Rereading the wonderful M. R. James story "Lost Hearts" for my ghost class. It has owls in it, of course: as you know from studying this "blog," it is a documented fact that all fine literature contains owls to some extent. Perhaps an even more intriguing creature in "Lost Hearts" is "the rat that could speak," mentioned in passing but never explained or developed. It is referred to in the footnotes - somewhat unconvincingly, given the context, if I may be so bold as to disagree with a footnote! - as "apparently an allusion" to something in Dickens. All I know is it makes me think of that later apparition, the famous talking mongoose of the Isle of Man, who is my favorite thing ever. I notice that my old "link" to the talking mongoose story doesn't work anymore, so here is a new "link" to the talking mongoose story.
