Of Lions and Unicorns

by Michael Morpurgo

  To begin with, while the rats swarmed over the rubbish tips on the other side of the river, the Mayor and his corporation saw them as an opportunity for a bit of fun. They made great sport of it, sending out hunting parties on horseback, seeing how many rats their dogs could kill in a day, and which of them could kill the biggest one. They killed hundreds and the more they killed the happier they were. It was just a lark for them – but not for long. Once the rats began to come into town, to find their way into larders, into shops, they realised they could soon be facing starvation in the face. At last they began to take the situation more seriously. Now they went out hunting in deadly earnest.

  For days the Mayor and his corporation hunted down the rats and killed them. But then everything changed.

  I remember the evening it happened. We were watching from the river bank, when we saw the Mayor’s hunting party come galloping back over the bridge into town. Then we saw the rats coming after them, swarming across the bridge in their thousands. The horses had their ears back. They were running for their lives, the dogs in amongst them, baying in terror. I saw the look of panic and horror on the Mayor’s face as he came riding by us. All over town, as the rats poured through the streets, people were barricading themselves in their houses. In the Market Square the vegetable and fruit stalls, the cheese and sausage stalls, were stripped bare. In through the drains they came, in under the eaves, in through even the smallest of holes. In they came. It was an invasion, and within a few days it had become an occupation.

  Everywhere you looked there were rats, in the streets, sitting watching you from window ledges, from the branches of trees. There wasn’t a cat or dog to be seen in the streets. The rats were everywhere. These were angry rats. They’d bite you as soon as look at you. The Mayor and his councillors tried all they knew to get rid of them. They put down traps, but the rats took one look at them, and knew them for what they were. These rats were clever. They were super-rats! The Mayor gave instructions to put rat poison down all over the town. But the rats took one sniff and realised at once what it was. It didn’t fool them. They didn’t touch it.

  So he sent his drummers out into the streets to try to frighten them away. This worked for a while, but as soon as the drummers stopped drumming, the rats came back. The Mayor ordered that fires should be lit in all their nesting holes. He was sure this would drive them away. And it did too, for a little while, but as soon as the fires went out, the rats came back. It was hopeless. There seemed to be nothing he could do to rid Hamelin town of the rats, nothing anyone could do. All they could think of was how to protect themselves and their children from the rats. As it turned out, it happened to be me that gave the Mayor the idea of how this might be done.

  It is New Year’s Eve and the Knights of the Round Table are about to begin feasting when a terrible adversary arrives. Camelot has been invaded by the fearsome Green Knight …

  hink yourself back in years, my friends – not as far as ancient Greece and the siege of Troy, nor as far as Romulus and Remus and Rome, but to Britain after the Romans had gone, a Britain in the early mystical mists of her most turbulent times, striving always to keep the invader at bay, and to make of herself a place where people could live out their lives in peace and safety and prosperity. Many kings came and went, many invaders and conquerors, and as the battles raged throughout the land there was great grief and suffering, and terrible hunger too.

  Then, as the myth goes – and whether it is the myth of the story or the myth of history is for you to decide – then there came a king who would lead the people of Britain out of the darkness of their misery and into the sunlight at last. His name was Arthur. Never had there been a braver, more noble king than this. Saved at birth, hidden away, then plucked from obscurity and chosen to be High King by the magical powers of Merlin, he drew the sword from the famous stone and not long afterwards gathered about him at Camelot all those great Knights, who had goodness at heart, who shunned all greed and pride, the finest and fiercest Knights in the kingdom, who fought only for right and for the wellbeing of others and of their kingdom. You know their names as well as I do from stories that have come down to us through the ages: Sir Lancelot, Sir Percivale, Sir Galahad, Sir Tristram – dozens of them, too many to be listed here – and Sir Gawain, of course, who was the High King’s nephew.

  My story is of Gawain. Of all the tales of the Knights of the Round Table his is the most magical and the one I most love to tell. For Gawain, as you will shortly see, was as honest and true as a Knight of the Round Table should be, as kind and chivalrous and courteous, as brave as any other, and stronger in battle than any, except Lancelot. But Gawain was headstrong too, and more than a little vain; and as this story will show, sometimes not as honest or true as he would want himself to have been: much like many of us, I think.

  So, to his story, the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

  It was Christmas time at Camelot, that time of the year when all King Arthur’s Knights gathered to celebrate the birth of their Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. For fifteen joyous days, after holy Mass each morning there was nothing but feasting and dancing and singing, and hunting and jousting too. Jousting was the favourite sport, each of them striving to unseat the mighty Sir Lancelot – but rarely succeeding of course. And all was done in fun, in a spirit of great comradeship, for they were happy to be together once more, at this blessed time. During the year these lords were so often parted from one another, and from their ladies, as they rode out through the kingdom on their dangerous missions. So this was a time when love and friendship was renewed, a time to celebrate with their young king all their achievements and their great and good purpose: to bring peace to the land, and make of it a kingdom as near to a heaven on earth as had never before been achieved in Britain, nor in any other land, come to that.

  On New Year’s Eve, after evening Mass had been said in the chapel and generous new year’s gifts exchanged, the High King and Guinevere, his queen, came at last into the great hall where all the lords and ladies were waiting to dine. No one could begin the feasting until they came, of course, so as you can imagine they cheered them to the rafters when they saw them. Guinevere had never looked so gloriously beautiful as she did that evening, and there were gasps of admiration from around the hall, from lords and ladies alike.

  With Arthur on one side of her and Gawain on the other, Guinevere sat down at the high table, which was set on a splendid dais draped all about with silk and richly hung with the finest tapestries from Toulouse and Turkestan. Then, with drummers drumming and pipers piping, the servants came in carrying the food on great silver plates, piling each table high with roasted meat, capons and venison and pork, and fish fresh-baked in sea salt, and baskets of crusty bread, and steaming soups. Truly there was enough to feed the five thousand, though there were only five hundred there to eat it. As they poured out the wine and ale, filling every goblet to the brim, the scents of the feast that lay before them filled the succulent air, and their nostrils too, so that, their appetites whetted, they were all longing now to begin. But the High King and his queen sat there, not touching their food nor their drink either. Everyone knew that if they did not begin, then out of respect nor could anyone else. And everyone knew also why it was that the king was refusing to let the feast begin.

  The great hall fell silent as Arthur rose to his feet. “You know the custom,” he began. “I will not take one mouthful, nor one sip of wine, until I am told of some new and stirring tale, some wonderfully outlandish adventure, some extraordinary feat of arms so far unheard of. And it must be true too. I don’t want you to go making it up just so you can get at the food – some of you are good at tall stories.” They laughed at that, but as they looked around it became clear that none of them had a tale to tell. “What?” cried the High King. “What? Not one of you? Well then I see we must all go hungry. Such a pity. Isn’t it strange how food you cannot eat always smells so wonderful? It needn’t be a story, of course. It could be some new happen
ing, some weird and wondrous event. If I can’t have a story, then you’d better hope, as I do, that some stranger will come striding in here right now and challenge us face to face. That would do. I’d be happy with that. Then we could all begin our feasting before the food gets cold.” And with that he sat down.

  At that very same moment, just as the High King had finished speaking, they heard a sudden roaring of wind, the rattle of doors and windows shaking and then, outside, the clatter of a horse’s hooves on stone. The great doors burst open, and into the hall rode the most awesome stranger anyone there had ever set eyes on. For a start he was a giant of a man, taller by two heads than any knight there, but not lanky and long, not at all. No, shoulder to shoulder he was as broad as any three men stood side by side, and his legs were massive – like tree trunks, they were. And you could see the man’s arms were about as thick and strong as his legs. But that wasn’t all. This giant was green: green from head to toe. Yes, bright green, I tell you, as green as beech leaves in summer when the sun shines through. And when I say the man was green, I don’t just mean his clothes. I mean him. His face. Green. His hands. Green. The hair that hung down to his shoulders. Green. Only his eyes, horror of horrors, glowed red, blood red and glaring from under his heavy eyebrows, which were as green as the rest of him. Everyone in that hall simply gaped at him, at his hugeness and his greenness, and at his grimness too, for the man had a thunderous scowl on his face that struck terror into every heart.

  Grim he may have been, but the giant was gorgeous too – if such an apparition can ever be said to be gorgeous. He wore a tunic of green velvet with buttons of gleaming gold. Stirrups and spurs were all of gold, both encrusted with the brightest emeralds of the deepest green. And his horse! His warhorse was a monster of a creature – he had to be, just to carry this giant. The horse was green too, green from nose to hoof, from mane to tail. He was pawing at the ground, tossing his head, foaming at his bit; at least the foam was white. He looked every bit as bad-tempered as his master. They suited each other, those two.

  Yet fierce though he seemed, the knight in green wore no war helmet and no armour either. He held no shield before him, and carried no spear, not even a sword at his side. Instead, the hand clutching the reins held a sprig of holly – green, naturally – which might have been laughable had everyone not already noticed what he was carrying in his other hand. It was an axe, but it was no ordinary battle-axe. This weapon was a real head-cruncher. Yet the handle was most delicately carved – bright green, of course, as was the cord that looped about it and the tassels that hung from it. Only the huge blade itself was not green. Curved like a crescent moon at the cutting edge, it was made of polished steel – a hideous widow-maker if ever there was one. Even the dogs, usually so fierce with any stranger, shrank back whining under the tables, their tails between their legs.

  This well-known tale begins with the parents of Hansel and Gretel, a happy young couple who receive a visit from a most unwelcome stranger …

  or Gabriel and Lisette, every day seemed fine and sunny. They loved one another deeply, and of course they hoped and believed, as all young couples do, that they would live happily ever after. Life seemed as perfect as it could be. Everyone called them Gabriel the Good and Lisette the Lovely. Very soon they were blessed with two wonderful children, Hansel, and Gretel, his little sister. They all lived together in a little thatched cottage on the edge of the forest. Here, they could easily gather enough firewood to cook their food, and to keep themselves warm through the winter. They could grow all the vegetables they needed in the field of sweet earth. They had eggs from the hens and milk from the cow that grazed on the lush grass in the meadow. They gathered fruit and berries and nuts. The river teemed with salmon and sea trout and sometimes, for feast days, Gabriel would bring back a deer from the forest. They were as happy as any family could ever hope to be. Truly it seemed that God must be smiling down on them.

  Then, one fine and sunny day, all that changed. Something wicked came out of the forest, and she wasn’t a wolf. She was worse than the worst wolf ever could be. She was a witch, a warty old witch, with gnarled skin like ancient treebark, a nose like a crabclaw, and her eyes glowed red, red as blood. Like all witches she was horribly cruel. Her greatest pleasure was to use her evil powers, all her wicked spells and enchantments, to cause as much mischief and suffering and grief as she possibly could. And this witch often didn’t look like a witch at all. It was nothing for her to change herself into anything or anyone she wanted to be. But what she yearned for, as year by year she became older and uglier, as she ached more and more in her bones, as her eyesight grew dim and clouded with age, was to be young and beautiful. Above everything else, she longed to be loved.

  When this gruesome old witch first happened to peep in through the cottage window and saw the family gathered inside, she came as a magpie, a cackling magpie, knocking on their windowpane. The children at once ran out and threw her some breadcrumbs, because they thought she might be hungry. And she was hungry too, but not for bread. She was hungry for something else entirely. Even as a magpie she could see only dimly. But that was enough. From the moment she first set her eyes on Gabriel, she loved him – loved him completely and utterly. And from the moment she first saw Lisette, she hated her just as completely, just as utterly. This woman had everything she so desperately wanted. She was radiantly beautiful, and she was so obviously loved and adored by everyone around her.

  It’s quite simple, thought the witch. I shall find a way to get rid of her. I shall take everything she has, her whole family. Then I shall have all I want. I shall be young and beautiful, even more beautiful than she is. I shall have Gabriel’s love, and the love of his children too.

  And what this wicked old witch wanted she always had, and never by fair means, always foul, the foulest means imaginable. Cruelty was her special speciality.

  The next day Hansel and Gretel were down by the rushing river, by the stepping stones, helping their mother with the washing, as they often did. “You’ve worked hard enough for one morning, children,” said Lisette. “You go off and play now, but not in the forest, mind. You know I don’t like you playing there. There are wolves in the forest. Stay close to the house.” So Hansel and Gretel kissed their dear mother goodbye, and ran off to play. High above them in the great oak tree, a magpie sat on a branch, quite unnoticed, and watched, and waited.

  It was so easy. Once the children had gone, the magpie flew down and hopped silently towards Lisette who was still busy at her washing by the river’s edge. It was nothing for the magpie to change herself, right there and then, into a beautiful young woman with green eyes and rose-red lips and chestnut-brown hair, nothing to cast a wicked spell on poor unsuspecting Lisette. “Be a tree,” she whispered. “Be a tree, a weeping willow tree. Watch and weep. Watch and weep. All that you have, I will take. All that you are, I will be.” And Lisette was turned, right there and then, into a weeping willow tree.

  It was nothing for the witch, now this beautiful young woman, to throw herself into the river, to scream and shout, “Help me! Help me! She is drowning! She is drowning!” By the time Gabriel and the children came running, Lisette was gone, and instead they found a beautiful stranger, clambering exhausted and half drowned out of the water. “The river was too fast,” she cried. “I did all I could, but I couldn’t save her. She was swept away.”

  They searched and searched, but they could find no trace of Lisette, except the washing still left there on the river bank. They were all far too upset to notice that there was another weeping willow tree now growing near the very spot where Lisette had been washing their clothes. They did not hear it sighing for them in the breeze, crying for them in the wind. As for the beautiful stranger whom they all believed had nearly given her own life to try and save Lisette, Gabriel carried her home to their cottage and took her inside to look after her. She hardly had the strength to whisper her name. “Belladonna,” she breathed. “I am Belladonna.”

  They
gave her some dry clothes – Lisette’s clothes seemed to fit her perfectly – and then Gabriel sat her down and gave her some piping hot soup. “Thank you,” whispered Belladonna, and she looked deep into his eyes. Close to, she could see him a little better now, and he was even more handsome than she had thought. It seemed to good, kind Gabriel that she was still far too weak to leave, so he laid her down by the fire to rest. And there she slept (or pretended to sleep). She slept for days and days. And whilst she slept Gabriel looked down at her and, despite his grief for Lisette, he was soon completely enchanted. He thought she must be the bravest and, apart from Lisette of course, the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world.

  Because of this, because of all she had done to try to save Lisette, and especially because she seemed so kind to the two children, it was only natural for Gabriel to ask her to stay on with them for a while. It was all turning out just as Belladonna had hoped and planned. And of course, the longer she stayed, the more bewitched Gabriel became. She’s so lovely, he told himself. We could be happy together. Hansel and Gretel would have a new mother, and I would have a new wife.

  When, a year or so later, he asked her to marry him, she was overjoyed. She threw her arms round his neck and kissed him. “I do love you so much,” she said, “I’ll make you the best wife. And I shall be the best mother to the children too. I love them so much – so much I could eat them.”

  On their wedding day, with everyone there, all their friends and family, with Hansel playing the flute and Gretel the fiddle, Gabriel and the beautiful Belladonna danced on the village green till the sun went down. There was hardly a whisper of wind that night, but still the weeping willow down by the river sighed and moaned all night long, so loud that neither Gabriel nor Belladonna could sleep.