“Running Underhill” is the fourth track on Sisters Erie's 2016 album Beat the Sunrise. The original song tells of a mortal woman's journey into Faerie and her escape with a captive prince.6 Maeve follows King Aodh's procession on May Eve, then refuses a safe return home when it would mean leaving the prince behind. Their flight toward sunrise forms the song's central movement.1

The song is conceived for all four Flynn sisters, with a central narrative voice, warnings, counterlines, and the pursuing Faerie host woven into the chase. Its ending changes the meaning of their escape: they reach the mortal world alive, but a hundred years have passed there.1

Background

The tale of Maeve and the captive prince was a favorite of Ryanne Flynn's as a child. In the sisters' treatment, that remembered story becomes a song shared among four voices. Ryanne carries Maeve's journey, while the others bring the warnings, the shifting world, and the pursuing host into the telling.5 1

Narrative

Maeve's second sight allows her to see a Faerie procession that other people cannot. She follows it into Underhill by choice. The place is beautiful, but beneath its glamour she recognizes a stolen mortal prince and wakes him. The conditions of escape require them to take nothing, keep hold of one another, avoid looking back, follow the true road, and leave before sunrise.1

Aodh offers Maeve a way home alone. She refuses, takes the prince's hand, and the hunt begins. As they run, the dangers become more personal: she hears her mother's voice behind her, then the prince's, even while his hand remains in hers. False roads twist around the one route her second sight reveals.1

The final approach brings birdsong and cold morning air into the chase. Maeve sees daylight through apparently solid stone where the prince can see no road. They run through together and escape as the sun rises. The quieter ending returns them to a changed country: his father's castle is ruined, and the people they knew are gone. Their night Underhill has cost them a century, although Maeve's refusal to leave him means neither faces that loss alone.1

Music and vocal arrangement

The four-voice conception gives Ryanne the primary storytelling and emotional role associated with Maeve. Gael supplies the counter-lead and the force of Aodh and his host. Aileen carries warning and rule motifs and provides a rhythmic and harmonic anchor, while Mary's atmospheric counterline follows the Sight and the shifting glamour. These parts are musical functions rather than fixed theatrical casting.1 2

Repetition drives the chase, but the repeated material changes as the danger grows. Warnings pass between the singers, the true road becomes harder to distinguish, and the interlocking lines build toward the final run. The recurring title phrase holds the movement together while each return adds another threat or brings the pair closer to daylight.1

The closing passage withdraws from the pursuit to the stillness of the mortal morning. The contrast gives the escape its bittersweet conclusion: reaching daylight saves Maeve and the prince, but cannot restore the lives they left behind.1

Place in Sisters Erie's repertoire

The album takes its title from the song's repeated warning to “beat the sunrise,” the condition Maeve and the prince must meet to escape Underhill.6

“Running Underhill” brings an original faerie-tale narrative into the band's repertoire. Its dramatic center is Maeve's decision to stay with someone she could abandon, followed by the trust required to take a road only she can see. The arrangement gives each sister a distinct part in telling that story, extending the band's shared approach to lead and harmony singing.1 3

Complete original lyrics

The complete original lyric below follows the preferred Draft 2, including its singer labels and stanza divisions.1

Opening

Running Underhill
Running Underhill

Verse 1

May Eve was falling
White horses crossed the green
No other eyes could see the bright host passing
King Aodh led them down where the old hill opened

I followed

Chorus 1

We're running Underhill
We're running from King Aodh
We have to beat the dawn before us
We're running for the road
We're running Underhill
Don't look back, don't let me go
We've got to beat the sunrise

Verse 2

Underhill was shining
Gold fire among the trees
Every face there wore a borrowed beauty
But one man was mortal — that much I could see

I woke him

The Rules

Aileen: Take nothing
Mary: Don't look back
Gael: Hold to me and don't let go
Ryanne: There's one true road
Mary: Only you can see it
All: We have to beat the sunrise

Chorus 2

We're running Underhill
We're running from King Aodh
I have to find the road before us
Hold tight and don't look back

We're running Underhill
The night is nearly gone
We've got to beat the sunrise

Bridge

Then Aodh opened the hillside
And there stood my home

Gael / Aodh:
You may go
But you go alone

The prince let go
He told me, “Go home”

I took his hand

No.

The doorway closed

The hunting horn blew

Chase I

We're running Underhill
The hoofbeats close behind
I hear my mother's voice behind me

Mary: Don't look back
Gael: Don't let go

We're running Underhill
The night is nearly gone
We've got to beat the sunrise

Chase II

We're running Underhill
The bright roads twist and turn
I hear the prince cry out behind me

His hand is still in mine

Aileen: Don't look back
Gael: Don't let go
Mary: One true road

We're running Underhill
I see a line of gold
We've got to beat the sunrise

Final Chase

We're running Underhill
The birds are waking now
I feel the cold air of the morning

The hoofbeats at our heels

Aileen: Don't look back
Gael: Don't let go
Mary: You can see the road

We're running Underhill
I see the daylight now
We've got to beat the sunrise

I see the dawn through solid stone
He sees no road at all

Ryanne: Trust me

Mary: One true road
Aileen: Don't look back
Gael: Don't let go

Ryanne: Run!

Final Chorus

We're running Underhill
The riders close behind
We're running where no mortal road is showing
We're running for the light

We're running Underhill
The first rays touch the sky

Aileen: Don't look back
Gael: Don't let go
Mary: I can see the morning

Ryanne: Beat the sunrise

All:
Running Underhill
Running Underhill

Beat the sunrise

Outro

Morning lay silent
No hoofbeats, no horn
We stood beneath a sky we'd left behind us
But everything was wrong

His father's castle
Was broken into stone
Trees grew where banners once had flown above it
And no one knew us home

They knew the prince's name
They knew my story too
A tale their mothers' mothers told before them
Of those who passed below

We beat the sunrise
We made it home at last

One night Underhill

A hundred years had passed

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