Songs Happen
I couldn't resist posting this, though this might not be the finished wording. The Aeslin mice are featured in Discount Armageddon (though in fairness they are minor characters.) The chorus is a reference to the Billy Collins poem The Country (the poet reads it, illustrated, here)
Aeslin Mice (first draft) lyrics and melody by Catherine Faber 2012 a capella mp3 here Talking rodents in tribal dress, Glad to quit the wonders of the wilderness, Converted, and converting, with love and wit Family history to Holy Writ Mark their rituals, but my advice Don't give matches to the Aeslin mice! Food For Privacy: the first swap made; The Oldest Ritual, the Sacred Trade, Curious ever, but make no mistake; They're always ready for cheese and cake. They've never seen the old events for which Their festive cheering reaches fever pitch, But they keep our history in tale and song; The colony's memory is very long. Food and worship is their whole desire, Singing praises in a tiny choir, Held in harmony, sweet and shrill Too mad to manage and to cute to kill. Every Price is given this much free, Our peculiar immortality In the memories the mice rehearse We live forever, though we're dead, or worse.
(Anonymous)
I thought it was a lot of fun; I hope you enjoy it too.
(Anonymous)
I'm glad you like it :-)
Is that a wallaby in your icon?
calling them "flying rats".
So, did you read this for Seannan before she sent it off to the publisher or something? Because the book only came out a few days ago, and yes, Seannan mentioned the Aeslin mice on her LJ, but I think that was last month, so I don't see how you could have known about them for years unless there's some pre-DA short story that has been publicly available for that long (in which case gimme, pretty please?)
If you are interested, my songs and mp3s can be easily accessed from my website http://www.hwaet.org. The specific page with the list of songs is http://www.hwaet.org/cats_songbook.h