by Jack Dann
"The Unicorn" is an excerpt from The Once and Future King, but it also stands alone as an individual short story, and was once published as such by White. As either excerpt or story, though, it remains one of the most sensitive and beautiful renditions of the unicorn theme ever written.
T.H. White died in 1964. The Book of Merlyn, a never-before-published "alternate" ending to The Once and Future King, was published posthumously in 1980.
THE UNICORN
T. H. White
The situation at Dunlothian was complicated. Nearly every situation tended to be when it was connected with King Pellinore, even in the wildest North. In the first place, he was in love—that was why he had been weeping in the boat. He explained it to Queen Morgause on the first opportunity—because he was lovesick, not seasick.
What had happened was this. The King had been hunting the Questing Beast a few months earlier, on the south coast of Gramarye, when the animal had taken to the sea. She had swam away, her serpentine head undulating on the surface like a swimming grass-snake, and the King had hailed a passing ship which looked as if it were off to the Crusades. Sir Grummore and Sir Palomides had been in the ship, and they had kindly turned it round to pursue the Beast. The three of them had arrived on the coast of Flanders, where the Beast had disappeared in a forest, and there, while they were staying at a hospitable castle, Pellinore had fallen in love with the Queen of Flanders' daughter. This was fine so far as it went—for the lady of his choice was a managing, middle-aged, stout-hearted creature, who could cook, ride a straight line, and make beds—but the hopes of all parties had been dashed at the start by the arrival of the magic barge. The three knights had got into it, and sat down to see what would happen, because knights were never supposed to refuse an adventure. But the barge had promptly sailed away of its own accord, leaving the Queen of Flanders' daughter anxiously waving her pocket handkerchief. The Questing Beast had thrust her head out of the forest before they lost sight of land, looking, so far as they could see at the distance, even more surprised than the lady. After that, they had gone on sailing till they arrived in the Out Isles, and the further they went the more lovesick the King had become, which made his company intolerable. He spent the time writing poems and letters, which could never be posted, or telling his companions about the princess, whose nickname in her family circle was Piggy.
A state of affairs like this might have been bearable in England, where people like the Pellinores did sometimes turn up, and even won a sort of tolerance from their fellow men. But in Lothian and Orkney, where Englishmen were tyrants, it achieved an almost supernatural impossibility. None of the islanders could understand what King Pellinore was trying to cheat them out of—by pretending to be himself—and it was thought wiser and safer not to acquaint any of the visiting knights with the facts about the war against Arthur. It was better to wait until their plots had been penetrated.
On top of this, there was a trouble which distressed the children in particular. Queen Morgause had set her cap at the visitors.
"What was our mother at doing," asked Gawaine, as they made their way toward St. Toirdealbhach's cell one morning, "with the knights on the mountain?"
Gaheris answered with some difficulty, after a long pause: "They were at hunting a unicorn."
"How do you do that?"
"There must be a virgin to attract it."
"Our mother," said Agravaine, who also knew the details, "went on a unicorn hunt, and she was the virgin for them."
His voice sounded strange as he made this announcement.
Gareth protested: "I did not know she was wanting a unicorn. She has never said so."
Agravaine looked at him sideways, cleared his throat and quoted: "Half a word is sufficient to the wise man."
"How do you know this?" asked Gawaine.
"We listened."
They had a way of listening on the spiral stairs, during the times when they were excluded from their mother's interest.
Gaheris explained, with unusual freedom since he was a taciturn boy:
"She told Sir Grummore that this King's lovesick melancholy could be dispelled by interesting him in his old pursuits. They were as saying that this King is in the habit of hunting a Beast which has become lost. So she said that they were to hunt a unicorn instead, and she would be the virgin for them. They were surprised, I think."
They walked in silence, until Gawaine suggested, almost as if it were a question: "I was hearing it told that the King is in love with a woman out of Flanders, and that Sir Grummore is married already? Also the Saracen is black in his skin?"
No answer.
"It was a long hunt," said Gareth. "I heard they did not catch one."
"Do these knights enjoy to be playing this game with our mother?"
Gaheris explained for the second time. Even if he were silent, he was not unobservant.
"I do not think they would be understanding at all."
They plodded on, reluctant to disclose their thoughts.
St. Toirdealbhach's cell was like an old-fashioned straw beehive, except that it was bigger and made of stone. It had no windows and only one door, through which you had to crawl.
"Your Holiness," they shouted when they got there, kicking the heavy unmortared stones. "Your Holiness, we have come to hear a story."
He was a source of mental nourishment to them—a sort of guru, as Merlyn had been to Arthur, who gave them what little culture they were ever to get. They resorted to him like hungry puppies anxious for any kind of eatable, when their mother had cast them out. He had taught them to read and write.
"Ah, now," said the saint, sticking his head out of the door. "The prosperity of God on you this morning."
"The selfsame prosperity on you."
"Is there any news at you?"
"There is not," said Gawaine, suppressing the unicorn.
St. Toirdealbhach heaved a deep sigh.
"There is none at me either," he said.
"Could you tell us a story?"
"Thim stories, now. There doesn't be any good in them. What would I be wanting to tell you a story for, and me in my heresies? 'Tis forty years since I fought a natural battle, and not a one of me looking upon a white colleen all that time—so how would I be telling stories?"
"You could tell us a story without any colleens or battles in it."
"And what would be the good of that, now?" he exclaimed indignantly, coming out into the sunlight.
"If you were to fight a battle," said Gawaine, but he left out about the colleens, "you might feel better."
"My sorrow!" cried Toirdealbhach. "What do I want to be a saint for at all, is my puzzle! If I could fetch one crack at somebody with me ould shillelagh"—here he produced a frightful-looking weapon from under his gown—"wouldn't it be better than all the saints in Ireland?"
"Tell us about the shillelagh."
They examined the club carefully, while his holiness told them how a good one should be made. He told them that only a root growth was any good, as common branches were apt to break, especially if they were of crab-tree, and how to smear the club with lard, and wrap it up, and bury it in a dunghill while it was being straightened, and polish it with black-lead and grease. He showed the hole where the lead was poured in, and the nails through the end, and the notches near the handle which stood for ancient scalps. Then he kissed it reverently and replaced it under his gown with a heartfelt sigh. He was play-acting, and putting on the accent.
"Tell us the story about the black arm which came down the chimney."
"Ah, the heart isn't in me," said the saint. "I haven't the heart of a hare. It's bewitched I am entirely."
"I think we are bewitched too," said Gareth. "Everything seems to go wrong."
"There was this one in it," began Toirdealbhach, "and she was a woman. There was a husband living in Malainn Vig with this woman. There was only one little girl that they had between them. One day the man went out to cut in the bog, and when it was the time for his d
inner, this woman sent the little girl out with his bit of dinner. When the father was sitting to his dinner, the little girl suddenly made a cry, 'Look now, father, do you see the large ship out yonder under the horizon? I could make it come in to the shore beneath the coast.' 'You could do that,' said the father. 'I am bigger than you are, and I could not do it myself.' 'Well, look at me now,' said the little girl. And she went to the well that was near there, and made a stirring in the water. The ship came in at the coast."
"She was a witch," explained Gaheris.
"It was the mother was the witch," said the saint, and continued with his story.
" 'Now,' says she, 'I could make the ship be struck against the coast.' 'You could not do that,' says the father. 'Well, look at me now,' says the little girl, and she jumped into the well. The ship was dashed against the coast and broken into a thousand pieces. 'Who has taught you to do these things?' asked the father. 'My mother. And when you do be at working she teaches me to do things with the Tub at home.' "
"Why did she jump into the well?" asked Agravaine. "Was she wet?"
"Hush."
"When this man got home to his wife, he set down his turf-cutter and put himself in his sitting. Then he said, 'What have you been teaching to the little girl? I do not like to have this piseog in my house, and I will not stay with you any longer.' So he went away, and they never saw a one of him again. I do not know how they went on after that."
"It must be dreadful to have a witch for a mother," said Gareth when he had finished.
"Or for a wife," said Gawaine.
"It's worse not to be having a wife at all," said the saint, and he vanished into his beehive with startling suddenness, like the man in the Swiss weather clock who retires into a hole when it is going to be fine.
The boys sat round the door without surprise, waiting for something else to happen. They considered in their minds the questions of wells, witches, unicorns and the practices of mothers.
"I make this proposition," said Gareth unexpectedly, "my heroes, that we have a unicorn hunt of our own!"
They looked at him.
"It would be better than not having anything. We have not seen our Mammy for one week."
"She has forgotten us," said Agravaine bitterly.
"She has not so. You are not to speak in that way of our mother."
"It is true. We have not been to serve at dinner even."
"It is because she has a necessity to be hospitable to these knights."
"No, it is not."
"What is it, then?"
"I will not say."
"If we could do a unicorn hunt," said Gareth, "and bring this unicorn which she requires, perhaps we would be allowed to serve?"
They considered the idea with a beginning of hope.
"St. Toirdealbhach," they shouted, "come out again! We want to catch a unicorn."
The saint put his head out of the hole and examined them suspiciously.
"What is a unicorn? What are they like? How do you catch them?"
He nodded the head solemnly and vanished for the second time, to return on all fours in a few moments with a learned volume, the only secular work in his possession. Like most saints, he made his living by copying manuscripts and drawing pictures for them.
"You need a maid for bait," they told him.
"We have goleor of maids," said Gareth. "We could take any of the maids, or cook."
"They would not come. "
"We could take the kitchenmaid. We could make her to come."
"And then, when we have caught the unicorn which is wanted, we will bring it home in triumph and give it to our mother! We will serve at supper every night!"
"She will be pleased."
"Perhaps after supper, whatever the event."
"And Sir Grummore will knight us. He will say, 'Never has such a doughty deed been done, by my halidome!' "
St. Toirdealbhach laid the precious book on the grass outside his hole. The grass was sandy and had empty snail shells scattered over it, small yellowish shells with a purple spiral. He opened the book, which was a Bestiary called Liber de Natura Quorundam Animalium, and showed that it had pictures on every page.
They made him turn the vellum quickly, with its lovely Gothic manuscript, skipping the enchanting Griffins, Bonnacons, Cocodrills, Manticores, Chaladrii, Cinomulgi, Sirens, Peridexions, Dragons, and Aspidochelones. In vain for their eager glances did the Antalop rub its complicated horns against the tamarisk tree—thus, entangled, becoming a prey to its hunters—in vain did the Bonnacon emit its flatulence in order to baffle the pursuers. The Peridexions, sitting on trees which made them immune to dragons, sat unnoticed. The Panther blew out his fragrant breath, which attracted his prey, without interest for them. The Tigris, who could be deceived by throwing down a glass ball at its feet, in which, seeing itself reflected, it thought to see its own cubs—the Lion, who spared prostrate men or captives, was afraid of white cocks, and brushed out his own tracks with a foliated tail—the Ibex, who could bound down from mountains unharmed because he bounced upon his curly horns—the Yale, who could move his horns like ears—the She-Bear who was accustomed to bear her young as lumps of matter and lick them into whatever shape she fancied afterwards—the Chaladrius bird who, if facing you when it sat on your bedrail, showed that you were going to die—the Hedgehogs who collected grapes for their progeny by rolling on them, and brought them back on the end of their prickles—even the Aspidochelone, who was a large whale-like creature with seven fins and a sheepish expression, to whom you were liable to moor your boat in mistake for an island if you were not careful: even the Aspidochelone scarcely detained them. At last he found them the place at the Unicorn, called by the Greeks, Rhinoceros.
It seemed that the Unicorn was as swift and timid as the Antalop, and could only be captured in one way. You had to have a maid for bait, and, when the Unicorn perceived her alone, he would immediately come to lay his horn in her lap. There was a picture of an unreliable-looking virgin, holding the poor creature's horn in one hand, while she beckoned to some spearmen with the other. Her expression of duplicity was balanced by the fatuous confidence with which the Unicorn regarded her.
Gawaine hurried off, as soon as the instructions had been read and the picture digested, to fetch the kitchen-maid without delay.
"Now then," he said, "you have to come with us on the mountain, to catch a unicorn."
"Oh Master Gawaine," cried the maid he had caught hold of, whose name was Meg.
"Yes, you have. You are to be the bait whatever. It will come and put its head in your lap."
Meg began to weep.
"Now then, do not be silly."
"Oh, Master Gawaine, I do not want a unicorn. I have been a decent girl, I have, and there is all the washing up to do, and if Mistress Truelove do catch me playing at truant I shall get stick, Master Gawaine, that I will."
He took her firmly by the plaits and led her out.
In the clean bog-wind of the high tops, they discussed the hunt. Meg, who cried incessantly, was held by the hair to prevent her from running away, and occasionally passed from one boy to the other, if the one who was holding her happened to want both hands for gestures.
"Now then," said Gawaine. "I am the captain. I am the oldest, so I am the captain."
"I thought of it," said Gareth.
"The question is, it says in the book that the bait must be left alone."
"She will run away."
"Will you run away, Meg?"
"Yes, please, Master Gawaine."
"There."
"Then she must be tied."
"Oh, Master Gaheris, if it is your will, need I be tied?"
"Close your mouth. You are only a girl."
"There is nothing to tie her with."
"I am the captain, my heroes, and I command that Gareth runs back home to fetch some rope."
"That I will not."
"But you will destroy everything, if you do not do so."
"I do
not see why I should have to go. I thought of it."
"Then I command our Agravaine to go."
"Not I."
"Let Gaheris go."
"I will not."
"Meg, you wicked girl, you are not to run away, do you hear?"
"Yes, Master Gawaine. But, oh, Master Gawaine . . ."
"If we could find a strong heather root," said Agravaine, "we could tie her pigtails together, round the other side of it."
"We will do that."
"Oh, oh!"
After they had secured the virgin, the four boys stood round her, discussing the next stage. They had abstracted real boar-spears from the armoury, so they were properly armed.
"This girl," said Agravaine, "is my mother. This is what our Mammy was at doing yesterday. And I am going to be Sir Grummore."
"I will be Pellinore."
"Agravaine can be Grummore if he wants to be, but the bait has got to be left alone. It says so in the book."
"Oh, Master Gawaine, oh, Master Agravaine!"
"Stop howling. You will frighten the unicorn."
"And then we must go away and hide. That is why our mother did not catch it, because the knights stayed with her."
"I am going to be Finn MacCoul."
"I shall be Sir Palomides."
"Oh, Master Gawaine, pray do not leave me alone."
"Hold in your noise," said Gawaine. "You are silly. You ought to be proud to be the bait. Our mother was, yesterday."
Gareth said, "Never mind, Meg, do not cry. We will not let it hurt you."
"After all, it can only kill you," said Agravaine brutally.
At this the unfortunate girl began to weep more than ever.
"Why did you say that?" asked Gawaine angrily. "You always try to frighten people. Now she is at howling more than before."
