"The Wind that Shakes the Barley" is a Misthalani folk ballad that has grown very popular among the lower classes of the occupied nation. The song tells the tale of a young Misthalani resistance fighter and his lover.
Lyrics[]
- "I sat within a meadow green
- I sat me with my true love
- My sad heart strove to choose between
- The old love and the new love
- The old for her, the new that made
- Me think on Mist'lin dearly
- While soft the wind blew down the glade
- And shook the golden barley
- Twas hard the woeful words to frame
- To break the ties that bound us
- But harder still to bear the weight
- Of foreign chains around us
- And so I said, "The forest glen
- I'll seek at morning early
- And join the brave United Men
- While soft winds shake the barley
- While sad I kissed away her tears
- My fond arms 'round her flinging
- The foeman's yell burst on our ears
- From out the wildwood ringing
- A quarrel pierced my true love's side
- In life's young spring so early
- And on my breast in blood she died
- While soft winds shook the barley
- I bore her to some mountain stream
- And many's the summer blossom
- I placed with branches soft and green
- About her gore-stained bosom
- I wept and kissed her clay-cold corpse
- Then rushed o'er vale and valley
- My vengeance on the foe to wreak
- While soft winds shook the barley
- But blood for blood without remorse
- I've taken at Avar's Hill
- And laid my true love's clay cold corpse
- Where I full soon may follow
- As 'round her grave I wander drear
- Noon, night an morning early
- With breaking heart when e'er I hear
- The wind that shakes the barley"
Trivia[]
- In reality, this ballad was Irish in origin, referring to the early Irish struggles for independence from England.