The Unicorn and the Lion

The Unicorn and the Lion


Red sprang from his pure white flank as the unicorn fled for his life. The lion hounded him, clawing at his legs, his tail, until at last the unicorn was miles from his forest home. A clear, sparkling spring appeared before him, and with desperation, he leapt across the shining water. Foam clung to his lips, and his legs gave out as he landed on the far shore. Seeing that sight, the lion laughed.
“Very well, I am weary of chasing you. I shall take your forest kingdom in exchange for your life.”
The unicorn lay panting for breath on the stony shore, his blood staining his white body.
“Please do not take my forest. Its many creatures need me to heal the wood and their ills. It is a blessed place only so long as I remain.”
“Cross the water to reclaim it and I shall kill you,” said the lion. “I do not fear such as you.”
“What do you fear?” the unicorn wondered. The lion laughed.
“No beast is any threat to me save Man. Only Man has the strength to fight me and the boldness to wear my skin as a cloak.”
Too weary to rise, the unicorn could only watch as the lion stalked the way he had come. When the lion and his laughter had faded into the tall grass, the unicorn cast his eyes down at his own reflection in the clear water. It was a gentle face he saw reflected there. No fierceness, no courage.
Without his presence, the forest would grow old and dark and twisted. Without his presence, the sylphs, undines, gnomes, and even the salamanders would fade and disappear. The glades would not shine in gold during the day and silver at night. The rabbits’ and foxes’ fur would lose their silkiness, the birdsong would devolve into mere chirping.
The unicorn looked to the torn skin on his legs. He could not defeat the lion and regain the forest.
He fears man alone, the unicorn thought, I must discover the secret to man’s strength and his boldness. Armed with such knowledge, he might be able to chase the lion from his home and restore the forest once more. Summoning his will, the unicorn rose to his weakened feet and gazed down into the water. He knew that men desired his horn for its power, so he could not learn from them in his natural form. He plunged into the water, and a pale man with hair as white as starlight emerged after.


The countess sat upon her gilded picnic chair, sipping a sweet rosé in the clean glow of morning, as she had always done since the death of her husband. As she contemplated the lake where she had spent her younger days sailing, she saw a man gliding towards her through the trees. When he had come close, she saw that he was quite naked.
“You there!” she shouted. With an elegant flick of her wrist, she summoned her armed guard to her side. “Stranger! Have you been robbed? I’ll have no robbers on my roads! Speak, man!”
“Robbed?” the stranger wondered, “Of what?”
“Your clothes, man! Haven’t you any sense at all?”
The stranger’s dark blue eyes drank in the sight of her and her guards, before he regarded himself, as though seeing himself for the first time.
“Is it customary to have clothes?” the stranger wondered.
Ah, me, though the countess, It is a fool I have mistaken for a man of breeding. I had thought by the softness of his hair and his face that he might be genteel.
“Of course,” the countess retorted, “Cover yourself, for heaven’s sake!”
The stranger turned in a slow circle, his eyes searching the foliage all around. The sight amused her so that the countess laughed for the first time since she had wed. Her guards knelt beside her in consternation at the strange sound their lady made.
“Stranger, what is your name?” the countess wondered.
“My name?” the stranger asked. He ceased searching for clothing in the ferns and grass and cast his eyes instead at the treetops.
“It must be Fool, for I have never seen anyone so foolish as you. See here, you have brought a smile to my face, something I have not worn in years. As you have given me something new to wear, it is only fitting that I give you something to wear in turn.”
So saying, she unclasped the velvet cloak with golden tassels from the shoulders of her nearest guard. She waved for her guard to give it as a gift.
“Thank you,” said the stranger, and he clumsily draped the treasure across his own shoulders. “Is this the skin of a lion?”
“Fool, ask me no more questions today,” said the countess, “But be on your way.”
And so the stranger went, without so much as a bow of deference to her.


The dashing rogue rolled the blade of grass back and forth from one side of his mouth to the other. It was a beautiful day, and very warm. He had a sack of valuables over his shoulder, and others’ coins in his purse.
As he strolled down the open road, he spotted a white thing, like a cloud, upon the dust before him. As he drew nearer, the haze could no longer obscure the pale figure with shining white hair and a fine velvet cloak. The sight of the cloak drew the rogue’s eyes like a magpie to any glittering thing.
“Good day!” he called to the pale man.
“It is,” was the reply.
“Where are you travelling, friend?” wondered the rogue.
“Where?” the pale man considered his words a moment. “I wish to learn how to defeat lions.”
“Lions? There are none in these parts. They have all been chased out years ago! Nothing to learn now! Say, where are your shoes, man?”
The pale man cocked his head.
“I have never been shod,” he replied, “Nor would I want to be.”
The rogue doubted it. The pale man’s feet were lily white and soft as a maiden’s. He could not have walked on them his whole life without shoes.
He is confused, though the rogue to himself, He has suffered an illness or injury, and forgotten himself. It should be no trouble to get that cloak from him.
“Aren’t you terribly hot in that old thing?” the rogue asked, pointing at the cloak.
“It is customary to have clothing,” the pale man answered.
“Certainly it is, my good man! But in this heat, would you not rather have something cooler? Look at my shirt, do you see how thin it is? Why, it even has holes here at the elbows and in the sleeves to let in the breeze. I could not bear to let you swelter in such a thing! Here, take my shirt in exchange before you faint from the heat.”
“You are very kind,” said the pale man.
“I am no kinder than anyone would be if they saw someone in such need!” said the rogue.
“What of you, wouldn’t the heat be unbearable for you as well?” wondered the pale man.
“Oh, what a gentle soul!” the rogue said, “Listen, how noble! To concern yourself over a poor man like me! Never fear, sir, I shall bear it, for it seems to me your need is greater.”
“Noble? I?” the pale man wondered.
“Certainly, you are as noble as any man who ever was! Now, give me your cloak and I shall give you my shirt.”
The pale man slowly, clumsily doffed the cloak.
“Odds bodkins! Well, this will not do,” said the rogue, and he reached into his sack and pulled out a pair of pantaloons. He passed them and the shirt to the pale man, then ran his hands over the fine velvet garment he had won, as smooth and soft as ermine.
“You are very generous,” said the pale man.
“Not I,” said the rogue, “No, not I. You are. Farewell, generous friend, and thank you!”
The rogue continued down the road.


The old man groaned and gazed across the river. He had crossed it hundreds of times before, but it had rained so much, and he had twisted his ankle on a slippery rock. He could not possibly ford it in his frail condition.
“It has been a long life,” he remarked to the stones and the gray clouds, “But could I not have died at my hut?”
“But you have not died.”
The old man turned, amazed at the quiet step of the fair stranger who stood beside him. It was a strange young man with hair whiter than his own, and a silky beard like a goat, but ragged clothes.
“Are you a phantasm? The ghost of some drowned spirit come to torment me?” wondered the old man. The fair youth blinked without understanding.
“I am no phantom. Why do you lie on these rocks in this weather?”
“The rain swelled the water, and lightning struck the tree which tethered the rope I use to ford this stream,” the old man answered, “I tried my luck against the water, but it proved stronger and now I cannot walk at all.”
“Why must you cross this water?”
“My hut lies across it.”
“Why cross to this side in the first place, if your home is over there?” The fair youth tilted his head, “Were you driven from your home?”
“No. I need wood to sell, or I will have nothing to eat. Are you simple, boy?”
“Hmm,” said the fair youth. He gazed across the river. “It is not far. I can carry you across.”
“The water is stronger than it looks,” the old man retorted.
“It is only what anyone would do if they saw someone in such need,” the fair youth replied, and knelt beside the elder.
“Where do you live that you know no other kinds of people?” the old man grunted, “The world hasn’t got a thimbleful of kindness for the poorest, sorriest soul that crawls on it.”
The fair youth looked amazed.
“Is that true? I have only met kind people.”
“Then you are blessed,” said the old man.
The fair youth had nothing to say to that, but he took the old man and his bundle of wood on his back and stepped into the river. The water rushed against his legs, but he hesitated only for a moment before he strode confidently forward. When they had reached the very middle, and the water climbed to his thighs, the fair youth slipped, and he and old man went down into the water. The old man thought he would drown for certain, injured as he was, for the river became quite deep just a little downstream, but the youth had strong hands, which pulled him from the water and bore him to the far shore.
“You have done me so much kindness!” the old man marveled, “Please, come with me to my hut. You can dry yourself there, and share my supper.”
“I have not eaten well for days,” said the youth, as though disappointed.
The youth carried the old man to his hut, and they dined on a stew of mushrooms and nuts.
“What has happened to your skin?” wondered the youth when they had finished.
“What do you mean?” the old man asked.
“It is not so smooth,” the youth answered.
“Haven’t you ever seen someone my age before? You get wrinkled when you get older. Look at you! Your skin is as smooth as a child’s! Where are you from? Who are you?”
“I’ve been called Fool, but I’ve also been called Kind. I do not know which is the name I should take.”
“What name did your parents give you?”
“My parents?”
“Fool it is, then,” said the old man, “Even if you were a foundling or an orphan or raised in the forest by birds and wolves you’d know what those were. But Kind, too, for you did me a kindness without which I might have died of the cold.”
The youth regarded the old man’s twisted ankle, but said nothing.
The old man woke that night when the youth touched his ankle. For a moment, he saw a glow on the youth’s forehead, and that very moment his injury was healed.
“By the Great Mountain!” said the old man, “You are more Fool than anything! You are no human at all!”
The youth stared, as a deer frozen with surprise.
“Why have you taken human form?! You will be found out! Or worse, you will be lost!”
The unicorn in human form only stared. The old man could see it now, despite the gloom—a single ruby upon the youth’s forehead, which his thick white hair hid from sight.
“That stone,” the old man said, and pointed to it, “I’ve heard that unicorns have it in their horns.”
“We die if we lose the stone,” the unicorn explained. “It connects the horn to us.”
“Don’t explain such things to people,” the old man scolded.
“Why not?”
“Why would you tell anyone how to kill you?”
“Many things can kill me,” said the unicorn. “I have taken human form because I wish to learn how to do battle with a lion.”
“No. You mustn’t,” the old man told him, “Lions are your natural enemy. The only way to change that would unmake you.”
“But lions fear man?” the unicorn said.
“All animals who know man fear man. You should, too.”
“I wish to learn how to make a lion fear me as well.”
“It is impossible for your kind. Please, leave your foolish mission. You will be poorer for it.”
“To be honest,” said the unicorn, “I do not see why animals fear man. They have only been kind to me.”
“Kind? Bah,” said the old man. “How?”
“A woman gave me the name Fool and clothes,” said the unicorn, “Because I made her wear a smile.”
“She laughed at you as one would a jester, and gave you payment for the entertainment.”
“Then a man on the road traded me better clothes for the cloak, taking that burden on himself.”
“How’s that? You’re wearing rags. What did you trade for them?”
“A cloak that was as soft as down, in a beautiful color.”
“You were robbed, then! You traded a fortune for rags!”
“But it was a kindness, for the cloak was too warm, and these clothes suit me much better.”
“Oh, you understand nothing, you fool,” said the old man, “Go back to where you belong, forget battling lions and anything you know of man.”
“Why would you tell me to?”
“As a kindness.”
“Hmm.”


The next morning, the unicorn in human form had not left.
“Nor will I until I learn how to battle a lion,” he said when the old man prodded him.
“You will not learn that secret from me, but I worry if I let you out into the world on your own, some misfortune will befall you. Stay here with me a while, I will house and feed you.”
“Man is very kind,” said the unicorn to himself. “Yet I do not understand why that should frighten lions.”
He stayed with the old man, who taught him to fetch fallen wood to sell for cloth or tallow or anything else they needed. They foraged together for mushrooms and nuts to eat, and wild herbs to season their stews. All the time, the old man told the unicorn to return, but the unicorn knew he could not until he had learned the secret to his enemy’s weakness. The unicorn crossed the river each day to gather wood and food, so the old man kept the house.
One day, the unicorn returned to find the old man lying on his face near the line where they hung their laundry. When the unicorn went to see what was the matter, the old man was dead.
The unicorn considered this fact. Humans grew old and died, then, as did all the animals in the forest. He did not know what old age was, though he supposed he must have lived for a long time. He did not age like the animals did. In that sense he had more in common with the sylphs, undines, gnomes, and salamanders which dwelt in his forest.
He regretted that the old man had died, but even a unicorn cannot raise the dead, so he left the old man so that crows and vultures could eat. He could see no reason why such a sad turn of events should not serve the happiness of others if it could.


The unicorn followed the road once more. He missed his forest, but what could he do until he learned how to recover it? So he pressed on.
The road climbed a hill, passing a tree that sat at the top. As the unicorn reached the top, he saw a maiden sitting beneath the tree, spreading out eggs in her apron. When he spotted her nut brown hair, rosy cheeks dotted with freckles, and the roundness of her chin, he felt a most peculiar feeling. In that moment, he remembered that maidens were a danger to his species. Many of his kind had been lured to their doom by the lure of their innocence, so he had heard, though he was not certain how.
He stood there, frozen with uncertainty and fear, until the maiden noticed him. She glanced at him, and as she turned her head, he saw that the other side of her face, which had been hidden from his eyes, was melted and red and hideous to behold. The maiden wrapped a scarf around her head and face, gathered her eggs, and darted down to a meadow that lay below the hill. The unicorn watched her until she vanished from his sight. Once she had gone, he supposed he should be pleased that she ran from him, because he did not know what she might do to him if he drew near.
The road took him to a place the likes of which he had never seen before. There were huts just like the old man’s, but larger, and there were so many of them that there was no room for trees or bushes, only the many roads that went between the huts. The humans stared at him as he went, and he wondered why.
At last he reached an open space where the humans had great stores of food: apples, lettuce, eggs, bread. They asked each other to take the food. As the unicorn looked over the wealth before him, he noticed a child with a twisted leg and his eyes covered by a cloth holding out an empty bowl to no one as he sat on the ground.
“What are you doing?” the unicorn asked him.
“Please, good man, can you spare a coin, or some food?” the child wondered.
The unicorn looked to the apples and bread. He thought it strange that if the child needed food or money that no one would give him any, but perhaps they had not noticed the boy in all the commotion. The unicorn fetched a loaf of bread to give to the boy.
“Hey! You going to pay for that?”
The unicorn was hazily familiar with the concept of paying for things. He had traded his cloak for clothing, and the old man traded his wood for supplies from travelers. He considered what he had to give.
“Here, I have a shirt that is very cool in the heat,” said the unicorn.
“You pay for it or else,” said the man who stood by all the bread. The unicorn took off his shirt and held it out. The man by the bread threw the shirt in the unicorn’s face and tore the bread from his hand. Before the unicorn could think, something struck him in the head. He reeled with surprise, but the shirt still obscured his vision, and another blow knocked him down. Suddenly the blows came rapidly, and the unicorn, bewildered, could only huddle on the ground.
“Heaven’s sake, it was just a loaf of bread! Here, a ha’penny. And I’ll take that, then, thank you.”
The blows stopped coming, and the unicorn untangled the shirt. The maiden whose disfigured face he had spotted earlier stood over him. She held out a small coin, which the man with the bread accepted, then he tossed the bread to her. The maiden caught the loaf, slipped it into her basket, and knelt beside the unicorn.
“You’re a strange-looking stranger. Down on your luck, eh? Here.” She offered him the loaf of bread. Confused, the unicorn accepted it, then delivered it to the boy. When he turned to leave, he spotted the maiden watching him.
“Hang on a tic, you stole it to give to Little Bart?” the maiden wondered. “Haven’t you got any sense at all?”
The unicorn did not want to answer her. Yet, she had been kind to him.
“Can’t you talk?” the maiden asked.
“I can.’”
“Well, in that case, you’re welcome. But don’t go doing anything that foolish again. I only happened to sell all my eggs and have some money on me. Besides, you won’t find anyone else so willing to help you.”
This had been the unicorn’s first experience with violence from a human. Yet the girl was still kind to him.
“Why did he attack me?” the unicorn asked.
“Because you stole his bread, of course,” said the maiden. “Haven’t you got any sense?”
The unicorn supposed he must have missed something in learning of trade.
“Look, you seem a bit lost. If you haven’t got any money, you could help me around the house in exchange for a meal or two,” said the maiden.
The unicorn agreed. The maiden lived at the edge of a wood. Her hut was larger than the old man’s, and she kept geese, ducks and chickens. She explained that she grew roots and herbs, flowers, and foraged for special plants from the wood to trade with the others.
“Why do you live so far from them?” the unicorn wondered.
“This,” she touched her melted cheek.
“Why should that keep you so far from them?”
“My father was a wealthy man, but an evil drunk. He put my face in the fire. The others hate me for it.”
“I don’t understand, why should they hate you for such a thing?”
“He was a wealthy man, an important man. What loving father would do such a thing to his darling daughter? They had to decide if their beloved friend was a devil, or if his child was. Their friend paid their tabs at the pub, so it was easier to think the child was the devil. So I am.”
The unicorn wondered at such thinking. He had seen that men could sometimes be cruel, but he did not understand why. The unicorn helped her to flock her ducks and geese to and from the pond her father had dug in the nearby meadow. The water was green and brown, and the dragonflies danced on the surface. He helped her to sell her eggs and herbs in the village, and discovered that some of the men and boys harassed her. The unicorn was helpless in the face of their cruel words, but after some time he noticed they spoke less and less often to the maiden.
“It’s on account of you escorting me,” she explained, “You look hale enough to be trouble for them, perhaps.”
“Hmm.”
When he had lived with her for some time, the unicorn asked her about lions.
“No lions here. But you want to know how we drove them out? It was by being better at what they do than they are.”
“What’s that?”
“Hunting them more than they could hunt us.”
This answer troubled the unicorn. He was no hunter, and he doubted he could be.
“Is there no other way?”
“I don’t know. Maybe if lions know to fear us they would run away at just the sight of us, but you can’t count on that. Sometimes only violence stops violence.”
“Why do you say so?”
“My father. He only stopped when my mother dashed his brains out with a brick.”
The unicorn was silent.


He and the maiden lived alongside the ducks and geese and chickens, living so harmoniously he almost forgot his forest. As they came home one day, a boy threw a rotten apple at the maiden. It did her no harm, yet it made her sad. While she slept, he healed her face. It seemed the mark that the others despised, and what else could he do when she had been so kind to him?
She screamed the next morning when she beheld her face in her wash basin.
“What cruel trick is this?!” she demanded, tears in her eyes.
“I thought it might please you,” the unicorn told her, confused.
“You did this?” the maiden demanded, “How? Who are you?”
With no other explanation he could give, he showed her his ruby, and the maiden covered her mouth.
“Oh, you fool,” she said, “You poor, beautiful fool.”
“I’m sorry. I thought it would help you.”
The maiden wiped away her tears, but she smiled at him. Her eyes sparkled like clear water and he felt that same strange feeling that had warned him away from her at the first. She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. He wanted to sleep in her arms, and so he did.
The unicorn continued to dwell with her, though he did not ask any further about lions, and thought less and less of his forest. She covered her face with her shawl when she went into town so that the others might not see that she had been healed.
The leaves were red when a stiff gust of wind caught her shawl and tore it from her face. In that moment, the young woman’s face was revealed to the men and boys who had harassed her, and they stared, amazed.
Though she covered herself, the unicorn thought that they must have seen.
“I hope not,” said the young woman. “I pray not.”
That night, the men and boys kicked down the door and stormed inside.
“What have you done, witch?” they demanded, “What magic have you woven?”
“It is a miracle,” she answered, “Nothing more. The sun smiled on my suffering and burned away the wound.”
They did not believe her, and when one struck her and threw her against the hearth, the unicorn pushed the man. They scuffled, the man struck the unicorn more than once in the face before the unicorn threw him against the bricks. The men and boys were surprised to see him, but no less surprised when the man who lay on the bricks did not rise. Blood pooled beneath his head, and they ran into the night in a fright.
The unicorn knelt by the man on the floor, but nothing would make him rise again.
“They’ll come again,” said the young woman while the unicorn shook the fallen man helplessly. “We have to go, or they’ll have the whole village after us. Come!”
She dragged him to the chicken coop.
“He is dead,” said the unicorn.
“I know.”
The unicorn followed her like a man in a dream, and saw her open the coop. She reached inside, drew out a clucking chicken and cooed to it. Then she snapped its neck.
“We can’t take them all. We can sell their meat and feathers in the next village and with any luck that’ll take us out of the county,” the young woman explained, and held out the chicken for the unicorn to take. He stared. He had seen the young woman speak so sweetly to the chicken before, seen her care for the chicks, make certain that they were warm and clean. The ducks and geese also. When he did not take the chicken, the young woman dropped its corpse to the ground and took another. She snapped its neck also. He watched her kill them one by one and he realized it was the answer he had looked for from the beginning. The young woman had told him so before. The reason lions feared men was the same reason he feared lions. They were hunters, predators. The best. So supreme were they that no beast was safe. Man could be kind, but they could be cruel. Not the cruelty of the predator, but more so. They could ignore the suffering of others, like the boy Little Bart, or the young woman when her father burned her.
Knowing now that there was nothing he wished to take from this lesson to defeat the lion, the unicorn fled. He felt cold in his heart and his bones, and went to the duck pond. In the dark of night, the water was black, but he plunged all the same to regain his shape and flee. But when he emerged, he found he had not returned to his natural form. Horrified, he tried again, but remained terrifyingly human. He stared at his reflection in the murky water, and saw his ruby was gone. But when had he lost it? In the scuffle with the men and the boys, or perhaps while making love to the young woman, had it fallen off and disappeared beneath the floor boards? In desperation, he searched the house, but found no trace of it at all.
“We have to go,” the young woman said to him when she found him collapsed on the wooden floor, his fingers bloodied from searching, his knees deep red from the blood of the fallen man. “We have lost our home here, we can’t ever go back.”
“No,” he agreed, “We cannot. Neither of us.”


It was years later, the lion patrolled the edge of the forest he had stolen. He roared his victory, warning the foolhardy that might come against him of his might, and feeling confident of his position. The wood did not sparkle in the morning like it once had, and though the animals were duller, they were warier, too. A little extra challenge in the hunting to make up for their meat growing tougher, he supposed. In the pale light of morning, the lion saw a lone man approaching, armed with a bow and spears. The lion trembled at the sight of the weapons, but the man was pale and had white hair. He might be an old man. Old men did not have the courage of young men, so the lion bounded out into the meadow to tear the hunter’s throat out. As he drew closer, the hunter drew back his bow and shot an arrow as true as truth. It pierced the lion’s throat, and he fell to the earth. His blood spilled on the earth and he lay dying as the hunter came closer.
“You were right to fear man,” said the hunter. “And I was a fool for trying to aspire to the same.”
The hunter took the lion’s skin and wore it as he left the forest behind him.