Professor Tethra Hardwick along with his old school chum, the Comisanan Vatican secret envoy, Rollo Pecorino Bernardosa, reveals even more of Cumbria's hidden past. With the aid of Franz Mesmer's gold watch and the brothers Potts - Frank 'Fuss' Potts, Wiggonby College's librarian and cartographer, and Digby 'Digger' Potts the imprisoned archaeologist and former member of the Freemantle Felons Cricket Team - they discover the true extent and reason for Cumbria's Stone and Bronze Age megalithic monuments.
Sadly, two casualties of this endeavour are the Professor's PA, Chibb Swaledale and his parrot, Painful, who is later renamed after Neville Chamberlain's toucan. Not in the least downhearted by what his GP, Dr Doonowt, called a 'virus', Brother Chibb then sets up a scriptorium in the college, resulting in the production of a number of illuminated letters and a map of St Cuthbert's 1,200-mile and seventeen-year post-mortem journey.
Stimulated by Brother Chibb and Rollo's revelations, Professor Tethra then embarks on another joint project - to discover what happened to Cumbria's twenty-plus monasteries, abbeys, priories and nunneries. All this and many other interesting anecdotes - like the sad poem concerning the fate of John Milton's avian companion - are presented for the reader's delectation in The Canticle of Rollo Pecorino Bernardosa.