My dear Dr. Roundbottom. You know I am an avid follower of your papers but you won’t fool me. The mere notion of Boggart talking,.. It’s preposterous. I commend you on your fanciful joke and look forward to the next, more serious, writings.

Mr. Mortlewood, I assure you, this is no laughing matter. I promise you that in the days to come I will produce acoustic recordings of the boggart’s speech. That, along with the above photonic capture, should be more than enough evidence to convince you that I am not having a laugh. I as much as anyone would have preferred that the boggarts not speak, due to certain statements I have made in the past regarding their management. I must revise those thoughts and statements with this new information.

I have never intentionally misled you before, nor am I doing so now. You have my reputation as a gentleman to consider in this matter, I might remind you.

In truth, I do not think it yet possible to divine the Bird Queen’s motives: there is too great a field of possibility. Self-protection, or vendetta, maybe robbery, or perhaps espionage - birds and fey make formidable fighters, and they have the intelligence, agility and small size to be most excellent spies and burglars. Or the lady may simply have the human appetite for power which flourishes at all scales from the span of a continent to the width of a checkerboard. Further data is needed, I fear.

Congratulations on your fine recordings, and my commiserations on the attendant difficulties. I should apologise for my recent silence here: these last weeks have been somewhat fraught, in part due to a minor but unpleasantly dramatic (and most unsightly) medical crisis of my own. I will not pain you with the details. Your steam-wraith remains quiescent, I am happy to report.

Tylor,

Good to read a note from you again, my friend. You are of course correct–I must gather more information in this matter. I will report back with it when I have something worth sharing.

Thank you for your kind words. I wish you a quickened recovery as well. And you have my thanks as well for continuing to monitor the bound wraith. That is a burden I am happy to share with others.

Whereas the idea of conversing with a boggart is quite laughable, what he said is more sobering.
Toben lists The Bird Queen as a higher spirit, possibly one of the Golden Fey. Vandeerlu (a terrible book, admittedly. Superstitious drivel and pagan nonsense) has this to say:

Cruelest of talons and eye of magpie,
Sundering, stabbing, scissor and needle,
She picks the bones of those she hast slain,
For treasures carried hers she doth claim.

Again, perfectly useless statement, but quite obviously a warning.

Oh, and one thing that I can tell you about boggarts, the rumors of them hording shiney objects is no myth. Fortuneatly, they are more attracted to the shine then the actual value, so even the cheapest of paste will do.

However, if Vandeerlu is right, then not showing it off too much might be wise.

Thank you, Dr. Ventius. Something you said has sparked a suspicion in my mind. Both seem to have a fondness for “treasures.” I had suspected at first that the issue was one of territory, but perhaps there is a disagreement regarding some matter of property that the boggart is not revealing… I wonder if I might be manipulated in this matter? I will mull this over.

What a pleasant surprise to see another researcher investigating the boggarts and their language. Somewhere in my office here at the college, or possibly in my home library, I have a grimoire of a common boggart lexography. The tome is several decades old, but I’m afraid one of my blunderheaded graduate assistants has borrowed it and being unable to comprehend even the simplest of cataloging systems.

If I remember, the book was rather ignorant. It makes the absurd claims that boggarts are geophagic. What fools.

Should I find the volume, I will forward it along. Possibly with the head of the graduate stutent.

Professor Atwater, so good to hear from you. When was it last we spoke? I believe the conference on pixie morphology? There is no need to send the head of the graduate student–my quarters here are small, and I’m afraid I would have no place to put it, but should you locate the text, I would very much appreciate receiving it and would return it to you with haste.

Be less pimply…

Try MORSTIMPLY’S!

Ointments * Balms * Soothing Salves
T.H. Morstimply and Sons
92 Almbush Square

It appears that Informatitron is not immune to peddlers of the snake oil. I will speak with my tinkerer about this situation immediately.

Well, you did nearly have me there, my good Dr Roundbottom! For a moment I was quite alarmed, until my senses came over me as quickly and intensely as the tummy bubbles after Mam’s jellied port and fermented bean casserole. Ah, I know better. You are quite the prankster. Very funny, indeed.

Not to worry. I understand the warning hidden in your humors. If these Boggarts were indeed intellectualizable, which we all know they simply cannot be, they would indeed arm themselves with weapons and try to kill us all! So, obviously, they are but creatures of a brainless nature, since we are not all dead. I too have heard what sounds like speech to the man who is opened to hearing such things, but our neighbor Gullywag explained that their mating call duplicate a cry for help. He also explained that if we do not thin them out they would overrun the swamp and when in great mass they could devour our daughters alive.

In our parts the local politicals have alerted us to the dangers of Boggarts and enacted a swift plan. They showed us drawing of their own making depicting how Boggarts could possibly secrete a toxin that makes good citizenry lose their moral judgment. Their cartoons are quite funny, yet frightening as well. You didn’t touch one of them there little critters, did you, Dr Roundbottom? If you are feeling some sort of compassion, or think there could be some logic to their speech, well, it’s most likely that you’ve been intoxicated by the unholy demons. At least that’s what Senator Kelliwammer explained in last month’s mandatory civic duty seminar.

Wellums, you do take care of yourself with all them Boggarts in your parts, but don’t you worry about us. Senator Kelliwammer has requested that our children gather all the Boggarts out of our swamps for swift elimination. A very ecological action it is, as our kidlings deliver those devils to the local potion makers. As a learned man you must know how soothing the oil extracted from Boggart glands is. Don’t let on I told you so, but it makes Mam’s skin as soft like butter. Expensive, but worth every penny. You see, Mam’s family has inherited lizard skin. I loves her anyway.

Well, anyways, you should have heard me before I realized you was jokalizing! “Oh goodness, our kidlings are murderizing a sentient species!” How silly I must have sounded.

Now, we don’t have any researchilizing sciencie people like yourself in these here parts. It’s why I’m so taken with your textygraphs and voiceygraphs. The things you do are so unusual for any man to contemplate. Guess it’s like eating those apples Rev. Dewlihinky talks about. He says you shouldn’t eat such things, though I don’t know who doesn’t like a good apple pie, but them kind of thoughts is not for me to think about. You see, it’s in the local charter in our parts. You’re nice people, but always joking and causing mischief with pranks like this. Senator Kelliwammer warns about the use of contraptions like your Informatitron, but we are too smart to fall for your shenanigans. Talking Baggarts indeed! You are a funny man. You should hear Mam chortle!

Do let me know if you’d like to obtain some of our famous local Boggart lotion. Mrs. Morstimply refuses to stock it for some odd reason, but Lester Walmert has two entire lanes worth at his store. Seems he built the store too big so he buys ten times more of things than anyone could need.

Oh, and I wouldn’t recommend purchasizing from the billards of “T.H.Morstimply” Goodness that man does post on nearly every tree in our parts. He’s the good Mrs. Morstimply’s husband. She’d divorce him, but it’s against the civic code round here to leave a husband. Even his white lightning is watered down to where it can’t even light a lamp! His own Cream Of Boggart Lotion is mostly linseed oil with maybe one gland worth of true Baggart oil. A good Boggart oil requires a minumum of 180 Bogart glands for 3 ounces, just so you can gauge your quality.

There are so many people out to do harm these days, but we are too smart for them, are we not, my good friend, and jokster, Dr Roundbottom?

Morstiply! You scoundrel! Cad! Kniving flim-flam artist! I thought the drubbing I handed out to you in the market was enough to drive you off, but instead you continue to haunt me! If you ever try and pilfer one of my formulas again, I shall call the law upon you sirrah!

Forgive me, gentlemen. I have personally had dealings with this individual (expect a paper detailing the encounter soon. I imagine I shall place it as an amusing anecdote in my forthcoming “Upon The History of Alchemy”.)

Mr. Wiggins: Certainly you are aware of the exotic creatures being discovered by Modern Science even today in the south? Aves’ Lesser Mockingshrew is a fantastic mimic, as fantastical as it might sound, it can actually impersonate the words spoken to it, even to the extent of the individual’s voice. However, it is a simple echo, not actual conversation. Were I to say to it “Good morning, how are you?”, it would reply “Good morning, how are you?”. Aves speculates that it uses this ability to lure it’s prey close, giving them a false sense of security by hearing others of its own kind. Much like a duck hunter and their calls do. I propose that perhaps there is a subspecie of Boggart that mimics as well, in which case, a good find, dear Doctor. Roundbottom’s Mimic Boggart has a nice ring to it.

Roundbottom –

I am, again, rendered speechless by your ability to insert yourself in conflicts beyond your ken. In reading through your papers, I find a constant pattern of reasonable scientific research, regularly and dangerously derailed.

Use your mind, man! Assume every piece of advice you have here has some ring of truth. If such is the case, you have boggarts, likely effusing some corrupting toxin, at war with a higher level fey.

Her choice of foot soldier in this war? Birds, who when not on the front line, will be on the common grounds, window ledges, statues and public squares of the city, covered in the offal of fallen boggarts, passing this vile toxin on to the city’s inhabitants.

Do *NOTHING* to “help the poor boggarts” in this war. Whether or not anyone agrees with your claims of independent thought for boggarts, all can agree that they are vile creatures.

If you must insert your self into this situation, use your scientific training to understand the true cause of this war. There may be things in the park that, seemingly mundane to our cursory inspection, are vital to creatures such as these. Important enough to risk wide-spread death on both sides.

I would wish you luck, however you seem imbued with the good fortune only the truly heedless can command. Against my better judgement I have checked on your wraith — he is contained.

Sincerely,

– M. Van Allen