Some stories are not meant to bring comfort. They are meant to serve as a warning, a mirror to the darkness that can grow from a single, unhealed wound. Our new song is one of those stories. It is a folk tale, a ballad of a boy who turned his back on the cruelty of man, only to become a force of nature more terrible than any he had fled.

This is the Ballad of Silas Crow…..

The Boy and the Wild

The story begins with a familiar wound. A young boy, Silas, finds his only true connection in the wild, with a crow he befriends. When the casual cruelty of the world shatters that bond, he makes a choice. He leaves the “human design” behind and walks into the great, quiet wilderness of the north.

He walked to the north, where the world turns to white, And built a new life in the pale, endless light. Found a bear cub alone, left to die by the frost, A small, breathing reason for all he had lost.

In the vast emptiness of Alaska, he doesn’t just find solitude; he builds a new family. He rescues a bear cub, Kodiak, and a wolf pup, Shadow, both orphaned by the careless violence of the world. In healing them, he begins to heal himself. For a time, three lonely souls find their own home, and there is peace.

The Echo of a Rifle

But the outside world does not forget. The arrival of hunters and the sound of a rifle shot through the glade shatters the fragile peace Silas has built. In a moment of senseless pride, the hunters kill Shadow.

The lyrics in this moment describe a transformation. It is not just the death of a beloved friend; it is the death of the man Silas was trying to become.

Shadow’s last breath was a cloud in the frost, On the hands of the master who’d loved him and lost…… He knelt in the silence and held his friend’s head….. The part of him that was human was now truly dead….

The Vengeance of the Forest

What follows is not a story of justice. It is a story of pure, cold vengeance. Silas ceases to be a man hiding in the forest and becomes the spirit of the forest itself, a predator hunting those who trespassed against its heart. With his brother Kodiak at his side, he delivers the final, brutal law of the wild.

The final chorus is not a celebration, but a terrifying declaration of what he has become.

Oh, the heart of a wild thing, the mind of a man! With the blood of the guilty now slick on his hand! Now the splinter of hatred is all that’s inside! There’s nowhere to run and there’s nowhere to hide!

This ballad is a journey into the dark. It asks a difficult question: What happens when a good man, pushed too far, embraces the very cruelty he once fled? The answer is a chilling one, left to echo in the final, silent image of a man and a bear on a cold, bloody hill, haunted by the ghost of the love they lost.

Lyrics:
They called the boy Silas, for the crow on his arm
Who’d eat from his fingers and keep him from harm
But the world of the town had a cruelty built-in
A circle of laughter, for bones and for skin
They broke his companion with a shatter of stone
And left the boy Silas forever alone.
So he turned to the forest, the spruce and the pine
Left the world of the cruel, and the human design.

He walked to the north, where the world turns to white,
And built a new life in the pale, endless light.
Found a bear cub alone, left to die by the frost,
A small, breathing reason for all he had lost.
Then a pup by its mother, a poacher’s cruel art,
He took them both in and he gave them his heart.
They were broken and orphaned by bullet and stone,
Three lonely souls who had found their own home.

Oh, the heart of a wild thing, the mind of a man
With the truths of the wild held deep in his hand
But a splinter of hatred, a wound deep inside
A place where the wild and the wounded collide.

With Kodiak and Shadow, through ice and through snow,
He learned from the river and the seeds that would grow.
With Kodiak and Shadow, his brothers in might,
He found a new reason to live in the light.
He’d map out the stars to the wolf’s lonely howl,
And sleep through the winter to the bear’s gentle growl.
He’d stare past the fire, through the wind and the snow,
To the ghosts of the town that he’d left long ago.

Then the crack of a rifle echoed through the glade,
Young Shadow stepped out, curious, unafraid.
Another shot fired, a yelp and a fall,
Silas saw crimson soak into the snow’s white pall.
He heard the men laughing, their voices so proud,
And ran to his friend as they laughed out so loud.

Shadow’s last breath was a cloud in the frost,
On the hands of the master who’d loved him and lost……
He knelt in the silence and held his friend’s head…..
The part of him that was human was now truly dead….
He made no loud promise, no furious sound,
Just a turning of earth on that cold, sacred ground.

The first was a tracker, who bragged of his skill,
Who followed the blood trail up over the hill.
He didn’t see Silas perched high in the pine,
Just a branch breaking softly, a whisper, a sign.
He turned for a moment, his rifle held fast,
A moment too late, for that moment’s his last.
The bark-skinned man dropped from the sky and the snow,
And the hunter became what the hunted all know.

The others heard screaming, and ran through the night,
Blinded by panic and freezing with fright.
They found no escape in that kingdom of trees,
Just the sound of a monster that walked on the breeze.
One by one silenced, by claw and by hand,
The final law written across that cold land.
With Kodiak roaring, a promise fulfilled,
‘Til the laughter was gone, and the forest was stilled.

Oh, the heart of a wild thing, the mind of a man!
With the blood of the guilty now slick on his hand!
Now the splinter of hatred is all that’s inside!
There’s nowhere to run and there’s nowhere to hide!

And the vengeance was done, the forest was still,
A man and a bear on that cold, bloody hill.
The peace that he’d fought for, a cold, empty prize,
Just the ghost of a wolf reflected in their winter eyes.