The Institute for the Study of Mammalian Life has confirmed the discovery of an ancient shedding song. The lyrics of the song were inscribed on a stone tablet that was found near The Park’s Wishing Well during a routine dig last Summer.
At a press conference held this afternoon on the grounds of the Institute, ISML Chief Archaeologist Catriona Cairn-Terrier characterized the find as “significant” and described the tablet as “basically in good shape, with a few breaks here and there at the ends, but nothing that prevented us from reading the letters on it.”
She credited a team of musicologists from the University of West Terrier’s Zedrich School of Music with helping the Institute’s staff determine the nature and meaning of the inscription on the stone.
“We knew from the way the words were arranged that it was some type of poem or poetic structure, but it wasn’t until we worked with the musicologists that we were able to comprehend its true essence,” she said.
According to Cairn-Terrier, shedding songs (as well as molting songs) were a popular genre many thousands of years ago.
“They celebrate the natural order of things…moving from one season to another…and especially the rebirth that occurs in the Spring,” she said.
The language of the inscription found on the tablet is known as “Mammalian XII,” an ancient language that is related to Mammalian VII and, according to archaeologists, one that was in use during the Hairy Mammal Era (HME). And although the entire song has yet to be transcribed, Cairn-Terrier offered up what she believes is the song’s chorus:
Spring is sprung!
The winter’s done!
The sun’s come out to play!
Let’s shed the old,
Don something bold –
For summer’s on its way!
