by Batya "The Toon" Levin
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Once sword and superstition ruled the night,
And fear and darkness filled the hearts of men.
And so to guard the helpless in those years
We lived; to sleep in stone throughout the day
And wake as warriors at the set of sun,
Protecting those in need beneath our wings.
The humans feared us, with our claws and wings,
Our tails, our lives so bound up in the night
That we could not abide the light of sun,
Our ways, that never were the ways of men.
And though they guarded us in faith by day,
They feared and hated us, for many years.
Before the humans came, we'd lived for years
Here, in these cliffs, and soared on mighty wings
With none to cast us out; but in that day
We were despised by those we watched by night.
They called us beasts, not fit to dwell with men--
A pain unhealed by physic or by sun.
Invaders, yellow-haired like straw or sun,
Attacked the castle often in those years.
We fought beside the Captain and his men;
The sky was dark with arrows and our wings.
We drove them off when they attacked that night--
How could we know they would return by day?
And treachery was done that evil day:
A hooded rider left beneath the sun,
Returned at dusk; two others left that night,
One young, one great in wisdom and in years,
To scare the Vikings off with beating wings.
Dawn caught them out, too late to stop the men.
The Princess seized by panic-stricken men
Who feared our vengeance at the close of day,
The grieving Magus heard approaching wings,
And saw our guilt as clearly as the sun.
He cast a spell that changed the coming years:
The six of us were caught in stone by night.
Now lives of men have passed beneath the sun.
With this one day will end a thousand years:
Stone cracks around our wings--we wake tonight!