[Intro]
[Muted nyckelharpa and measured boots establish a severe marching pulse.]

[Verse 1]
[Female Lead]
We found them beneath the bent cedar boughs,
Forty cold hands and six wounded cows.
Their children slept in a charcoal pit,
Their elders coughed where the smoke lamps lit.
I raised the cloth I had pulled from the gate,
Blue wolf and crown on a field torn straight.
No cheer rose up from the hollow below;
One woman said, “No banner in the snow.”

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female Lead]
“Your walls were thick, but they guarded grain.
Your riders came only to measure our pain.
Why should we bleed for a palace of stone?”
Her words struck deeper than iron or bone.

[Chorus]
[Female Lead]
No banner in the snow, no emblem held above,
Not until the crown can prove the weight of love.
No banner in the snow, no oath compelled by birth;
Walk beside the hungry if you mean to rule the earth.
A flag cannot feed us, and gold cannot know
Why widows turn away from banners in the snow.

[Verse 2]
[Female Lead]
I lowered the cloth and I entered their line,
Split my last bread and surrendered my wine.
I cleaned a boy’s cut with my mother’s thread,
Then carried the water while others slept.
At dawn came riders with iron seals,
To take three daughters for labouring fields.
I stood with the villagers, axe in my hand,
Not over their heads, but there where they stand.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female Lead]
The wolves moved softly along the ridge,
The riders were trapped by the frozen bridge.
We spared one man with a message to show:
“No crown commands here. The people say no.”

[Chorus]
[Female Lead]
No banner in the snow, no emblem held above,
Not until the crown can prove the weight of love.
No banner in the snow, no oath compelled by birth;
Walk beside the hungry if you mean to rule the earth.
A flag cannot feed us, and gold cannot know
Why widows turn away from banners in the snow.

[Breakdown]
[Boots, shield strikes and unison voices replace the full band.]

[All Voices]
No kneeling.
No chain.
No promise from towers
Where safe rulers go—
Stand here beside us,
With no banner in the snow.

[Verse 3]
[Female Lead]
The woman who challenged me offered her name:
Siv of the Cedar, whose husband was slain.
She lifted the cloth, then tore off the crown,
Left only the wolf on the blue hanging down.
“We follow no throne,” she said, “but a trail.
We follow the hand that will carry the frail.”
She tied the new standard to one ashwood bow—
A wolf without crown marks our road through the snow.

[Bridge]
[Female Lead]
My grief wore silver, theirs slept in the clay,
Yet both had been priced by the same iron weight.
Leadership entered not dressed as command,
But water and linen passed hand after hand.

[Final Chorus]
[Female Lead]
No banner in the snow, no emblem held above,
Only hands that labour and the hard proof of love.
No banner in the snow, no oath compelled by birth;
We walk beside the hungry and defend the frozen earth.
The crown has been cut from the cloth we now show—
A wolf leads the road where no banners could go.

[Outro]
[The communal foot rhythm continues after the guitars fall silent.]

[Female Lead]
Siv held the wolf-cloth.
I carried the bow.
No crown on the banner.
One road through the snow.