[Intro]
(Lyre, tagelharpa and low guitar each play one note of the root motif in separate five-beat cycles.)

[Verse 1]
The well had gone shallow, its stones burned and split,
Three spindles lay black where the Norns used to sit.
OORD gathered ashes in folds of her dress,
Ver-THAN-dee counted each unfinished breath.
Skuld held the antler knife flat on her knee,
Its blade showed no future the skald wished to see.
He opened his palm where the new root had grown:
“Tell me this seed will not die here alone.”

[Pre-Chorus - Norns - Three Female Voices]
OORD said, “It carries the worlds that have been.”
Ver-THAN-dee said, “Now is the crack it lies in.”
Skuld said, “No future is owed to your need.”
[Skald - Lead Vocal]
Three answers like winter fell over the seed.

[Chorus]
What the Norns refused was a promise without price,
A harvest without hunger, a spring untouched by ice.
What the Norns refused was a comforting decree—
No thread guarantees the forest hidden in a seed.
“Deht finns IN-gen ed som yor FRAM-tee-den sahn,” they said—
No oath makes tomorrow obey the living or the dead.

[Verse 2]
He asked if brave Thor would return from the snake,
If Odin would learn from the bargains he made.
He asked whether Midgard would rise from the foam,
Whether Runa and Arvid would know he came home.
OORD turned her ashes; Ver-THAN-dee drew thread,
Skuld pressed the knife to the rootlet instead.
[Norns - Three Female Voices]
“Your questions make cages from moments unborn.
Plant without knowing what branch will be torn.”
[Skald - Lead Vocal]

[Pre-Chorus]
The skald felt the old wish for prophecy fade,
The hunger for payment, for balance repaid.
He lifted the seed from the edge of the knife—
Not proof of a future, but practice for life.

[Chorus]
What the Norns refused was a promise without price,
A harvest without hunger, a spring untouched by ice.
What the Norns refused was a comforting decree—
No thread guarantees the forest hidden in a seed.
“Deht finns IN-gen ed som yor FRAM-tee-den sahn,” they said—
No oath makes tomorrow obey the living or the dead.

[Instrumental Break]
(Three instruments state separate fragments until the hand drums align them into one unresolved phrase.)

[Bridge]
He saw Arvid’s sword still upright on the cliff,
Not through prophecy’s window, but memory’s gift.
Its blade could cut armor, its point could command—
Or break frozen soil in an old singer’s hand.

[Build-up]
No promise of branches.
No promise of spring.
Still carry the water.
Still loosen the ground.

[Final Chorus]
What the Norns refused was the lie that fate is kind,
The claim that every sacrifice leaves equal scales behind.
What the Norns refused became the courage given me:
To plant without possessing the tomorrow of the tree.
“Deht finns IN-gen ed som yor FRAM-tee-den sahn,” I know—
No oath commands tomorrow, yet still the root may grow.

[Outro]
Three women tied no blessing.
No omen crossed the sky.
One old man climbed upward—
Because the seed might die.