Just Try To Look Away From This Absurdly Flat Mouse Found In A 17th-Century Book

Well, that’s one way to get rid of a pest and your pesky Latin homework all in one fell blow. 

The Latin textbook featured above, published in 1684, became an unlikely tomb for a mouse when 19th-century students at the Salisbury Cathedral School in the U.K. put their learning supplies to an unconventional use. The textbook and mouse are preserved now at the Cathedral library, along with other snippets of the printed word past , such as manuscripts handwritten on vellum nearly a thousand years ago.

If you want to see the adorably preserved corpse in person, head to Salisbury Cathedral for a guided tour of the library, which this month opened to the general public for the first time. In the past, you would have needed a valid academic institution behind you and a serious research purpose for your visit. (Does “I need to see a perfectly flat rodent with my own two eyes before I die” count? Hey, it does now!)

Otherwise, take a gander at a few more angles of the dearly departed mouse, and other Salisbury Cathedral library treasures, below.