When I was a kid of fourteen, I saw a unicorn. I was with my best friend and we were exploring in the forest, far from home. We had muesli cookies and a two litre bottle of water. We had our trusty swords and feathers in our hair. The unicorn was white, of course. It floated through the reeds and disappeared. We turned to each other in wild eyed wonder. Of course unicorns were real.
Of course, it was all proved with this book - Robert Vavra had spend years travelling all over the world photographing unicorns.
He'd found desert unicorns and forest unicorns, unicorns in the flowers and the sea. There was nothing he hadn't recorded about them. If you found yourself wondering anything about these magical creatures, all you had to do is dive deep into this beautiful hard back book.
Not only was there photographs, but pages of field notes. What they ate. Where they slept. Where they hid.
Strong, wild, muscular, mysterious. What a wonderful service he had done for us - forget David Attenborough, this guy had found what no one believed in and brought the magic to us. How lucky we were to grow up in a time of magic. We had a stable upbringing and food on the table and we had the luxury of believing what we wanted. Before long it would be boys and periods and drugs. They loomed around the corner, fantasy killers.
There was poetry too, and exerpts from literature. My best friend and I ran our fingers over the glossy pages. We believed in dragons, and fairies. We saw a dragon once, crossing the sky in front of Halley's Comet. Too big for a bat.
This was a time I was reading 'The Once and Future King' by TH White. IN hindsight, it was apt - innocence destroyed by brutality.
The unicorn can only be caught by a virgin, so Maid Marian volunteers. They follow the traditional method - she stands in the glade as bait. The unicorn appears, horn spiralling, and gallops toward her to place it's horn in her lap, trusting. The others leap out and grab it by the horn, though they feel a bit awful about it. The unicorn is written as shy, pure, and trusting - a woodland creature, caught in the violence of capture. Children expecting adventure, and finding the tragedy of something beautiful senselessly harmed.
It wouldn't be long until we had lost our innocence. It happens. But we had unicorns, for a time.
The real reason that I can't get rid of it, though, is the writing on the inside cover. 'To our daughter - Happy Christmas, 1984'. It's Dad's writing.
With Love,
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What a precious time. 'Nothing can bring back the hour.' Seems like a wonderful book (and gift).
I was thinking about you and book minimalism. I have one small book shelf - space is precious, so I'm doing a great job of culling, except.... Unicorns..
This book is available on eBay...but best of all, I am choosing to renew these experiences now - with prayers to the Nature Spirits to bring them to me.
Cool! How much for? It's a gorgeous book
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In those young years, I voraciously read space fiction and, with a friend, searched for a time machine in our city :)
I thought you were from the future!
It’s beautiful how Vavra’s imagery fed your imagination right at the moment when adulthood’s shadows were starting to appear, and that inscription from your father adds a layer of meaning no other book could replace. Memories like these remind us how stories shape us long before we realize it, and how a small spark of wonder can stay with us for decades.
What a lovely comment. Yes, you got it exactly. I've put it up for sale so many times and then removed the listing. I can't bear to part with it.
No photos!!! But I also have this book, given to me by my husband decades back. It's such a lovely book.
Which book?
Unicorns I have known…
It took a while but some people's posts didn't have their photos. When I came back, yours did. Whew!
Meanwhile, I have my Le Guin book. It will never depart. My wore out my dads last tshirt last year. It was from an engine reconditioning conference from 1992 or something.
It was pretty much the only white tshirt I owned.
This looks like it was a lovely gift, and how good that you still cherish it after all these years. May you cherish it forever more, and perhaps hand it further down your family tree with an additional inscription.
Awww. Dad gave me a couple of flannos before he died. Mum got upset about it but Dad's like, well I'm not going to need them am I???
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