[Intro]
[Wooden staff impacts count nine beats before drop-A guitars answer.]

[Verse 1]
One knot to bind the mortal wrist,
Two knots to hold against the mist.
Three for the names I once received,
Four for the truths I half believed.
Five knots where bark will bite the cord,
Six for the man beneath the lord.
Seven for breath I must resign,
Eight for the fear that still is mine.

[Pre-Chorus]
The ninth knot waits without a sound.
No hangman walks this root-fed ground.
No foreign hand will choose the sign;
The branch, the spear, the blood are mine.

[Chorus]
Raise no scaffold, cut no pine;
The living ash will serve as mine.
No hangman’s hand, no witness near—
I pay myself with blood and spear.
Nine knots, nine nights, one branch, one sign:
The gallows are mine.

[Post-Chorus]
The gallows are mine.

[Verse 2]
I honed Gungnir upon a stone;
Its edge replied in sparks alone.
The weapon knew my grip in war,
But not the work I shaped it for.
I stripped the rings from either arm,
Removed each buckle, braid and charm.
A king goes burdened to his throne;
A sacrifice must travel bone.

[Chorus]
Raise no scaffold, cut no pine;
The living ash will serve as mine.
No hangman’s hand, no witness near—
I pay myself with blood and spear.
Nine knots, nine nights, one branch, one sign:
The gallows are mine.

[Post-Chorus]
The gallows are mine.

[Instrumental]
[Anvil-like guitar chords and staff strikes move the nine-beat accent to a new position each cycle.]

[Verse 3]
Frigg had left the lamp alight.
I saw it once across the night.
My ravens followed branch to branch,
Then stopped beyond the final stanch.
I could have turned before the root.
I could have raised the waiting flute.
Instead I laid my mantle down
And placed beside it ring and crown.

[Bridge]
No priest can bless the path I take.
No son can pay the wound I make.
No friend can lift the horn for me.
No judge can call the bargain free.

[Breakdown]
[Choir]
For whom is the spear?
[Male Vocal: Odin]
For Odin.
[Choir]
To whom is the blood?
[Male Vocal: Odin]
To Odin.

[Buildup]
I am the giver and the given,
The blade, the blood, the debt, the driven.
Nine steps around the trunk I tread.
Nine words I speak above the dead.

[Buildup II]
The cord draws tight beneath my chin.
The oldest lesson will begin.

[Final Chorus]
Raise no scaffold, cut no pine;
The living ash has taken mine.
No hangman’s hand, no witness near—
I pay myself with blood and spear.
Nine knots, nine nights, the final sign:
The gallows are mine.

[Final Refrain]
My death is mine.

[Outro]
[The choir stops; the rope tightens over three dry tagelharpa notes.]
What rises from it will not be mine.