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WOE TO THE VANQUISHED

In the year 57AD the Roman general Suetonius Paulinus led his legions to the island of Anglesey, the sacred home of the druids. The Romans believed that the druids practiced magic, soothsaying and human sacrifice on the island. When the Roman legions reached Anglesey, they massacred men, women and children. The soldiers then proceeded across the island and destroyed the druids' sacred oak groves, their altars, temples, and killed everyone else they could find.

It is said that the last surviving druid lifted his right hand to the heaven and cursed the Romans, invoking the spirit of the forests of the Celtic homeland in Europe to wreak vengeance on their ancestors. As the last druid lay dying, he uttered the famous words of the Gaulish Chieftain Brennus from 500 years earlier, "Woe to the vanquished". The druid however was not referring to himself, but to the future fate of the Romans. A few centuries later, "Barbarians" from Europe sacked Rome, bringing about the beginning of the end of the Roman empire.

Gods of the Lake,

the Woods and the Stone

you have forsaken me

The flight of the birds

the animal's tripe

they all have lied to me

Destroyers of life

defilers of streams

yet you protected them

The sacredest of lines

the sacredest of truths

they have exterminated   

Woe to the vanquished

Woe to the slain

Woe to the vanquished

The victor reigns

Woe to the vanquished

Woe to the slain

Woe to the vanquished

Will peace now reign?

Cursed I stand

but cursed by my hand

you have forgotten me

In 500 years

from over the Earth

they will be hunting ye

From a drop of my blood

an army will rise

with auburn hair

Your temples of stone

smashed and burned

do you remember me?

 

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