The Girl and the Unicorn

Ionia lived in a small cottage near the forest. The house had only three rooms and two small beds, but a nice big fireplace to keep her family warm and cozy during the cold winter months.

Her father was a woodcutter who went into the forest each day to chop trees. Her mother, a craftswoman, made fine furniture from the wood. In a simple workshop behind the cottage, she built chairs, carved wooden bowls, and even assembled fine tables to sell in the village.

For the most part, Ionia was happy staying close to her little home, only venturing into the woods a little way when she played. But once in a while, she went with her father into the deep forest to keep him company while he worked.

Our story begins on one of those days. Ionia and her mother packed a lunch of sandwiches, apples, bacon, and honey into a handmade wicker basket.

“Keep the lid shut tight, Ionia,” her mother said, “so pilferers don't sneak off with your lunch.”

Her mother was always warning her to watch out for muck-mucks (which are huge, smelly pigs with big tusks), pilferers (clever rodents who steal food and trinkets from travelers), and the woodland elder (an ancient tree that walks and is said to guard the creatures of the forest from humans). But Ionia had never seen any of those creatures before.

There were stories of a unicorn, though, a magical white horse with a long horn on its head. Ionia had often dreamt about the unicorn and secretly wished to meet it one day. But the stories were just make-believe. Some of the village children claimed they had seen prints in the mud that belonged to the unicorn or found strands of silvery hair that came from its mane. But children had such vivid imaginations. No one, certainly not the grown-ups anyway, really believed them.

Ionia's father loaded the wicker lunch basket, a long toothy saw, and his heavy axe onto his wooden log cart. Harnessed to the cart was the family's old gray mule, Hoofbert. Hoofbert and Ionia were friends. Although the mule never wanted to play, she did love being fed apples and carrots and being stroked behind the ears, which Ionia happily did for her almost every day. Hoofbert didn't mind that the girl would be riding on her back this morning. The walk into the forest was long, and Ionia's legs were short.

When Ionia threw a threadbare saddle blanket onto her back, she perked her ears up. Hoofbert knew there would be an apple and extra ear scratches today. Ionia, her father, and the mule set off down the forest track just as the sun was coming up. They waved goodbye to her mother, who was headed into her workshop before they were even out of sight.

As the cart rolled along the long, muddy tracks and into the woods, Ionia saw a wrangle of deer nibbling on slender stalks of grass. The clanking and bumping of the cart's wooden wheels made the animals stop their grazing and turn their heads, eyes and ears alert to the travelers. A rabbit darted across the path in front of Hoofbert and hid in a mass of dew-flecked purple flowers beside the road. Ionia knew where you saw one rabbit, there were always more, and she wondered if there was a whole warren somewhere nearby.

Their journey had only just begun, but Ionia was already hungry. To distract herself from thinking about the delicious, smoky bacon packed away in the wicker basket, she started to sing. The song was one her father had made up when she was very young. It went like this:

The woodsman treks into the grove,
With axe and cart, to work he goes,
Mule and meal and lamp for light,
He chops the logs with all his might.

As if on cue, her father joined in with his deep, boomy voice:

The woodsman knows each tree by heart,
When grown up tall he plays his part,
Noble wood for house and hearth,
He loves the trees but knows their worth.

The two of them sang their little song as loudly and happily as they liked, sometimes making up new verses or changing the words to silly rhymes, on and on until they finally reached the logging camp deep in the forest. By the time they arrived and her father unloaded the cart, Ionia was starving.

. . .