"Nedgång" is the fourth track off the Finnish folk metal

Folk metal

Folk metal is a sub-genre of heavy metal music that developed in Europe during the 1990s. As the name suggests, the genre is a fusion of heavy metal with traditional folk music...

 band Finntroll

Finntroll

Finntroll is a folk metal band from Helsinki, Finland. They combine elements of black metal and folk metal. Finntroll's lyrics are mostly in Swedish, the only exception being the song "Madon Laulu" on Visor Om Slutet...

's fifth full-length album, Ur jordens djup

Ur Jordens Djup

-Personnel:* Mathias "Vreth" Lillmåns – vocals* Samuli "Skrymer" Ponsimaa – guitar, backing vocals* Mikael "Routa" Karlbom – guitar* Sami "Tundra" Uusitalo – bass, backing vocals...

. A music video for the song was released in April, 2007, the month following the release of the album.

The lyrics of the song were written by the band's original vocalist, Jan "Katla" Jämsen—who was forced to retire in 2003 due to a tumor in his vocal cords—and make up the third portion of the album

Concept album

In music, a concept album is an album that is "unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional, narrative, or lyrical." Commonly, concept albums tend to incorporate preconceived musical or lyrical ideas rather than being improvised or composed in the studio, with all songs contributing...

's narrative

Narrative

A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

 about the death and rebirth of the troll kingshaman, Rivfader (a character conceived by Jämsen in the early days of Finntroll after whom their first demo, "Rivfader", was named and who has been heavily mentioned in several of their later albums, including Midnattens widunder

Midnattens Widunder

Midnattens widunder is a folk metal album by the Finnish band Finntroll. It was released in Finland in 1999 by Spinefarm.-Concept:The lyrical content of the album follows the story of the legenday Rivfader , "king-shaman" of the trollish race, and his war against Christian encroachment of the...

, Nattfödd

Nattfödd

- Personnel :*Henri "Trollhorn" Sorvali – keyboards*Mikael "Routa" Karlbom – guitar*Tapio Wilska – vocals*Samu "Beast Dominator" Ruotsalainen – drums*Samuli "Skrymer" Ponsimaa – guitar*Sami "Tundra" Uusitalo – bass...

, and Jaktens tid

Jaktens Tid

Jaktens tid is a folk metal album by the Finnish band Finntroll. It was released in 2001 by Spinefarm Records.-Track listing:There is a bonus song on the final outro track: after approximately half a minute of silence, a drunken-sounding polka-type song begins...

).

Lyrics

The lyrics are an account of Rivfader's climb towards the depths of the Earth to receive enlightenment and, as is explained in the seventh track on the album, "En mäktig här", call upon an ancient and forgotten pact between the troll people and the spirit of the mountain.

The gift from the ancient mountain mentioned in the first verse is the gift of life, or birth

Birth

Birth is the act or process of bearing or bringing forth offspring. The offspring is brought forth from the mother. The time of human birth is defined as the time at which the fetus comes out of the mother's womb into the world...

, and from the reference to the song "Födosagan" (The Story of Birth) from the 2001 album Jaktens tid—stated by Jämsen to tell the origin and rise to kingship of Rivfader—"Nedgång" could well be interpreted as an immediate prequel

Prequel

A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

 to "Födosagan".

The horn-crowned one mentioned in the second verse is a common title of the king Rivfader.

Similarly to the rest of the songs on Ur jordens djup (with the exception of the hidden track

Hidden track

In the field of recorded music, a hidden track is a piece of music that has been placed on a CD, audio cassette, vinyl record or other recorded medium in such a way as to avoid detection by the casual listener...

 "Trollvisan"), the narrator

Narrator

A narrator is, within any story , the fictional or non-fictional, personal or impersonal entity who tells the story to the audience. When the narrator is also a character within the story, he or she is sometimes known as the viewpoint character. The narrator is one of three entities responsible for...

 is the persona of Rivfader, played

Album musical

An album musical is a type of recording that sounds like an original cast album but is created specifically for the recording medium and is complete entertainment product in itself, rather than just promoting or reflecting an existing or planned musical theatre production or revue...

 by Mathias "Vreth" Lillmåns

Mathias Lillmåns

Mathias "Vreth" Lillmåns is the vocalist for the Finnish folk metal band Finntroll, and has been since 2006. He is also the vocalist and the bassist for the bands Chthonian and Twilight Moon. In 2009 he and fellow Finntroll member Samuli Ponsimaa formed the death metal band DecomposteR, in which he...

.

The story is continued in the fifth track, "Ur Djupet".