I owe.
Loki shaped the lie and fitted the bow,
But mine was the hand that let it go.
I cannot return you the breath laid low—
I bring you the truth of the mistletoe.

[Verse 2: Höðr, dark male baritone]
They tell me I too was used that day,
A piece set down in a crooked play.
The word may be honest; the word may be fair,
Still it cannot lift you alive from there.
I heard your body strike polished ground,
Then every god became less than sound.
No darkness before had cut me so—
I saw without sight what the hall would know.

[Chorus: Höðr, dark male baritone, rising]
This is the hand that loosed the mistletoe,
Blind to the shaft, not blind to what I owe.
Loki shaped the lie and fitted the bow,
But mine was the hand that let it go.
I cannot return you the breath laid low—
I bring you the truth of the mistletoe.

[Instrumental Break][Tagelharpa answers the vocal melody while the frame drum remains silent.]

[Verse 3: Höðr, dark male baritone]
I will not kneel so you must absolve,
Or make you the key to the guilt I solve.
You may keep anger; you may keep doubt,
You may ask the others to leave me out.
No brotherly oath can erase the stain;
No crown grows clean from borrowed pain.
I ask only this when the cold wihnds blow:
Let me stand near what I helped lay low.

[Bridge: Höðr and Balder, restrained call and response]
[Balder, warm male tenor]
Carry this stone till its weight can change.
Do not call justice what keeps us estranged.
[Höðr, dark male baritone]
Your hand withdrew; the water ran slow.
No god commanded what happened below.

[Build-up][Low guitar and floor tom enter beneath the unchanged acoustic pattern.]

[Final Chorus: Höðr, dark male baritone, full voice]
This is the hand that loosed the mistletoe,
Blind to the shaft, awake to what I owe.
Loki shaped the lie and fitted the bow,
But mine was the hand that let it go.
I can guard the life that begins to grow;
This hand will remember, but will not rule me so.

[Outro: Höðr, unaccompanied]
No pardon demanded,
No guilt washed white.
A hand can remember
And still choose right.