In this new involvement for Professor Peter Shandy (Something the Cat Dragged In), MacLeod indulges her penchant for whimsy to a mostly irritating fare-thee-well. Shandy, on loan from Balaclava Agricultural College to a seminar in Wales on How to Contain the Giant Hogweed, travels backward in time with colleagues Daniel Stott and Timothy Ames--to the medieval era, replete with knights, castles, witches, griffins, prithees, mayhaps, and belikes. And, during this trip to never-never-land, Shandy and his buddies befriend banished knight Torchyld; they rescue his gorgeous Syglinde from her castle prison; they return a beloved griffin to King Syfn, solve a royal murder. . . and effect the working of a magic spell to quell the giant hogweed. True, the story does end back in reality with a nicely ironic twist--but only the most undemanding fanciers of larky time-travel will put up with this precious fancy.