Mythical Creatures
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Unicorn
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The unicorn is a legendary creature embodied
like a horse, but slender and with a single
— usually spiral — horn growing out of
its forehead. Though the popular image
of the unicorn is that of a white horse
differing only in the horn, the traditional
unicorn has a billy-goat beard, a lion's
tail, and cloven hoofs, which distinguish
him from a horse.
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Books about Unicorns
Stories and books about unicorns throughout history.
The Lady and the Unicorn
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The Lady and the Unicorn
If you think you wouldn't raise your skirts for a rakish legend about the purifying powers of a unicorn's horn, then maybe you aren't a 15th-century serving girl under the sway of a velvet-tongued court painter of ill repute. In keeping with her bestselling Girl with a Pearl Earring, and its Edwardian-era follow-up, Falling Angels, Tracy Chevalier's tale of artistic creation and late-medieval amours, The Lady and the Unicorn is a subtle study in social power, and the conflicts between love and duty. Nicolas des Innocents has been commissioned by the Parisian nobleman Jean Le Viste to design a series of large tapestries for his great hall (in real life, the famous Lady and the Unicorn cycle, now in Paris's Musee National du Moyen-Age Thermes de Cluny). While Nicolas is measuring the walls, he meets a beautiful girl who turns out to be Jean Le Viste's daughter. Their passion is impossible for their world--so forbidden, given their class differences, that its only avenue of expression turns out to be those magnificent tapestries. The historical evidence on which this story is based is slight enough to allow the full play of Chevalier's imagination in this cleverly woven tale. --Regina Marler
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The Last Unicorn
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The Last Unicorn
The Last Unicorn is one of the true classics of fantasy, ranking with Tolkien's The Hobbit, Le Guin's Earthsea Trilogy, and Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland. Beagle writes a shimmering prose-poetry, the voice of fairy tales and childhood: The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone. She was very old, though she did not know it, and she was no longer the careless color of sea foam but rather the color of snow falling on a moonlit night. But her eyes were still clear and unwearied, and she still moved like a shadow on the sea. The unicorn discovers that she is the last unicorn in the world, and sets off to find the others. She meets Schmendrick the Magician--whose magic seldom works, and never as he intended--when he rescues her from Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival, where only some of the mythical beasts displayed are illusions. They are joined by Molly Grue, who believes in legends despite her experiences with a Robin Hood wannabe and his unmerry men. Ahead wait King Haggard and his Red Bull, who banished unicorns from the land. This is a book no fantasy reader should miss; Beagle argues brilliantly the need for magic in our lives and the folly of forgetting to dream. --Nona Vero
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The Secret of the Unicorn (The Adventures of Tintin)
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The Secret of the Unicorn (The Adventures of Tintin)
The Secret of the Unicorn was one of the first truly great Tintin adventures and Herge's personal favorite, combining a puzzling mystery with a ripping pirate yarn. When Tintin finds a magnificent model ship in the street market, his attempt to buy it for Captain Haddock leads him on a trail of pickpockets, burglars, and secret treasure, and Haddock enthralls him with a tale of his seafaring ancestor, Sir Francis Haddock (who was exclaiming "Thundering typhoons!" generations before the Captain ever did), and his fateful encounter with the fearsome pirate Red Rackham. The story is also notable for Herge's fantastic eye for ship detail as well as the first appearances of Nestor and Marlinspike Hall. The Secret of the Unicorn was Tintin's first official two-book adventure, continued in Red Rackham's Treasure. --David Horiuchi
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Song of the Wanderer (The Unicorn Chronicles, Book 2)
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Song of the Wanderer (The Unicorn Chronicles, Book 2)
Prolific children's book author Bruce Coville has delivered a down-to-earth unicorn tale, if such a thing is possible. Song of the Wanderer, the second book in The Unicorn Chronicles, delivers a neat follow-up to Into the Land of the Unicorns, unraveling mysteries and handily reweaving new ones just as fast. The world of the unicorns, Luster, is carefully and cohesively imagined, with myths and rules and prejudices that seem logical and organic. Readers will thrill to the story of Cara, an earth girl who becomes both ward and savior of the unicorns. She must travel through Luster--a world replete with all manner of secret caves and rainbow prisons and talking seashells--back to earth to try to find her grandmother, the Wanderer. The episodic structure of the book is satisfying; Coville delivers all the de rigueur scenes, including a makeover, wherein a Geomancer provides Cara with clothing appropriate to her journey: "To finish the outfit, she strapped a short sword to Cara's side. 'May you never have to use it,' whispered the Geomancer." (The rest of us hope otherwise.) Coville hurries his heroine past some flat characterizations through clever, well-thought-out plot points. And he leaves his ending compellingly open, as befits a series: Luster resounds with rumors of "the possibility of a fierce, final battle that would decide the ancient struggle between the unicorns and the Hunters once and for all." Stay tuned, unicorn lovers. --Claire Dederer
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The Dragon and the Unicorn
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The Dragon and the Unicorn
The daughter of medieval King Valerio is visited by a unicorn and dragon who plead to have the forests of the realm preserved. A lovely book about forest conservation perfect for children ages 3-7. The author and illustrator, Lynne Cherry, is deservedly winner of numerous awards for beautiful books. Recommended.
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Nobody Rides the Unicorn
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Nobody Rides the Unicorn
Zoe is a poor, orphaned beggar girl living on the outskirts of the kingdom of Joppardy. She is also the quietest, gentlest girl in the land, which is exactly what the king is looking for. He needs the horn of a unicorn, and according to the king's adviser Doctor Slythe, only sweet young girls can trap the fierce and elusive beasts. The king tricks Zoe into entering the deep forest with him and the doctor, and luring a unicorn with her innocent songs ("His coat is like snowflakes/ woven with silk./ When he goes galloping/ He flows like milk"). Just as a unicorn puts his head in her lap to sleep, hundreds of men attack and trap the beautiful animal. Zoe, furious at the deception, sets the unicorn free, and the "little nobody" is banished from the kingdom. With nowhere else to turn, she wanders off to find her unicorn: Zoe said, "Me, I'm nobody."
"Climb on my back, kind Nobody," said the unicorn with his eyes. "For Nobody rides the unicorn." Zoe may have broken the laws of the kingdom, but she is abiding the laws of her conscience. Ultimately, what reader can deny that she has done the right thing? Poet Adrian Mitchell's lyrical text about a girl who, in following her heart, befriends a unicorn, meshes perfectly with the dark, velvety, mystical illustrations by Stephen Lambert. These are the kinds of pictures that stay with a reader for a lifetime. For every fan of myth and strong female leads, this story is just right. (Ages 6 to 9)
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The Dragon and the Unicorn
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The Dragon and the Unicorn
The demon Lailoken, as old as time, is tricked by Fire-lords and trapped in a human body. He becomes Merlinus, a wandering wise man expert in magic, destined to work for good among humans, opposed by the Furor (Woden). An encounter with the unicorn--a spirit similarly earthbound--brings him to Ygrane, queen of the Celts, and she sets him a task to find her king, a man seen in vision and fated to be her love-match. Merlinus-Lailoken seeks and finds him: Theodosius, a stable worker. But Ygrane has commanded the demon-wizard to bring her a king, so Merlinus sets to work making one. This is an entrancing fantasy, drawing on everything from Norse myths to feng shui to build a magical, liminal Arthurian Britain.
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