pain. Gaheris was a dim-witted follower. Gareth, the youngest, was naïve but blessed with a good heart. The boys were raised by their mother, Queen Morgause, a cold, selfish woman who kept her children at a distance. She doubled as an evil sorceress and had poisoned her sons against their uncle Arthur with her manipulating words. For many weeks, she had been absent from their castle, helping a trio of knights (Sir Grummore, Sir Pellinore, and Sir Palomides) capture a unicorn. Because of her absence, the princes planned to sneak out into the woods and capture the unicorn themselves, therefore, delighting and pleasing their mother and allowing her to return to their home. The boys looked in a bestiary to see THE UNICORN HUNT how a unicorn might be captured. It FROM THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING seemed that the Unicorn was as swift BY T.H. WHITE and timid as the Antalop, and could only be captured in one way. You had CAST to have a maid for bait, and, when the Unicorn perceived her alone, he would GAWAINE Oldest Prince of Orkney immediately come to lay his horn in her AGRAVAINE Prince of Orkney lap. There was a picture of an GAHERIS Prince of Orkney unreliable-looking virgin, holding the GARETH Youngest Prince poor creature’s horn in one hand, while MORGAUSE Queen of Orkney she beckoned to some spearman with MEG Kitchenmaid the other. Her expression of duplicity was balanced by the foolish confidence NARRATOR: Gawaine, Agravaine, with which the Unicorn regarded her. Gaheris, and Gareth were the four Gawaine hurried off, as soon as the young nephews of King Arthur. They instructions had been read and the do not grow up in Camelot, but far picture digested, to fetch the away in the wilds of Scotland in a kitchenmaid without delay. kingdom called Orkney. At the time of this story their ages ranged from GAWAINE: Now then, you have to fourteen to ten. Gawain was the eldest. come with us on the mountain to catch a Agravaine was the bully of family— unicorn. shifty, inclined to cry, and frightened of

1 MEG: Oh, Master Gawaine! MEG: Yes, Master Gawaine.

NARRATOR: The maid he had caught GAWAINE: There. hold of name was named Meg. GAHERIS: Then she must be tied. GAWAINE: Yes, you have to come. You are to be the bait. It will come and MEG: Oh Master Gaheris, if it is your put its head in your lap. will—need I be tied?

NARRATOR: Meg began to weep. GAHERIS: Close your mouth. You are only a girl. GAWAINE: Now then, do not be silly. GARETH: There is nothing to tie her MEG: Oh, Master Gawaine, I do not with. want a unicorn. I have been a decent girl, I have, and there is all the washing GAWAINE: But you will destroy up to do, and if Mistress Truelove do everything, if you do not do so. catch me playing at truant I shall get stick, Master Gawaine, that I will. GARETH: I do not see why I should have to go. I thought of it. NARRATOR: He took her firmly by the plaits and led her out. GAWAINE: Then I command our In the clean bog-wind of the high Agravaine to go. tops, they discussed the hunt. Meg, who cried incessantly, was held by the AGRAVAINE: Not I. hair to prevent her from running away, and occasionally passed from one boy to GAWAINE: Let Gaheris go. the other, if the one who was holding her happened to want both hands for GAHERIS: I will not. gestures. GAWAINE: Meg, you wicked girl, you GAWAINE: Now then. I am the are not to run away, do you hear? captain. I am the oldest, so I am the captain. MEG: Yes, Master Gawaine. But, oh, Master Gawaine… GARETH: I thought of it. AGRAVAINE: If we could find a GAWAINE: It says in the book that the strong heather root, we could tie her bait must be left alone. pigtails together, round the other side of it. GARETH: She will run away. GAWAINE: We will do that. GAWAINE: Will you run away, Meg?

2 MEG: Oh, oh! GARETH: Never mind, Meg, do not cry. We will not let it hurt you. NARRATOR: After they had secured the virgin, the four boys stood round AGRAVAINE: After all, it can only kill her, discussing the next stage. They had you. abstracted real boar-spears from the armory, so they were properly armed. NARRATOR: At this the unfortunate girl began to weep more than ever. AGRAVAINE: (strangely) This girl is my mother. This is what our Mammy GAWAINE: Why did you say that? was at doing yesterday. And I am going You always try to frighten people. Now to be Sir Grummore. she is at howling more than before.

GAHERIS: I will be Pellinore. GARETH: Look. Look, Meg. Poor Meg, do not cry. It will be with me to let GAWAINE: Agravaine can be you have some shots with my catapult, Grummore if he wants to be, but the bait when we go home. has got to be left alone. It says so in the book. MEG: Oh, Master Gareth!

MEG: Oh, Master Gawaine! Oh, Master GAWAINE: Ach, come your ways. We Agravaine! cannot bother with her.

GAHERIS: Stop howling. You will GARETH: There, there! frighten the unicorn. MEG: Oh, oh! GAWAINE: And then we must go away and hide. That is why our mother GAWAINE: Meg, said Gawaine, did not catch it, because the knights making a frightful face, if you do not stayed with her. stop squealing, I will look at you like this. GARETH: I am going to be Finn MacCoul. NARRATOR: Gawaine made a frightful face. She dried her tears at GAHERIS: I shall be Sir Palomides. once.

MEG: Oh, Maser Gawaine, pray do not GAWAINE: Now, he said, when the leave me alone. unicorn comes, we must all rush out and stick it. Do you understand? GAWAINE: Hold your noise. You are silly. You ought to be proud to be the GARETH: Must it be killed? bait. Our mother was, yesterday. GAWAINE: Yes, it must be killed dead.

3 He was such a noble animal, to begin GARETH: I see. I hope it will not hurt with, that he carried a beauty with him. it. It held all spellbound who were within sight. AGRAVAINE: That is the sort of The unicorn was white, with hoofs foolish hope you would have, said of silver and a graceful horn of pearl. Agravaine. He stepped dainty over the heather, scarcely seeming to press it with his airy GARETH: But I do not see why it trot, and the wind made waves in his should be killed. long mane, which had been freshly combed. The glorious thing about him AGRAVAINE: So that we may take it was his eyes. There was a faint bluish home to our mother, you idiot. furrow down each side of his nose, and this led up to the eye-sockets, and GARETH: Could we catch it and lead it surrounded them in a pensive shade. to our mother, do you think? I mean, The eyes, circled by this sad and we could get Meg to lead it, if it was beautiful darkness, were so sorrowful, tame. lonely, gentle and noble tragic, that they killed all other emotion except love. NARRATOR: Gawaine and Gaheris The unicorn went up to Meg the agreed to this. kitchenmaid, and bowed his head in front of her. He arched his neck GAWAINE: If it is tame, it would be beautifully to do this, and the pearl horn better to bring it back alive. That is the pointed to the ground at her feet, and he best kind of Big Game Hunting. scratched in the heather with his silver hoof to make a salute. Meg had AGRAVAINE: We could drive it. We forgotten her tears. She made a royal could hit it along with sticks. gesture of acknowledgment, and held her hand out to the animal. NARRATOR: Then he added an afterthought. MEG: Come, unicorn. Lay your head in my lap, if you like. AGRAVAINE: We could hit Meg, too. NARRATOR: The unicorn made a NARRATOR: Then they hid whinny, and pawed again with his hoof. themselves in their ambush, and Then very carefully, he went down first decided to keep silence. There was on one knee and then on the other, till nothing to be heard except the gentle he was bowing in front of her. He wind, the heather bees, the skylarks looked up at her from this position, with very high, and a few distant snuffles his melting eyes, and at last laid his from Meg. head upon her knee. He stroked his flat, When the unicorn came, things were white cheek against the smoothness of different from what had been expected. her dress, looking at her beseechingly.

4 The whites of his eyes rolled with an trembling in the agony of death. All he upward flash. He settled his hind time his eyes were fixed on Meg’s eyes, quarters coyly, and lay still looking up. and she still looked down at his. His eyes brimmed with trustfulness, and he lifted his near fore in a gesture of AGRAVAINE: (shouting) What are you pawing. It was a movement in the air doing? Leave him alone. No harm to only, which said, Now attend to me. him. Give me some love. Stroke my mane, will you, please? MEG: Oh, Unicorn. Here was a choking noise from Agravaine in the ambush and at once he NARRATOR: The unicorn’s legs was rushing toward the unicorn, with stretched out horizontally behind him, the sharp boar-spear in his hands. The and stopped trembling. His head other boys squatted upright on their dropped in Meg’s lap. After a last kick heels, watching him. they became rigid, and the blue lids rose Agravaine came to the unicorn, and half over the eye. The creature lay still. began jabbing his spear into its quarters, into its slim belly, into its ribs. He GARETH: What have you done? You squealed as he jabbed, and the unicorn have killed him. He was beautiful. looked to Meg in anguish. It leaped and moved suddenly, still looking at her AGRAVAINE: This girl is my mother. reproachfully, and Meg took its horn in He put his head in her lap. He had to one hand. She seemed entranced, die. unable to help it. The unicorn did not seem able to move from the soft grip of GAWAINE: We said we would keep her hand on its horn. The blood, caused him. We said we would take him by Agravaine’s spear, spurted out upon home, and be allowed to supper. the blue-white coat of hair. Gareth began running, with MEG: Poor unicorn. Gawaine close after him. Gaheris came last, stupid and not knowing what to GAHERIS: Look! I am afraid he is do. dead.

GARETH: Don’t! Leave him alone. NARRATOR: Gareth stood square in Don’t! Don’t! front of Agravaine, who was three years older than he was and could have NARRATOR: Gawaine came up, just as knocked him down quite easily. Agravaine’s spear went in under the fifth rib. The unicorn shuddered. He GARETH: Why did you do it? You are trembled in all his body, and stretched a murderer. It was a lovely unicorn. his hind legs out behind. They went out Why did you kill it? almost straight, as if he were doing his greatest leap—and then quivered,

5 AGRAVAINE: His head was in our GAWAINE: But we did. mother’s lap. NARRATOR: Gawaine had forgotten GARETH: It did not mean any harm. about his sorrow for the unicorn. He Its hoofs were silver. began to dance round the body, waving his boar-spear and uttering horrible AGRAVAINE: It was a unicorn, and it shrieks. had to be killed. I ought to have killed Meg too. GAHERIS: We must have a gralloch. We must do the matter properly, and GAWAINE: You are a traitor. We cut its insides out, and sling it over a could have taken it home, and been pony, and take it home to the castle, like allowed to serve at supper. proper hunters.

GAHERIS: Anyway, now it is dead. GAWAINE: And then she will be pleased! NARRATOR: Meg bowed her head over the unicorn’s forelock of white, and GAHERIS: She will say, God’s Feet, but once again began to sob. my sons are of mickle might! Gareth began stroking the head. He had to turn away to hide his tears. By GAWAINE: We shall be allowed to be stroking it, he had found out how like Sir Grummore and King Pellinore. smooth and soft its coat was. He had Everything will be well with us from seen a near view of its eye, now quickly now on. fading, and this had brought the tragedy home to him. GAHERIS: How must we set about the gralloch? GAHERIS: Well, it is dead now. Whatever. We had better take it home. AGRAVAINE: We cut out its guts, said Agravaine. GAWAINE: We managed to catch one! NARRATOR: Gareth got up and began NARRATOR: The wonder of their to go away into the heather. achievement beginning to dawn on him. GARETH: I do not want to help cut AGRAVAINE: It was a brute. him. Do you, Meg?

GAWAINE: We caught it! We of NARRATOR: Meg, who was feeling ill ourselves! inside herself, made no answer. Gareth untied her hair—and suddenly she was GAHERIS: Sir Grummore did not catch off, running for all she was worth away one. from the tragedy, toward the castle. Gareth ran after her.

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GARETH: Meg, Meg! Wait for me. Do GAHERIS: We don’t have a pony. not run. GAWAINE: At a gralloch, they sling NARRATOR: But Meg continued to the beast over a pony. run, as swiftly as an antalop, with her bare feet twinkling behind her, and AGRAVAINE: We must cut his head Gareth gave it up. He flung himself off. We must cut its head off somehow, down in the heather and began to cry in and carry that. It would be enough if we earnest—he did not know why. took the head. We could carry it between us. NARRATOR: At the gralloch, the three remaining huntsmen were in trouble. NARRATOR: So they set to work, They had begun to slit at the skin of the hating their work, at the horrid business belly, but they did not know how to do of hacking through its neck. it properly and so they had perforated Gareth stopped crying in the the intestines. Everything had begun to heather. He rolled over on his back, and be horrible, and the once beautiful immediately he was looking straight animal was spoiled and repulsive. All into the sky. The clouds which were three of them loved the unicorn in their sailing majestically across its endless various ways, Agravaine in the most depth made him feel giddy. He thought: twisted one, and, in proportion as they became responsible for spoiling its GARETH: How far is it to that cloud? beauty, so they began to hate it for their A mile? And the one above it? Two guilt. Gawaine particularly began to miles? And beyond that a mile and a hate the body. He hated it for being mile, and a million miles, all in the dead, for having been beautiful, for empty blue. Perhaps I will fall off the making him feel a beast. He had loved it earth now, supposing the earth is and helped to trap it, so now there was upside down, and then I shall do sailing nothing to be done except to vent his away. I shall try to catch hold of the shame and hatred of himself upon the clouds as I pass them, but they will not corpse. He hacked and cut and felt like stop me. Where shall I go? crying too. NARRATOR: This thought made GAWAINE: We shall not ever get it Gareth feel sick, and, as he was also done. How can we ever carry it down, feeling ashamed of himself for running even if we manage the gralloch? away from the gralloch, he became uncomfortable all over. In these GAHERIS: But we must. We must. It circumstances, the only thing to do was we do not, what will be the good? We to abandon the place in which he was must take it home. feeling uncomfortable, in the hope of leaving his discomfort behind him. He GAWAINE: We cannot carry it. got up and went back to the others.

7 NARRATOR: Only one of them at a GAWAINE: Hallo. Did you catch her? time could get a good hold of the horn, so they took it in turns to do the GARETH: No, she escaped away to the hauling, while the others pushed behind castle. when the head got snagged in a heather root or a drain. It was heavy for them, GAHERIS: I hope she will not tell even in this way, so that they had to anybody. It has to be a surprise, or it is stop every twenty yards or so, to change no good for us. over.

NARRATOR: The three butchers were GAWAINE: When we get to the castle, daubed with sweat and blood, and they we will prop it up in the seat in the were absolutely miserable. Agravaine garden. Our mother is bound to walk had been sick twice. Yet they continued past there, when she goes for her walk in their labor and Gareth helped them. before supper. Then we will stand in front of it until she is ready, and all will GAWAINE: It is no good stopping suddenly step back at once, and there it now. Think how good it will be, if we will be. can take it to our mother. GARETH: She will be surprised! GAHERIS: She will probably come upstairs to say good night to us, if we NARRATOR: When they had at last can take her what she needs. got it down from the sloping ground, there was another hitch. They found GARETH: She will laugh, and say we that it was no longer possible to drag it are mighty hunters. on the flat land, because the horn did not give enough purchase. NARRATOR: When the grisly spine In this emergency, for it was getting was severed, the head was too heavy to near to suppertime, Gareth voluntarily carry. They got themselves in a mess, ran ahead to fetch a rope. The rope was trying to lift it. tied round what remained of the head, and thus at last, with eyes ruined, flesh GAWAINE: It had better be dragged bruised and separating from the bones, with a rope. the muddy, bloody, heather-mangled exhibit was conveyed on its last stage to GAHERIS: There is none. the herb garden. They heaved it to the seat, and arranged its mane as well as GARETH: We could drag it by the they could. Gareth particularly tried to horn. At any rate we could drag and prop it up so that it would give a little push it like that, so long as it was idea of the beauty which he downhill. remembered. The magic queen came punctually on her walk, conversing with Sir

8 Grummore and followed her lap dogs: DISCUSSION QUESTIONS Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart. She did not notice her four sons, lined up in 1. How are the boys’ temperaments front of the seat. They stood different from one another? respectfully in a row, dirty, excited, 2. What could the unicorn symbolize? their breasts beating with hope. 3. Give some instances of the boys’

cruelty. Why do they not know they GAWAINE: Now! are being cruel?

4. What does this tell us about a NARRATOR: They stood aside. Queen person’s childhood? Morgause did not see the unicorn. Her 5. Contrast the Orkney boys with mind was busy with other things. With young King Arthur. How would he Sir Grummore she passed by. have handled the situation

differently? GARETH: Mother! cried Gareth in a 6. What does the difference between strange voice, and he ran after her, the dialect of the boys and the plucking at her skirt. kitchenmaid show us?

7. What part do the boys’ ages and/or MORGAUSE: Yes, my white one? birth order play a role in their What do you want? characterizations?

8. What is childish about the boys? GARETH: Oh, Mother. We have got What is mature? Do any of the boys you a unicorn. mature throughout the story? How?

9. Misogyny is a hatred of women. MORGAUSE: How amusing they are, Explain how Agravaine seems to Sir Grummore. Well, my doves, you display this tendency. must run along and ask for your milk. 10. List some examples of figurative

language used to describe the GARETH: But, Mammy… unicorn. What effect does this

figurative language have on the MORGAUSE: Yes, yes. Another time. reader?

11. One brother seems to hate the NARRATOR: And the Queen passed unicorn. Identify him, and on with the puzzled knight, electrical hypothesize as to why this is. and quiet. She had not noticed that her 12. How is Gareth’s approach to the children’s clothes were ruined: had not unicorn unique? even scolded them about that. When 13. What are some of Agravaine’s she found out about the unicorn later in psychopathic tendencies? the evening she had them whipped for it, for she had spent an unsuccessful day with the English knights.

9 14. As the boys attempt to get the carcass of the unicorn home, what is happening symbolically?

10 QUESTIONS: Explain your answer clearly.

Show how the boys’ temperaments differ from one another.

The Unicorn is a symbol. Hypothesize what it could symbolize using examples.

Give some instances of the boys’ cruelty. Why do they not know they are being cruel?

What does this tell us about a person’s childhood?

Contrast the Orkney boys with young King Arthur. How would he have handled the situation differently?

What does the difference between the dialect of the boys and the kitchenmaid show us? Also describe their treatment of the girl.

Explain how the boys’ ages and/or birth order play a role in their characterizations.

What is childish about the boys? What is mature? Do any of the boys mature throughout the story? How?

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Misogyny is a hatred of women. Explain how Agravaine displays this tendency. Hypothesize as to the root of this problem.

List some examples of figurative language used to describe the unicorn.

One brother seems to hate the unicorn. Identify him, and hypothesize as to why this is.

How is Gareth’s approach to the unicorn unique?

What are some of Agravaine’s psychopathic tendencies?

As the boys attempt to get the carcass of the unicorn home, what is happening symbolically?

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