Curse Upon Iron

Ohoy, villain! Wretched iron!
Wretched iron! Cursed bog ore!
You flesh-eater, Gnawer of bones!
You spiller of innocent blood!

Wicked, how did you come to power?
Tell how you became so naughty!

Damn you, bastard! Wretched iron!
I know your birth, you purblind fool,
I know well your source, you evil!

Once there walked three nature spirits,
three fiery daughters of the sky.
They milked their swelling breasts to the Earth,
They squeezed their milk into the fens.

From the first maid spurted black milk,
this turned into soft wrought iron.

White milk squirted the second maid,
this was the source of tempered steel.

The third maid spouted blood-red milk,
This gave birth to bog iron ore.

I know your birth, you purblind fool,
I know well your source, you evil!

Then you were not high and mighty,
not yet mighty, not yet haughty,
when you moaned in the white-hot furnace,
Whined under beating hammers.

Saliva was brought from a viper,
venom from a black snake!
For iron would not harbor evil
Without saliva from snakes.

Shelter us, supreme Creator!
Keep us safe, God Almighty!
So that mankind will not perish,
mother's child vanish without a trace.