Dark Wings, Dark Words

"Dark Wings, Dark Words" was used in George R.R Martin's A Game of Thrones, First Book in The Song of Ice And Fire seires

"Dark wings" is humanitys symbol for a baaaaad person. "Dark words" are the words that can decive humans hearts.

Basically, this song could refer to religion, in which there are tales of a world, not so far away ("Heaven" seen from a religious perspective), and dark messengers who spread their dark words (lies) to satisfy their own goals in life.

And the phrase "How could we be so blind?", well, does that need any other explanation than how the hell could we be so blind to belive that bullshit?

Allthough some of the parts in the song can refer to the lies many politicians use to win elections and other propaganda they spread. Example, the bullshit that made George W Bush elected to president... and AGAIN! Now THERE is a man with dark wings spreading dark words. Together with his other dark winged pals in the US.

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After reading what was released from George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire, I am pretty sure that Clarinetfiend is right. Dark Wings, Dark Words was an idiom used in the book series' fictional word and it refers to their tradition of sending messages by ravens (Dark Wings, 'dark winged messenger' from the chorus) and most news aren't good (Dark Words, 'dread his darkened' words in the chorus). When I googled it, it threw me a load of Game of Thrones stuff, if I added that I don't want to see anything with Game of Thrones, the results were only lyrics of this song. Their recent song Winter is Coming makes it clear that they drew some inspiration from these series.

This song was released in 2006 in the Threshold album, and at that time four books of A Song of Ice and Fire were released (for those who haven't read it, it's the content of approximately the first 4 seasons of the Game of Thrones series). I'll be further referring to the books because it's obvious that somebody in Hammerfall read these books (the series were aired since 2011, 5 years after this song was released).

It's been a long cold winter... Referring to the very long winters that occur in ASoIaF's fictional universe, most likely meaning that the events described took place after a winter.

He came down from the mountains into our frozen world The event took place somewhere on the far north.

Spoke of revolution, fed us with his words The man was a good speaker.

A sacred man from the other side 'the other side' might be referring to The Wall, that was a large wall made of ice that separated the civilised lands from dangers from the north (these dangers are described in the son Winter is Coming), but some people, mostly outcasts, lived beyond that wall, kneeled to nobody and called themselves Free People. To sum up, it describes a man, a good talker, who crossed the wall north and joined the people there. In the story, there were two people who crossed the Wall to live with people north of it, Jon Snow and Mance Rayder. Jon Snow came when the winter was coming and wasn't a leader, while Mance Rayder arrived long ago and was their king, so it's about Mance Rayder.

His right hand gave us freedom, while the other stole the pride Not very sure what was this about, probably that the Free People considered themselves free (even their king became king for persuading them to follow him, not for being a heir), but didn't have a big ego.

We thought he had the answers standing by his side Tales of a world, not so far away, we got entangled in his vows He promised the people to bring them into the world beyond the Wall (a world not so far away) where the weather is not so harsh so that they could live a better life there and they followed him (occurred in the third book of the series, Storm of Swords).

How could we be so blind A graven image, shattered, a meltdown of our wonderland As the sun rise slowly we try to understand They were defeated by the Night Watch, the ones who were guarding the wall, who were unexpectedly supported by King Stannis' knights. They failed to reach their wonderland.

But we found a way back home from dusk came clarity Not sure what is this, the Free People were later captured and forced to change their faith and believe in Lord of Light by King Stannis, but this wasn't much a salvation for them (later, in 2011 was released the fifth part of the series A Dance with Dragons where they joined the Night Watch to protect the Wall from the horrors from the north, but that was written after this song was released, so I don't know if they guessed it right or what).

In short, it was the story of Mance Rayder, leader of the Free People (or Wildlings) from the A Song of Ice and Fire series.

Anyway, nice song and good to know that people read books.