The Peculiar Children Wiki
Register
Advertisement

If it's my waistcoat you're referring to, yes, I admit I am a follower of fashion. Go ahead, have a laugh at old Horace's expense! Call me a dandy if you will, but just because the villagers won't remember what you wear doesn't give you license to dress like a vagabond!

Horace Somnusson, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children


Horace Somnusson is a male peculiar with the peculiarity of having prophetic dreams. He is one of Miss Peregrine's peculiar children.

Biography

Horace's dreams started at age 6, but he didn't realize they were prophetic until the night of May 6, 1918, two years later, when he dreamed about the sinking of the Lusitania and heard about it on the radio the next day.

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Horace made a brief appearance in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.

He first appeared while Jacob was having dinner with the peculiar children, and was the first one to tell Jacob how old he is. Later, Horace is one of the children who goes to the beach, along with Emma, Millard, Bronwyn, and Hugh. He often mentions clothes. When Miss Avocet got attacked, he joined Enoch in teasing Olive and Claire. Near the end of the book, he says he has dreamed about the place where the wights are keeping the ymbrynes and is able to draw it.

Horace's Drawing

Hollow City

Horace catching a pigeon

Horace catching a pigeon in Hollow City

When their boats were tossed by waves at sea, Horace managed to keep hold of his hat.

Horace, along with Fiona, was sent by Emma to gather wood for a fire. However, they returned with no wood, because they couldn't find any wood, and they didn't go in the actual woods because it was too scary ("we heard an owl"). He and Fiona were the ones who alerted the others to the zeppelins. He was also the one who packed food when they left Miss Peregrine's loop, and the one who took money from Miss Peregrine's loop before they left, which allowed them to buy train tickets. Horace was singled out by Mr. White as the weakest of them, but Horace still refused to tell Mr. White where Miss Peregrine was, telling Mr. White that Miss Peregrine was in his "mother's knickers' drawer." Horace was the only one who managed to catch a pigeon when they were looking for the peculiar flock of pigeons, and he later stopped Melina from killing him, Emma, and Jacob, by proving that he was peculiar. He said he dreamed about her and her past life, which suggests that he dreams about more than just the future.

Because of everyone's teasing, Horace wished to join Miss Wren's army to prove that he is not a coward. He is shown to have studied peculiars even more than Millard, mainly because his dreams urge him to.

At the end of the book, Horace was captured along with most of the other children.

Library of Souls

Horace was captured by the wights with most of the other peculiar children. When he saw Jacob, he gave him a scarf, telling him that Miss Peregrine had given him some knitting needles, and that Horace thought being able to knit the scarf had kept him from going mad. He asked Jacob to wear it for luck. Later, it saved Jacob's life, and it was revealed to have been made from peculiar sheep wool.

When Emma didn't receive any more letters from Jacob, she remembered the email Jacob set up for her, and Horace was able to guess the password of the email. He was with the other children at the end of the book at Jacob's house.

A Map of Days

Horace is first mentioned being in Jacob's house with the rest of Miss Peregrine's wards. Later, he decided not to go on the mission to deliver the packages with Jacob, Emma, Millard, Bronwyn and Enoch. He calls Jacob using Miss Peregrine's phone during the middle of their mission to tell them Miss Peregrine has gone searching for them.

The Conference of the Birds

Description

Physical

Go ahead, have a laugh at old Horace's expense! Call me a dandy if you will but just because the villlagers won't remember what you wear doesn't give you license to dress like a vagabond!

Horace, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Horace Somnusson is described to be a pubescent boy. He always wears fancy tail coats and jackets with a black top hat atop his head.

Personality

Horace is very into fashion and clothes, clearly noticeable from the way he dresses and calling himself the only one of Miss Peregrine's wards with any sense of style in Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders. He believes that one should dress well for every occasion.

He is shown to be more of a coward than the other children after they leave Cairnholm, but by the end of Hollow City he has shown that he is a capable individual. He does not always give in to his fear, seen during the peculiars' capture by the wights when he did not betray "Miss Peregrine" (it was really Caul)'s whereabouts, telling the wight "in your mother's knickers drawer" and spitting in the wight's face. He seems to have a practical side, because in Hollow City, he seemed to be the only one of the children who packed food and money when they left Miss Peregrine's Loop. He has a formal sort of character at times. 

Peculiarity

He has prophetic dreams. Gets these great nightmares every so often, which have a disturbing tendency to come true.

Emma Bloom, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Horace's peculiarity is that he has prophetic dreams, meaning that while asleep, his dreams are of the future. He can tell the futures of others more easily if he doesn't know them well, because according to Emma, emotion clouds his vision. In Hollow City, he had a dream about Melina's childhood, which suggests that he dreams about more than just the future.

His power is classified as a mentalist communicator, as he communicates with the future: along with his prophecies being like films in his head, he also describes them as "a bodiless dream-voice speaking to him from he knows not where."

Relationships

Enoch O'Connor

Enoch and Horace are considered as friends. Horace and Enoch slept with their backs to each other in Hollow City, and Horace once teased Enoch.

Jacob Portman

In Library of Souls, Horace knits Jacob a bulletproof scarf that winds up saving his life. Jacob is shown to have a brotherly affection for Horace, while Horace feels Jacob can be a bit of a risk-taker.

Julius Purcell

In The Desolations of Devil's Acre, Horace develops a relationship with Julius, a light-eater. They are acknowledged to be holding hands at least once, and when Julius is injured, Horace stays by his bedside.

Trivia

  • He has a secret pocket in his coat.
  • In Hollow City, it is revealed that Horace has a lucky pillow that is the only thing that keeps him from having his paralyzing nightmares.
  • His last name is probably derived from Somnus, the Roman god of sleep (Greek equivalent = Hypnos).
  • According to the dates of his backstory, it's likely he was born sometime in 1910.
  • In a deleted scene of A Map of Days, Horace is said to be attending Jacob’s school under the alias Harry Sanders. The identity was given to him by the Office of Fakery and Fraudulism in Devil’s Acre.
  • In an Instagram livestream, Ransom Riggs revealed that Horace has written two cookbooks, one titled “Teaching Your Soup to Talk (: A Cookbook)” and the other “Carrots and Other Popular (Orange) Vegetables." Both of these are under "Modern Works of Questionable Merit" in Miss Peregrine's Museum of Wonders, with Carrots and Other Popular Vegetables being self-published.
  • When reading the deleted scenes of A Map of Days, Horace mentions he was born in Oddfordshire, which we can only assume is a county located somewhere in Europe. However, this may be pure product of the author's imagination.
Advertisement