The Professor Peregrine Papers

Professor Withington Marsh has for many years been a trusted colleague and intellectual sparring partner of Professor Peregrine. To this day, Marsh is a strong advocate for the concept of the collective unconscious and believes that recognition of archetypes may hold the key to a truly fulfilled existence. (“He's so Jung, at heart,” the Professor likes to joke at dispiritingly frequent intervals).  Central to Marsh's current research is the belief that taking an opportunity to relate ancient, familiar and resonant tales in a leisurely manner will provide a new understanding of their importance, lead to a more satisfying “inner life” and present clues to the probable winner of the Grand National and other noteworthy horse races. I admit to a degree of scepticism but, one wet afternoon last summer, the Professor and I agreed to join Marsh in an attempt to validate this theory. 1 - We commenced by recounting the well-known, simple tale of the gardener and the crab. I confess that...

Uncle Leucocholy's entry into Paris has become legendary, possibly because he took disproportionate delight in telling and retelling the story to anyone who could be persuaded to listen. “Oh, the dark meetings on the Champs-Elysées,” he would mutter, darkly. He sidestepped questions about why he descended by parachute. “Ah, the faces looking up at me from the crowd. Bien sûr, Pierre and Guillaume,” he would enthuse. He adamantly refused to explain the suit of armour or his reasons for being in the city at all.  "Ha ha," he would exclaim, reconditely. Despite the cloud of ambiguity that invariably surrounded him, everywhere that Uncle Leucocholy ventured, people would be inclined to cry “Hooray!”. There are many things in this world that I do not understand.

The Professor at one point in his past became the mixologist at the famous, hard-to-find “Middle of Next Week Bar” just outside of Moulton Eaugate. Connoisseurs of exotic and lovingly overpriced drinks flocked to to try his “Uncertainty Principle Spritz” and “Categorical Syllogism Daiquiri”.  However, following a number of minor explosions and an embarrassingly large number of swans a-swimming appearing at Christmas, he was asked to leave. The Professor has written (on paper previously used to wrap a piece of Lincolnshire Poacher): "'The one thing I regret is that swans cannot speak." Subsequently, the Professor took up the position of Chief Archivist, Inattentive Researcher and Occasional Beadle at the Society for the Preservation of Devil Among The Tailors.

One October night, returning from a walk through narrow streets, she stood before her window and said, "That is not what I meant, at all" After so much time, the memory is submerged so deeply that I no longer fear rebuke. I could answer you, but I cannot offer a new love song.

In recent years, the Professor has become fascinated by the legend of The Almost Invisible Cat of Aston by Budworth. He has told me on numerous and, frankly, wholly inopportune occasions that he regards this legend as a fine metaphor for both our age and also the state of Implausible Scholarship.  He was, however, enraged by a recent paper published in “The Journal of Insupportable News and Questionable Theories” which suggested that the creature actually exists in this world (or reality, as it's sometimes called). It went so far as to allege that the cat was known by the name “Rakehelly Sausagement”.  The author of this paper, Mr Stonton Wyville, is both an eminent cryptozoologist and a specious opportunist who is probably best known for his essay “Mermaid of Mawgan Porth” and his televised documentary “The Unexpected Dog Wearing A Hat of Mortimer's Cross”. The Professor has attempted to enter into a debate on this issue but Wyville insists on presenting his arguments solely ...

October 4th 1926 Rue Lafayette, Paris André Breton sees Nadja for the first time. A new day. I put on gloves of foam. Much later, à la station balnéaire, I became gloves of horsehair. Time for tea. I'm putting the kettle on. Effrontément.