Hello,
My name is Rachel and my country is Scotland.
A country rich in legends and folklore.
Long ago Scots folk told stories to entertain one another around the hearth and bring families and communities together.
Scotland has a rugged and mysterious landscape which acts as a wonderful backdrop to tales involving magical creatures such as dragons,
Fairies,
Water horses known as kelpies and selkie seal women.
In my stories I will draw in elements of these traditional yarns told for hundreds of years but also add my own twist.
So please get comfy and coorie in,
Close your eyes and come with me to Scotland.
This particular story is based on an old traveler's tale by Duncan Williams which told of a sad king whose magician tried to improve his mood by creating a unicorn for him to hunt through the forest.
My tale starts a great many years ago when there lived a little Scottish princess who had a heart full of kindness and imagination.
She dreamed of magical adventures and cherished the beauty in the smallest of creatures.
However she had a particularly deep affection for horses and their gentle yet powerful spirit.
Whether through riding or grooming or simply spending time with them she just dreamed of being with the castle horses.
But tragically for the little princess she had a genetic illness known as haemophilia which meant that if she was to befall an injury her blood would not clot and her life would be in peril.
Her father the king was terrified of something happen happening to his beloved daughter so he strictly forbade her from going anywhere near the castle horses.
He would not even allow her to groom them.
So fearful was he of the unpredictability of the animals to perhaps kick or stomp a hoof and hurt his daughter.
So the little princess was resigned to watching them through the crossed windows of the castle.
Year after year the king watched as his daughter became more and more sorrowful and isolated within the castle walls.
So on her 10th birthday he invited a powerful sorcerer to the castle in the hope that he could create a horse so tame and so gentle that his daughter could be near it.
The sorcerer asked for a huge fire pit to be brought into the grand hall of the castle.
The hall was hung with tapestries and coats of arms and was very fine indeed.
The fire was lit and the sorcerer took out leather pouches from his bag and one by one tossed their powdery contents into the fire.
As he did so he repeated a series of mysterious sounding enchantments.
From the flames rose a dark and writhing form of a horse with hair like black charcoal and wild eyes the colour of grey soot.
It reared up and let out a terrible whinny and everyone in the great hall of the castle began to retreat backwards towards the stone castle walls.
It leapt out of the flames as if it could no longer take them licking at its skin and it began running and bucking like a wild colt.
The sorcerer approached the black horse that he had created commanding it to yield before grabbing its charcoal mane.
The horse's mane appeared to come alive.
The hair splitting to form writhing serpent-like cords and they wrapped around the sorcerer's wrist binding him to the horse like a fallen rider tangled in the reins and the horse then bolted out of the castle dragging the sorcerer with him before leaping off the castle walls and into the deep dark castle moat.
That fateful night instead of creating a beautiful and gentle horse for the princess the sorcerer had in fact created the first kelpie a mythological horse that inhabits the lochs and rivers ponds and seas of Scotland binding its victims to its hairs and dragging them to a watery demise.
The king was shaken and horrified that he had put his daughter in so much danger.
And he took the tragedy as a sign that horses would only cause harm to his daughter and he became more resolute in his belief that she should never be near them.
The princess however could not let go of this idea of a gentle and loyal magical horse as her companion.
Despite seeing the fate of the sorcerer she felt in her heart that where there's dark there must also be light and she could imagine a serene white horse steadfast and true and a worthy opponent of the black-hearted kelpie.
Therefore when everyone was in bed she went back to the great hall and lit the fire.
The sorcerer's pouches remained on the floor and she inspected the contents of each one using her intuition to guide her as to which one to select.
She sprinkled in the contents of the bags she'd selected and these included a pearlescent dust,
Specks of gold flake,
A twisted piece of metal and a white feather.
And as she drew them in the fire she kept the image of a beautiful white horse fixed in her mind and she whispered the words where there is dark there must be light.
A horse true and gentle despite its might.
The flame shot up from the fire to create a column nearly as tall as the ceiling of the great hall.
They changed from burning amber to bright white and began to swirl and dance in the air like a fiery tornado.
The forms of beautiful white galloping horses began to materialize in the flames sleek and graceful with nimble front hooves lifted proudly in the air.
Their manes and tails flowing through the flames with an iridescent sheen.
Eyes bright and expressive reflecting their wisdom and protruding from their forehead was a golden spiraled horn long and slender and glittering.
A horse leapt out of the flames and it stood before the little princess real as anything else she had ever seen in the world.
She was not scared for a second like she had been with the kelpie.
She reached out to touch its iridescent mane and it felt like running her fingers through the softest silk.
Calmly and confidently she extended her palm to the creature to allow it to experience her scent before gently stroking at the velvety nose.
She used slow smooth motions while speaking softly.
I think I will call you a unicorn.
She knew the unicorn was comfortable and relaxed so she extended her hand again to touch its glittering horn.
As her finger made contact with its warmth the warm feeling transferred to the skin of her fingertip then through to the blood capillaries below her skin.
The heat extended through all the veins in her hand,
Her upper arm and through all the veins and arteries of her limbs and head and finally her heart.
Her heart felt full and strong and she just knew that the unicorn had given her the gift of health and vitality that she was never born with.
When the king found out about the magical unicorn that had cured his daughter he ordered it to become the national animal of Scotland and declared that its image should be put on every coat of arms in every castle in Scotland.
And the princess had all her wildest dreams fulfilled as she rode bareback across the Scottish landscape.
Now I hope you enjoyed this story and can imagine stroking the silky soft fur of a magical unicorn and perhaps riding on its back through Galidonian pine forests and Scottish moors blanketed with purple heather.
Sweet dreams from Scotland
