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I adore the idea of the various weird occurrences on the island are caused by Fey, that Owl, probably a Fey.
Ended up having to repost this because of mobile tumblr nonsense, but.
Fun thought: Percy having "obscure antecedents" is really interesting because someone could have just ASKED him when he was built. I feel like Sir Topham Hatt must have done so when he was purchased. In which case, why would that information be concealed from the Thin Clergyman? What motivates Percy (and supposedly Sir Topham) to be cagey about his past?
Well, here are some seemingly unrelated facts:
-Percy has been shown to have some fear of the supernatural, which seems to be pretty uncommon for engines. He also never really seems to grow out of it.
-Percy is pretty accident-prone, and it's not always his fault.
-Sodor feels pretty supernatural in various ways, and given its relation to the Isle of Man, there could very well be fey/fairies or ghosts or both.
My personal headcanon is that Percy was built around the early 1910's, perhaps a year or two before Thomas (which makes sense given that he'd had a rebuild before being purchased by the NWR and brought to Sodor in 1926 or so). More importantly, however, I imagine that he was finished on April 30th, between the hours of 3 and 4 AM. (For our purposes, we'll say April 30th, 1913.)
That's right: Percy was finished on the witching hour of Walpergeis Night. A decent chunk of his misfortune comes from the fact that he's, unfortunately for him, "fey-touched" or otherwise supernaturally connected.
Thus, he can instinctively sense the supernatural, as in it sends shivers through his frames, but he can't see them, and that almost makes it worse: he knows something's there, but he can't see it or otherwise sense it. Plus, when you're close to the supernatural, the supernatural often knows it. I think poor Percy just gets messed with by Things Barely Beyond His Perception sometimes and yeah, that can be pretty stressful. Perhaps Percy's rebuild(s) and oddly chimera-like composition was the result of previous owners quietly trying to break him of this connection/curse(?) by replacing various parts and hoping that enough replacement would dispel the effect. (It didn't, of course, but it was worth a try.)
Of course, Sir Topham, being a good Christian gentleman, would not let ANY of this information slip to the Thin Clergyman. Even if what Percy says is true (and the Sudrian in him says it just might be, even if the Christian in him doesn't want to believe it), nobody can know, especially a man of the cloth. For one, it might lead to unsavory rumors like "the railway is haunted" or "fairies are around." For two, the last thing they need is an exorcism or other such activities happening on their railway, as that would only fuel point 1. So, Sir Topham decides that this information is better left unrecorded, and he'll just pass it along to his son privately when the railway changes hands.
("But Te! Wouldn't the engines count as iron? Wouldn't fey traditionally be unable to do anything to them?" Strictly speaking, it's hard to say. However, even if we go with the most generous interpretation, that being "all iron/steel is bad for fey," I am inclined to believe that at the date and time that Percy was completed, the supernatural forces were strong enough that it didn't matter. Perhaps Percy should count himself lucky; if a human were born under similar circumstances, the supernatural would likely have a much greater grasp upon them. By virtue of being a creature of fire and iron, he inherently resists the worst of it.)
I wonder if my personal outrage at fairies in so many different froms of media being made out to be perfect, pure, cute, and harmless rather than dangerous beings not of this realm is connected to me wanting neurotypicals to leave me alone (through fear or respect if necessary, I don't care) rather than treat me like I am a cute little child that cannot understand anything and never will.
Autistic folks like myself used to be perceived as like changelings and such after all.