The Catholic Spirit

On the whole it's true to say that our relations with the Guinea Pig Folk of Stewartby have been strained. At times, very strained. Especially that time we ate their gods by mistake, although the occasion when  we accidentally trod on a previous generation of guinea pigs (and one of the replacements ended up as a half-Blackberry robo-cavy) has been lost in the time wars.

It doesn't help that their beliefs are so unusual. I mean, I'm fond of quoting John Wesley's Sermon 39 on The Catholic Spirit, but Wesley's question is "Is thine heart right, as my heart is with thy heart?" So frankly the answer is "As long as you wear that silly guinea pig outfit and continue to talk in a mixture of whistles and grunts, then no it ain't."

But I read this fascinating article on early guinea pigs in Europe. It turns out that from relatively early times after the discovery (or, as I prefer to think of it, "invasion") of the Americas, guinea pigs were available in Europe. The Stewartby People will be very intrigued to know that they were mostly treated as pets - although I see there are also tasting notes.

But more fun will be asking Drayton Parslow about the Bruegel painting. There are clearly guinea pigs in the picture of Adam and Eve in the garden - but how, I shall be asking Drayton, did the cavies get across to South America? Did they swim? Or perhaps Japheth kindly dropped them off when Noah said it would be OK for him to borrow the Ark for a spin? I can imagine Noah's reaction when Japheth eventually got back, an extra 10,000 miles on the clock.