Unicorn Lore: The Multiple Mythologies Behind The Last Unicorn

Beagle’s unicorn stands at a unique place within the many overlapping traditions of unicorn lore, as his novel synthesizes and also departs from several preexisting traditions in ways that have collectively shaped the modern image of the unicorn. This chapter surveys some of the precedents for Beagle’s characterization of his unicorn, and also exhaustively tracks the many other allusions and references that appear in the speech of the butterfly that she encounters. The novel’s numerous such references speak to a key narrative strategy of Beagle’s in self-reflexively remixing and reshaping past traditions in unexpected but not completely unfamiliar ways.