The fellows of St Cuthbert’s were, however, quite opposed to the idea of multiple rival teams from the same college – in the interests of college unity – yet at the same time the, shall we say, “bookish”, Cuthbert’s students could hardly be expected to play in the professional quidditch league. Instead it was decided that the Cuthbert’s team should play against a team formed from magical students from the other, mostly muggle, colleges.
This did not go especially well. Friendly competition between the two groups gradually turned into hostile acrimony, with random street duels between students, lecturers taking sides and only teaching their preferred faction, and stink bombs being tossed through college windows. In 1537 the non-Cuthbert’s students finally came together and declared they had quite enough of being referred to as “that other lot” or “the pseudo-muggles”. They henceforth resolved to leave Oxford and found their own college at that other “university” place over in the east called “Cambridge”. |
The Varsity final of 1567 recorded no less than 3201 fouls, including the destruction of three broomsticks, an attempt to behead the Oxford keeper with a broadsword, the release of a live dragon onto the pitch, and the transfiguration of one of the Cambridge beaters into a turnip, and was the necessary trigger for all out college war.
The final acts of the war were the transformation of most of Cambridgeshire into a swamp, and the retaliatory transfiguration of then Master of St Cuthbert’s, Honorius Fowler, into an orangutan (an impressive achievement, given that the Cambridge student responsible had never actually seen an orangutan, and was aiming for a newt). It was at this point that The Wizards’ Council of Britain declared that enough was enough, and ordered a truce. After lengthy and testy negotiations, it was decided that the only solution was to merge the two colleges together, forming the United College of St Cuthbert-Boltolph’s, or “St CuB’s” for short.
The two sets of college buildings were conjoined via a skilful bit of magical engineering, the muggles of Cambridgeshire were convinced that the area had always been a swamp, and to everyone’s surprise the Master of St Cuthbert’s announced that he rather liked being an orangutan and refused all efforts to change him back. [2] The St CuB’s college coat of arms has featured an orangutan ever since. [1] The magical community has never subscribed to the prejudices of its muggle counterpart, and thus unlike the muggle colleges St Cuthbert’s and St Boltolph’s were open to female students from the beginning. [2] Keen readers may note that the story of Honorius Fowler has been referenced in the fictional “Discworld” novels of author Sir Terry Pratchett, himself of course a St CuB’s alumnus. |