Hooves Under the Sky

Intro

Well — gather round now, mead's gone cold, oh,

There's a tale that never got told, no,

Not of Odin, not of flame —

A little blue Hall, it came, it came!

Verse 1

Well you know, there's a night I still remember,

Cold as the back end of December,

When a little blue Hall came wheezing in,

Out stepped a fella with no helm, no blade,

Said "just passing through" — oh, the whole thing's a charade,

He'd a scarf wrapped 'round him, seven winters long,

And a box full of something that hummed like a song.

And beside him walked a boy, ink up to his wrist,

Mumbling names that nobody could ever quite list,

Something like "Ronald," something like "Reuel" —

The Stranger just grinned, said "boy, you're my fuel," ooh.

CHORUS

It's a stomp! It's a slam!

It's the walk of the Hoof-Thane clan!

Put your tusks out front!

Do the Hippo Hop, do the Hippo Hunt!

Odin gets the song, gets the name, gets the crown,

But it's hooves, it's hooves, that hold the whole sky down!

Step left! Step right!

Sing it to the Northern light!

Hoof-Thanes! Hoof-Thanes!

Holding up the realm again!

BRIDGE

Who forged the ring that the little thief stole? Well, well —

(Hooves held the fire, hooves held the coal.)

Who's the grey wizard, wise and old? Well, well —

(That's Odin's face — but hooves wrote what he told.)

And who'll the boy say built this myth?

Anyone, anyone — anyone but this, oh-oh-oh!

Verse 3

Well the boy filled scrolls he never dared show,

Full of rings, full of wraiths, full of fire down below,

Swore up and down that he'd made the whole thing,

Cross his heart, didn't believe in a king,

But we who saw it, we know how it began,

We saw a hippo halt a war 'fore it ever ran,

Saw it slam a thing-with-too-many-names into the fringe

of a fjord at midnight, swallowed whole in flame —

And seven hundred years, boy, he just sat on it,

Then he wrote it all down and the world ate every bit,

And the hippos? Read it. Said, "yeah. We're fine with that," ooh.

Verse 4

I've stopped wars with a sweet handed over quick,

But I've never, never seen a beast,

Settle a whole continent and then sit down to feast, no, no —

They settled gods, they settled scores that weren't even theirs,

The trick is simple, hear me, it's true:

Just bring a hippo — that's all that you do, ooh.

FINAL CHORUS

It's a stomp! It's a slam!

It's the walk of the Hoof-Thane clan!

Put your tusks out front!

Do the Hippo Hop, do the Hippo Hunt!

Odin gets the song, gets the name, gets the crown,

But it's hooves, it's hooves, that hold the whole sky down!

Step left! Step right!

Sing it to the Northern light!

Hoof-Thanes! Hoof-Thanes!

Holding up the realm again!

Every saga, every name,

Every god who took the fame, oh,

Owes a hoofprint, owes a debt,

To the thing the sagas don't mention yet, no!

OUTRO

Some praise thunder. Some praise rings.

Some give all the credit to the wrong old kings.

But underneath it, hold on now, hear —

The hooves were the ones who held it all up here.