The Psychical Mallards


 This is my reading of E F Benson's amusing short story "The Psychical Mallards" (1921) which in some regards foreshadows the childhood of Harry Potter and his life with the Dursleys. I wonder if J K Rowlings had read this story at some point in the past and it sowed a seed?

The fatherly conversation about queerness raises a bit of a school boy snigger. It can be read entirely innocently (and was most likely meant in that way by the author), though the word queer had started to be associated with homosexuality by the late 1800s and as Benson was himself a lover of men he might well have been familiar with its dual implications and its relevance to boarding school life. Anthropologists have noted that some cultures associate magical talents, such as possessed by Tim, with sexual ambiguity - but I think that may well be reading rather too much into a simple tale of wizardly nonsense (plus he does get married, eventually) 

Incidentally, if some listeners think I have lost the ability to pronounce English.more than usual, the spelling ad pronunciation of some words associated with the paranormal were different in the early decades of the 20th century than they are now.



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