WOLF SONG

1241

Riders of the Rising Sun

Photo by Cemrecan Yurtman on Unsplash

The way I understand it, the Mongols first came out of the East to overrun Europe in the year 1241 — hence the title.

Up until then, the Europeans — for hundreds of years up through the Dark Ages — had done a pretty good job of slaughtering themselves, they didn’t really need a hand.

Nonetheless, here they came, riders of horses and wielders of swords, and the wall-less towns and villages of the then Europe stood defenseless. Ripe, as it were, for the picking aka killing.

By 1250, city walls were all the rage.

As I recall it (I wrote this song ages ago) this stanza came out of more or less nowhere, and then invited the rest of the song:

And I live for my horse her body is mine I sleep on her back and I drink her blood like wine

Not sure where I got this blood-drinking image from, so I checked up on it later; and, yes, Mongol warriors apparently drank their horses’ blood, but typically only as an emergency survival tactic during long, rapid military campaigns. When water or food was scarce, they would cut a small vein in their horse’s neck to drink blood, a practice documented by travelers like Marco Polo.

Sometimes my Muse brings me the strangest gifts.

Strangely, this song, today, also recalls the Bhagavad Gita.

The Words:

The thunder you hear is us on the run horses and riders of the rising sun

We ride for the glory we ride for our lives we ride for the feeding of hungry knives

And we ride for our children we ride for our wives we add to the glory with every taken life

We add to the glory with every taken life

We laugh as you scurry like mice from a hawk and we mock the prayers that you bray and squawk

And we laugh as you cower we laugh as you cry we laugh as you either surrender or die

And we kick where you crawl we spit where you lie for those who wish to surrender dishonor those who die

Those who surrender dishonor those who die

The grass has grown dark from the slaughter at hand and the ground is deceptively slick where I stand

I swing back on my horse I ride off with a cry you grow hard when you kill you grow strong when you fly

We scatter the children we saber the old we heard the remainder into a fold

High on my horse I’m a soldier of light I live for this killing I live for this fight

And I live for my horse her body is mine I sleep on her back and I drink her blood like wine

I sleep on her back and I drink her blood like wine

The thunder you hear is us on the run horses and riders of the ever-rising sun

The Music:

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