Navigator Songs

The Navigators are shrouded in mystery, despite their prolific sailing and skyship abilities. Rumors abound that Navigators have flown the void lanes and even passed the Girdle, and that they've been to the illusive island of the elves and that of the dragons. The Navigators themselves (guild pilots who often represent their people, the latter often referred to as Navigators by outsiders) say little on these topics, though their humorous stories that dance around the truth of these rumors are legendary and serve to promote the rumors even more.
The biggest mystery surrounding the navigators is their lack of star charts. Sages and pilots from other parts of the world rely on tomes of lore and sextants or other tools to plot their courses through the waves or clouds, while Navigators employ none of these. The secret lies in complex mythological songs that the young learn from the time they can walk. Unknown to most, Navigators must be able to carry a tune, for the songs they sing while piloting are themselves guidelines, with mathematical expressions coming through in the notes of the music itself and the mythological figures mentioned correspond to constellations. Cultural myths lend context to these sparse songs, so the mention of He Kaiwhai in a song conjures the tales of him hunting great man-eating eagles even into the heavens, and his path would be well known to any Navigator. The trick of the songs is that even if an outsider took the time to learn every one by rote down to the musical inflections, without immersing themselves in Navigator culture for over a decade, the significance of individual passages and their relationship to the mathematics expressed in music wouldn't be clear and the songs would be useless, and the Navigators don't tend to share a lot of their myths with others.