Excerpt from The Unicorn Handbook

Introduction

This book is about a creature so wild and dazzling, so otherworldly yet so of this world in its most enchanting form, that you might want to bathe in purified water infused with rosemary and lavender before handling its pristine pages. Consider unplugging from your electronic appendages, and possibly even retreating from humankind altogether, before reading further. In our modern age, the unicorn may wink out from glittery pink and purple kitty cafes, toy stores, cartoons, and frothy rainbow drinks, an icon of kitsch and fizz, but actual unicorns are so fantastically pure that the human eye cannot even recognize them.

It’s common knowledge that when the unicorn leaves the enchanted wood to explore the world beyond, it appears like a regular horse to humans, so you might want to look carefully at the next hooved creature or two you come across, just to see if you can detect some extra sparkle. In Peter S. Beagle’s tome, The Last Unicorn (1968), when people gaze upon a unicorn they see only an old white nag, which begs the question: How many normal-looking creatures, animals and humans alike, are not only not what they seem but are actually unicorns?

Even more than the mermaid, with her come-hither sexuality, or fairies, with their mischievous penchant for whisking humans off to fairyland, the unicorn is unadulterated glamour, divinity on Earth, the purest heart of the forest—and untouchable. When unicorns deign to hang out with humans at all, they prefer to pass the time with virginal ladies—and, if possible, ones with long, lustrous hair who don’t mind petting them, protecting them from the occasional wild-eyed hunter, and hanging out by streams whose clear waters glisten like diamonds.

Before you turn the page, imagine yourself standing next to a glittering brook flowing through a deep forest glade. Here, flowering vines drape over everything like starlets on old-time chaise lounges. Branches twist, covered in moss. Sunlight spills through the leaves, bright green and shaped like hearts, to decorate the forest floor. Birds sing and foxes dart and butterflies flit about showing off the latest fashions. The brook burbles and shimmering fish rise to the surface of the water, which is so clear you can see the grassy bottom. Around you, imagine every kind of flower blooming all at once, the clean perfumed air, the bees buzzing from bulb to bulb, the riot of colors and scents. Trace your fingers upon the tree bark, step barefoot on the petals that have fallen and marked out your path. Breathe in as you enter the deep heart of the forest.

This is where you find the unicorn, most likely loping gracefully about or lying in a bed of moss snacking on sweet forest berries, its head gently laid upon a virgin’s lap.

Look!

Come. Let’s go say hello.

—Carolyn Turgeon