The Last Unicorn
Kids these days love unicorns. Unicorns are almost their emblems, their mascots. I’m not sure why, but I’ll go with it. Unicorns are a beautiful escape from reality, and a benign one. Even adults can use that now and then.
Unicorns got me to thinking about an animated movie I remembered from 1982, The Last Unicorn. I thought I’d seen it before, but when I watched it a few weeks ago I realized I hadn’t.
I also realized it’s a pretty dull movie. But one sequence seemed magical to me, and that was the introduction. Here it is (it ends a bit prematurely, but it’s basically all there):
You may have noticed that much of the animation is patterned after the famous unicorn tapestries in New York’s Cloisters. I was taken to see them on a school trip as a child. I wasn’t interested in the Cloisters themselves at the time, but the tapestries were memorable. Here’s a site that shows them all, and explains what they’re about. They’re older than I thought; from around 1500, and mostly in good shape, which I think is remarkable. If you haven’t been there and seen them in person, you might not realize that they are quite large, each at least twelve feet high and eight feet wide.
This is the tapestry on which the film’s introduction is modeled:
The story of the tapestry series, however, might be likely to offend the modern-day sensibilities of many of our unicorn-loving kids, because it depicts a unicorn hunt in which the unicorn appears to be killed by the hunters. More here:
The tapestries themselves tell a story, which is likewise mysterious. “The unicorn was a symbol of many things in the Middle Ages,” as Richard Preston writes, including Christianity, immortality, wisdom, love, and marriage. Add to this that every least element in the tapestries — from flora and fauna to clothes and gestures — had a particular medieval meaning, and it’s little wonder that their significance is unclear to us. Certainly, the unicorn is a proxy for Christ. But he is also an image of the lover brought down like a stag in the allegorical hunts evoked in medieval works like Chaucer’s The Book of the Duchess and Gottfried von Straussburg’s Tristan and Isolde. He is both a creature of flesh and spirit, earthly longing and eternal life.
Despite the fact that the unicorn seems to be killed in the hunt, there’s a seventh tapesty that shows the creature alive and fenced in. Is this part of the series, or a standalone? Who knows?:
The Cloisters’ current curator posits this last tapestry “may have been created as a single image rather than part of the series.” But a former curator, Margaret B. Freeman thought like many others that it may have been the mystical conclusion of the series, in which the “unicorn, miraculously come to life again,” stands for both the risen Christ and the “lover-bridegroom, at last secured by his adored lady.”
In the animated film – SPOILER ALERT – the last unicorn lives and the other unicorns return from a sort of suspended animation in the sea.
At the risk of offending some readers I will admit to being a hunter. Not for unicorns, but some readers will find that immaterial:”ooh, you KILL?” Hear me out for a second, though: there is a certain closing of the loop in bagging the game you will consume, and I am one of those hunters who will not pursue game that I will not eat. And I will admit to feeling a little disdain at people who eat meat but pretend it did not come from a dead animal.
And God help us: the unicorn lives but is fenced in? This is a preferable outcome? I guess it all depends on what your fundamental beliefs are — is it better to die free or live in captivity? Well at least we don’t have to solve that dilemma as regards unicorns.
Neo — maybe you’re thinking about the 1985 movie Legend. It’s about some Eeeevil guy trying to kill all the unicorns and get their horns for some nefarious purpose. It was directed by Ridley Scott and stared Tom Cruise, Mia Sara and Tim Curry. A flop at its release, and it’s pretty much forgotten these days.
In their time I saw both the Last Unicorn and Legend. The only thing I remember from the Last Unicorn is “You couldn’t turn milk into cheese!” An insult to the wizard. As to Legend (A Tom Cruise movie!), the script was and is horrendous. But! I guy I knew in college had a bunch of us watch it one night with the sound turned off! And had some classical music playing. It was wonderful. Legend is a really beautiful movie to watch. But not to listen to. Oh! And Tim Curry. With horns!
“The Last Unicorn” started as a prominent sixties novel:
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The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel by American author Peter S. Beagle and published in 1968, by Viking Press in the U.S. and The Bodley Head in the U.K. It follows the tale of a unicorn, who believes she is the last of her kind in the world and undertakes a quest to discover what has happened to the other unicorns.[1] It has sold more than six million copies[3] worldwide since its original publication, and has been translated into at least twenty-five languages (prior to the 2007 edition).
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The style was called “Magical Realism.” I liked a lot of it. I wouldn’t put it ahead of Shakespeare, but I liked it.
There was a pair of them in the 1985 film Legend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pH6AHQO8Qw
My familiarity with unicorns involves neither movies nor novels. My childhood memories of unicorns came from Shel Silverstein’s poem/song, telling of unicorns from the perspective of Noah, who could not manage to get them on the ark.
Nonsense.
There’s a unicorn currently living on Martha’s Vineyard (with a second home in Hawaii for when it wearies of looking at the Atlantic Ocean.).
It’s been sighted from time to time and even opens its mouth now and then…
(Warning: Has been known to be extremely flatulent.)
Speaking of unicorns…
“Iranian Foreign Minister: We don’t want war to spread further, but it could be unavoidable”—
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/380547
Our kids watched The Last Unicorn so often I can still quote some of the dialogue.
Beagle’s books and short stories are some of my favorites.
Here’s Shel singing his song about Noah and the unicorns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbXqP9iG2s4
It’s been covered by a lot of groups but I like The Irish Rovers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4bc9UwZsYs
Things I didn’t know:
https://americansongwriter.com/10-songs-you-didnt-know-shel-silverstein-wrote-for-other-artists-including-loretta-lynn-waylon-jennings-and-more/
This is a different Unicorn Song by Peter Paul and Mary, with graphics reminiscent of the Beagle movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-n789FTIYk
Denver hosts an annual Unicorn Festival aimed at children and tweens.
We took our grand-daughters pre-covid, but since then they’ve “gotten too old for that” which is kind of sad.
Something else I didn’t know, from at comment at Neo’s link.
(German? really? But it kind of fits the movie. And the music by Jimmy Webb is in English.)
The voice actors were all Big Names.
@xcoder1122
1 year ago
No wonder that movie was so epic. It was animated by Studio Topcraft, which later on turned into Studio Ghibli. And for most of the dialogs the movie really sticks word-for-word to the book, it just leaves out the side plots (the movie only tells the main plot of the book) and because of that one fundamental part of the plot had to be altered (the story about the robbers in the forest is completely different in the book). If you loved watching the movie, consider reading the book as it expands a lot on each of the characters.
The Cloisters is one of the hidden treasures of New York. The tapestries are displayed together with other items from the Metropolitan Museum’s medieval collections in a reconstructed monastery brought over stone by stone from Europe by a 19th century robber baron.
The building and the surrounding park are popular for wedding pictures.
What a wonderful post! Thank you for this Neo.
Reminds me of Gerard’s “Something Wonderful” posts that I miss so much. I still go back and watch them regularly. They are reminders, after the news of such barbarism abroad and in the midst of such disappointment at the reaction here at home, of what we have to be thankful for.
Wasn’t there some kind of trouble at the wedding?
Quibble alert: Well, actually it was that 20th C. fox, John D. Rockefeller, Jr….
https://tinyurl.com/ye28xvjm
in:
https://www.forttryonparktrust.org/resource/photo-essay-john-d-rockefeller-jr-the-met-cloisters/
They made the money in the 19th century and spent it in the 20th…
The world needs more whimsy and wonder
The Last Unicorn is a great book. And a pioneer in the field. It had very few rivals as the other great fantasy book once upon a time (other than LOTR, of course).
Real unicorns:
The first is the well known Elasmotherium which is much more a rhino than horse or antelope.
The second I know of but haven’t been able to find a reference. It was an Oligocene antelope whose horns ran up together for about the length of the skull before bifurcating into a short cluster of prongs. So, to paraphrase Magic Max… mostly a unicorn.
If i stumble across a representation or fossil of the above, I’ll tack it into this thread, but I’ve been looking for over an hour and if I can’t find things in that time they’re usually pretty well buried.
Totally OT:
neo:
Don’t know if I’ve posted this before but… Here’s a nugget to feed the love of balance, strength and beauty.
What one can do with a feather and frond piths.
I watch it every once in a while just ’cause.
Read the book by Peter S. Beagle, Neo, as described by Huxley, Mary Catelli and others. The movie is a pale imitation. It’s an original, heart-breaking, magical book that I’ve never quite forgotten. Just read it.
Oligonicella, the Elasmotherium is favorite of mine! Ever since I read a short story where the young of the Elasmotherium were the traditional unicorns from the tapestries. In the story they were hunted and killed so they wouldn’t live to grow to their adult form. After that I had to look up Elasmotherium and said “Now THAT’S A UNICORN.” I show people its picture when talk of unicorns comes up. “Do you want to see a real unicorn?”
And in the realm of Other Fabulous and Phenomenal Fantasies…we bring you “Xi-Wolf and The Great American Suck-Up to Unseemly Beasties”):
“Dictator Xi’s American Cleanup Tour”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/dictator-xis-american-cleanup-tour
(This dude should write for the Bee! Actually, maybe he does…)
…As they say, “In sickness and in health”….
– – – – – – – –
…Actually, if yer looking for “sick”, I’ll give ye’ SICK!
“Outside APEC, Complaints Of Intimidation & Assaults”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/outside-apec-complaints-intimidation-assaults
You can FEEL the excitement…
Key grafs:
‘…Xi’s 10 years as president are marked by a genocide against China’s Muslim minority, attempts to wipe out Tibetan culture, and persecution of Christians and followers of Falun Gong – not to mention a crackdown on democracy, religious freedom, and civil rights in Hong Kong.
‘Yet, during official and unofficial meetings this week, there was no mention of the long list of atrocities. Instead, Xi received an unusually warm reception.
‘…[I]n the confines of San Francisco’s Hyatt Regency ballroom, America’s corporate chieftains gathered to fete Xi as a “guest of honor” at a banquet drawing nearly 400 attendees. The gala took place on the sidelines of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, a gathering of 21 member countries to support free trade and business ties. [Emphasis mine; Barry M.]
‘The executives were so excited to share the room with the Chinese president that they gave him two standing ovations before Xi uttered a word. American titans of business, including Apple’s Tim Cook and Blackstone’s Steve Schwarzman, Black Rock’s Larry Fink, Boeing’s Stanley Deal, and Pfizer’s Albert Bourla, joined Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo to rub shoulders with Xi and a cohort of Chinese officials….’
Somewhere, Mistuh Schwab is chortling with satisfaction (not to mention glee)…
Oh well…Same old, same old…
AesopFan
Thanks for that link to the Irish Rovers singing the Unicorn Song. It brought back such happy memories of my mom, the two of us singing that song together when it came on the radio in the car. My mom always loved to hear me sing. (It was later on when I tried for Glee club that I found out that I wasn’t very good at it).
I’m especially thankful at this time of year that I had such wonderful loving parents. I miss them both greatly.
Quite a long time ago, I saw the last half of the movie and wasn’t impressed. Later on I learned that it was based on a book by Beagle, and read it. I enjoyed the book quite a lot, and later bought a copy for my youngest sister as a gift. She enjoyed it as well.
The fun thing about unicorns is that they were, throughout ancient and medieval times, savage beasts. The only unicorn that appears in the Brothers Grimm is the one the Brave Little Tailor defeats, as he defeats giants and a ravaging boar.