WHY Scotland has an imaginary creature as its national animal is a question that has inspired a new book for children.
The Legend Of The First Unicorn is the latest in a series of picture books written by best-selling author Lari Don which aims to bring authentic Scottish folklore to young readers in a fresh, accessible way.
“A lot of folk tales are not gentle, warm and fluffy but are quite dark,” said Don. “We are trying to get back to the early source material as well as make sure the art work is stunning.”
The first in the Edinburgh-based Floris Books’ series is based on the folklore of the Scottish Borders, while the second was about kelpies and the third about Nessie, the Loch Ness Monster.
Don was casting about for a new idea when she spotted a statue of a unicorn in Edinburgh, one of many scattered about the country. She knew the unicorn was the national animal of Scotland but realised she did not know why, so went straight to the Central Library on George IV Bridge to find out more.
“If you go to pretty much any market town or royal castle in Scotland you will see unicorns – there are herds of them all over the country,” she pointed out.
Don found that the Scottish royal family had adopted the unicorn in early medieval times when it was thought that they were real creatures who lived in exotic places, far away from northern climes.
“Just as the English kings had adopted a lion that lived far away, so the Scots adopted a unicorn that they thought lived far away,” she said.
“They did not think they were adopting an imaginary animal – they thought it was real, as did everybody else. People had "evidence" of them in the shape of cups made of unicorn horn and they had powdered unicorn horn which was used to combat poison. People paid a fortune for unicorn products but they were actually buying narwhal horns.
“The kings adopted the unicorn because they symbolised purity, strength and courage as well as elusiveness as they were notoriously hard to catch – mainly because they didn’t exist,” said Don.
That was the factual answer she discovered but being a story teller she was more interested in whether there were any Scottish tales associated with the unicorn.
Her research uncovered a Scottish travellers’ tale told by Duncan Williamson of the travelling community, which told of a sad king whose magician tried to improve his mood by creating a unicorn for him to hunt through the forest. It was never caught but the king had statues made of the creature to cheer him up.
“I loved that story but it was not quite right for kids as it is always easier to grab their attention if you are writing about a child so I played with it and made it about a prince who has lost his smile.”
Don also wanted to touch on some of the international lore about unicorns and found an ancient Babylonian myth where the sun is a lion and the moon is a unicorn who chase each other across the sky. She incorporated a little of the myth by including a fight between a lion and a unicorn in a Scottish forest.
“Nowadays unicorns are associated with glitter and fluffiness and are unthreatening, but the unicorns the Scottish kings connected themselves to were quite dangerous beasts,” said Don. “I wanted a unicorn who is beautiful but also strong, muscular and powerful.
“It is also important to recognise that if the Scottish travelling community had not been telling and preserving stories decades after everyone else was switching on TV, Scottish folklore would be much poorer. I really struggled to find Scottish stories about unicorns because all the stories are about creatures who were thought to live here like the kelpies so finding one about a unicorn in Scotland was difficult.”
The new book is illustrated by Natasa Ilincic who will be with Don at a free event in Edinburgh on National Unicorn Day on April 9 between 11am and 12 noon at the Bookmarket at Waverley Mall.
Lari Don will read from the book for the first time at a Wee Write event at Glasgow’s Mitchell’s Library on Saturday (March 7) between 11.30 and 12.30.
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