Recreational pencil sketches by R.W. Winfield

Music was of great importance in the world of Meadowvalley, many groups and individuals would have their own special songs and rhymes that were passed down from person to person. Throughout her journey Millie would memorize several of these songs, sometimes using them to escape danger or to resolve conflict. The many songs appearing throughout the series would later be released in a separate music book, “Songs and Yawns of Meadowvalley,” for fans and young musicians to play and sing in their own homes. The music was even planned to be utilized in the ill fated Meadowvalley movie. With all this in mind let’s look through some of the songs and singing creatures that might be found in Millie’s world.

Flowers

The first of the creatures that sang within the world of Meadowvalley were of course the many different kinds of flowers found within the valley. These flowers tended to alternate in mobility and personality. Some traversed on root like legs while others passively gave her advice and made conversation from their spots perched upon hanging vines. All of them however were purported to have their own unique songs that distinguished them from other families.

The Sundews

Of the most notable songs was the song of the Sundews, a family of friendly flowers that sifted through the undergrowth regularly to catch up their preferred prey, the Aphids. It should be noted that the cycle of predation and death was not shied away from in this series, it was just another part of the valley in all its great and terrible wild beauty. However it was never a cruel thing, creatures simply did as creatures do, so to say. The Sundews were met in the first book of the series and although they had no accompanying illustration they were described as tall creatures with heads covered in tufts that could extend and snatch up prey, they had tall seed shaped eyes that circled their lower body, and a mouth concealed within a flower on their back. Despite how frightening this may sound the creatures were fairly cordial towards Millie, carrying her on their backs to help her through the mud swamps of the valley.

The song of the Sundews went as follows:

“We who walk along the rows / Our strands extending high and low

We find our purpose idly by / Our steps beneath the great green sky

We make peace with what we know / Our journey makes life a joyous show”

The Jawpoints

The most ferocious flowers in the valley, these creatures encountered Millie in the first book, and although there was a brief misunderstanding when she interrupted their war rally they quickly forgave her when it became clear she was not an enemy spy from their hated enemies the Ivy League. The Jawpoints were so named as they resembled large yellow and orange flowers with frilly furry petals attached to small wooden bodies, at the base of their jaws were the titular points, a set of ant-like mandibles. However the most peculiar aspect of these creatures was their ability to, when they grew too old or tired of their identity, switch their heads with the other members of their troupe in a dance known as the Jawbone March. The creatures would reappear throughout the series, often sparking the many conflicts and wars throughout the valley with their bickering and tendency to take offense from things minor as the direction of the wind or the angle of the sun.

The song of the Jawpoints went as follows:

“Watch and see and hear of sound, our heads spin round our faces drown

In the sea of you and me, within the Jawbone march!

What for and you and more does not matter when whats before! We remove our faces, spin them more, within the Jawbone march!

Our fiery faces and petal laces they spin like new young suns, on the faces of newborn places that swing in the Jawbone march!”

The Ivy League

Mentioned within the first book but not appearing until the second book of the series, the Ivy League was a great traveling city made of many vine-like creatures which served their nefarious master the Sickle King. The members of the Ivy League resembled narrow and long green worms with tiny faces and small withered leaves that struggled to move. They would wind together and travel through the many slow movements of their leaves. As such the kingdom was slow to arrive and conquer but given enough time they would eventually grow over and lay claim to new places, their members winding outwards to expand and grow. The creatures were described as vain, snooty, and unbearably stupid in nature, a reflection of their king.The goals of the Ivy League and the Sickle King were stated to be endless growth and a sea of endless green, every flower and color drowned out amongst the vines. Both parties would be destroyed in the finale of the second book as Millie, pushed to the limits of her grace and patience, lit the kingdom on fire. Both Millie and Winnie would flee the burning kingdom in a thrilling sequence where the Sickle King rotted and deteriorated after them, finally burning to a puddle of something like gasoline.

***Watercolor painting of the Sickle King***
*A plant-like creature with leaves for arms and a head that resembles a white flower. The stamen of the flower are yellow and shaped like a crown.*

The song of the Ivy League went as follows:

“Growth on growth / With green lace rope

Growth on growth / You have no hope

Growth on growth / Our kingdom spans

Growth on growth / Across the land

Our noble tendrils crawl along /The soil watered with lessers blood

We want we see we want we take / From this kingdom no escape”

Voracious creatures that crawled in the darkest margins and wooden barrens of old forests and log beds and dams, these insects were one of the most feared beings in the world of Meadowvalley. The Silverfish are the oldest beings in the world of Meadowvalley and, according to their own testimony, they lived long before the valley was a place and long before the world before the valley as well. They were decidedly a force of nature as much as characters and swarmed in many nests across the valley that burrowed within unfortunate trees who could not escape their path. The Silverfish mostly struggled to speak and preferred to randomly say bits of sentences and words which Millie, in her encounters with them, would struggle to interpret. However the Silverfish were not hostile; they simply lived to eat, when full and in an environment with sufficient sustenance the insects would make pleasant, and uneasy, conversation with the firefly giving her important information on the lesser known knowledge of her world. In the first book of the series these beings were consistently presented as all around evil and malicious before Winfield, who stated the idea of a purely evil species bothered him deeply, rewrote and revised their roles and place within the world of the series. One silverfish, Nettlecape, would become a good friend and teacher of Millie later in the series.

In the final book, the Silverfish were one of the few remaining beings living in the remains of Meadowvalley, they swarmed across the land and when they made discussion with Winnie would tell her how they were preparing for “the world that would arrive after Meadowvalley fully died.”

The World of Gone

“We will see before and will see after

Wooden burrows like an ark

Woolen netting in the bend

Cotton shears and spinning yarn

We are a keepsake shiny new

For the world that comes after you

Your skull a bed a shield a stone

Our tails duck under and unfurl

We eat and carry what once was new

To the world that comes after you

We twinkle on as silver charms

Teeth gnawing on what was so far”

The song of Silver

“In and out the wood spits out the teeth the gloom our home leaves room

For many things that squirm and crawl we are the things that see what falls

Into the burrows into the leaves the lips that shine the wood that sings

In and out the wood spits out the pulp the burrow the legs that furrow

For what screams and shouts in in and out

The wood that snaps the teeth which gnash

A good burrow is a meal that sings

With bark that howls and nettles that sting”

King Houndfoot

The vicious yet fair ruler of the underwoods where the Silverfish often roamed and non flower creatures lurked in the timber and sawdust. King Houndfoot was said to be the size of a building and that whenever he moved the entire valley would tremble and quake. As such he was a very sedimentary creature that placidly sat within his burrow beneath the wooden beams and underbrush of Meadowvalley. In personality he was a sleepy and slow being that could in a flash snap to attention and snap up trespassers into bloody webbed bags. However he often was very patient with those who entertained his presence, giving them advice on how to proceed and granting them boons in the form of blessings and special magic which would be used by Millie to repel the forces that conspired against her. Although Houndfoot took the title of a king he had no army nor did he seem to enforce his kingdom very strictly, he called himself a representative of the old and forgotten fallen things. In the second book Winnie would reveal herself as a former member of his royal court that could not stand being just a simple clown and fled to make a name for herself as a fearsome beast of legend much like him. The king held no animosity towards the wist and encouraged her aims. In the final book the king would tiredly retreat into his burrow in preparation for the new world to come. Some analysts have claimed Houndfoot to be a reflection or stand-in for Winfield himself.

The song of Houndfoot went as follows:

“Now I am old and my fur turns grey / My eyes are milky blind with haze

But still I hunt on all that graze / My hobbled legs spring my muzzle snaps

At all who wander in my nest / I am King Houndfoot of the underwood

Speak now small one of what thou yearns”

Millie Moonbeam

The songs of Millie Moonbeam were various in number with them typically being used as conjurations, offerings of peace, or words of comfort. We have already talked about Millie in her character article, however unmentioned in that brief summary is that many of the songs sung by Millie often were coveted and chased after by the foolish power seekers within Meadowvalley. Often to their dismay they would find these songs caused adverse reactions when sung by anyone other than Millie, and in the case of the Moonlight Yearning caused the Sickle King to immediately wither and rot from inside (Shortly after which his kingdom would be lit on fire.) Millie’s backstory was, as recounted in the prologue of the first novel, the youngest child of a line of “moonlight insects” moths, fireflies, mosquitos, and beetles who tended to the moonflower in the sky and helped guide it along its astral path. Millie was said to not be completely of these creatures and often struggled to fit in due to her affinity with fire, and after leaving the moonflower to save the Hearth she found her view of the world changed forever. Yet throughout all of this she carried songs from home for comfort. The only character who could sing the Moonlight Yearning without being stricken by pestilence was Winnie, another connection between the two.

The song of You

“Winnie sister, sibling, friend

You have been through so much without end

But rest your head right on my wing

Forget these thoughts of vile things

I’ll mend you, my sister

I’ll heal you, my sister

You are the brightest thing i’ve seen below the stars

And if you stand up right above them you’d outshine them all

You are you, and I am me, we can’t change that but we can be

A family of two, in the big green

Our hands are held against it all and we will be

A family

I have been alone so long tending to moonlight mourning doves

I forgot I was not alone

Then I met you

You say you are a beast a pest but I see in you much more than that

You are

Winnie

You are

You are”

The Moonlight Yearning

“Moonlight

Oh Moonlight

Moonlight won’t you drift to me

Like sullen rays of snowlight on blue grass, grey leaves, and silver cotton trails

Moonlight it has been so long, you peeking beneath the hill, waiting for departure of brother sun

Oh Moonlight your mercury bloom, across the sky your lunar hues

Bless me in your white silken beams

Starlight diamonds your reverie

Moonlight

Oh Moonlight

You know me so

Small and loved by you so

Oh Moonlight

Stand up tall above

Lift me up from down into the world above”

**Photograph of Hearth of Meadowvalley cover**
*A very old book. On the front is an illustration of Millie Moonbeam holding a leaf like an umbrella.*

Song of the Timberbeast

The Timberbeast was the most feared creature in the world of Meadowvalley, a long winding trail of fur and teeth that tore through the valley on taloned feet and existed as a manifestation of the wilderness and all creatures that yowled and scratched and tumbled between the undergrowth. The creature made its home in the underwood but regularly ventured out in search of new prey. It did not speak and was very easily fooled into running headlong into traps and danger. Winnie would often cling to the back of the Timberbeast in order to travel from place to place as she was so small it did not mind her presence or have any interest in hunting her. The Timberbeast had many songs recounting its existence as it would not be introduced properly until the third book of the series, almost a creature of folklore amongst the many inhabitants of Meadowvalley.

A song about the Timberbeast goes as follows

***Recreational pencil sketch by R.W. Winfield***
*A pencil drawing of a rocky outcrop. The hands of unseen beasts can be spotted amongst the trees and stones.*

“It stalks and hunts and lurks and drools

Your flesh split up amongst other fools

Who thought they could with bow and arrow

Kill the Beast of tooth and narrow

It runs and tears through grass and vines

When it’s hunting you’d better hide

The Beast it feasts on mortal fools

The Beast it feasts on bugs like YOU!”

The Final Durge

The final song sung in the entire Meadowvalley series, a mournful chorus sung by the grass and dirt of the valley as Winnie sullenly made her way out of the story and into parts untold. It was the world saying goodbye, the fear of the world to come.

The song went as follows

***Recreational pencil sketch by R.W. Winfield***
*A pencil drawing of a river flowing by a fence. Two creatures swim through the water. In front of the fence is a bush with a leg emerging from the leaves, and a tree with arms wrapped around it.*

“Goodbye my love my sweet beau

The world twists and turns anew

We tried so hard to fix it up

But trying our hardest was not enough

We’re sorry Meadowvalley we failed you

We didn’t mean to hurt you

We just wanted to go on

We didn’t mean to hurt you

We wanted the hearth to burn on

We didn’t mean to hurt you

But mean is what we are

We did not deserve you

Now we will pass on

We’re sorry Meadowvalley, please don’t take long

To move on to the final place, Where we will sleep on

Maybe in the future

Others will make right

What we did wrong

And we will see Moonlight”

Meadowvalley and Music

Flowers

The Sundews

The Jawpoints

The Ivy League

The Silverfish

King Houndfoot

Millie Moonbeam

Song of the Timberbeast

The Final Durge

Maisy The Mutt in Death Marches On

Maisy and Counter Culture Music