Baird's Entry - Unicorn

Unicorn

And now is the time in which I settle in, dear reader, to tell you the personal tale of my interview with the elusive Bernice Bachelor, known internationally as the Hermit of Pittenweem, Fife. Despite the well-known history of Scotland’s national animal, the unicorn, very little has ever been recorded of the intimate details of The Transformation of Bernard to Bernice, the incident that occurred on the eleventh day in the month of November, in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred thirty-two.

I sat face-to-face with Bachelor in her damp turf house, steaming cup of tea before me, and herein transcribed events as were told to me firsthand, all the while sketching these previously unspoken details as I heard them. Do note the physiologically accurate renderings. As a student of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, I believe myself to be the best artist to represent Bachelor’s retelling of her ordeal and current situation.

Bachelor took a sip of the pungent chamomile tea and immediately her eyes grew large, “My great-great grandmother, you see… she used to threaten us, would we ever misbehave… which, you ought to believe was quite frequently.” She laughed to herself and continued, “She would threaten to shove that old horn right atop our tiny heads, and march us back into the forest, so we could live with the wild creatures… the fae.” She whispered that last word for emphasis. “It was mounted, the horn—”

“The unicorn horn?” I interrupted, for clarification.

“Aye,” she replied, rubbing a filthy wrist against the top of the thing sprouting now from her forehead. “Grandmother’s mother’s mother. She’d found it years past, in the vale, on the edge of a dark forest. And there it hung until I made my grave mistake.”

“Angered your nanny, eh?” I tried to get another laugh out of her, but failed in the attempt.

“I put it on myself. In a stupid, drunken rage. told my wife if she ever tried to leave me, I’d be the laughing stock of the village. Well… look who’s laughing now.”

“Can you describe the transformation?”

“I tell ye, once the root of it touched my head, I was done fer. It attached faster than a leech in a soggy loch.”

I tried to erase that image from my mind quickly, but leave it in for you, the reader, to clearly understand her sentiment.

“There was no getting it off, no matter how hard I yanked, tugged, pulled. My wife, poor lady, tried, as well. But it was no use. I shook, I shuddered. I could feel the magic soaking into my brain!”

“That sounds very painful.”

“‘Twas! The more I pulled, the more the searing pain tore down into my scalp, my whole noggin, into my face! I yanked, and my face grew! And that weren’t the worst of it! My chest… it burst forth from my shirt, and I grew a pair of diddies fast as lightning!”

She began to lift her blouse, and I looked away, delicately flailing my arm to indicate that the gesture need not be performed.

“My wanker? It fell out and shriveled. Not that it was big to begin with!”

Guffawing ensued. I uncrossed and recrossed my legs, adjusting myself for the remainder of the story.

“Hooves! My hands! Hooves!” She wobbled them this way and that, as if seeing them for the first time. “They hurt like the Dickens! Still getting used to them. Hard to hold a teacup, let alone, pleasure—”

“Do keep going with the transformation, ma’am,” I instructed.

“All my clothes… gone and fell off. Torn, ripped to shreds. My body was barely mine anymore, taken over by this unicorn’s shape, and it’s unyielding desire for pleasures of the flesh.”

I, once again, tried to redirect the conversation. “And how have you adapted?”

“I remember laying there, after I hit the ground in shock, my poor dear wife, eyes popping near out of her sockets. She grabbed a tartan and threw it atop me. I just lay on the floor, sobbing, but laughing all the while. I knew what I’d done, and there was no taking it back. All those years, thinking what was stuck to the wall was a mere trinket, a piece of folly. Well… look at me now.”

As I finished up my sketch of these events, I asked Bernice again about the after-effects.

“I haven’t left the house much these past years. I’m both a laughing stock, and looked at as a magic giver, which… I certainly have no magic to speak of.”

“But you do!” I assured her. “You’re keeping fae history alive, just with your mere existence!”

“I appreciate that,” she replied. “But until that recognition can make me fly or heal the sick, I’ve not much to offer the world other than an odd photograph, or the notion that fae mischief is both real and dangerous.”

“And a wonder to us all!” I told her. I showed her my finished sketch and she smiled.

“That’s it. That’s it perfectly. Thank you.”

I took the thank you as the obvious praise for another job well done. While there is no true capturing of Bachelor’s moment in time, there is now a recorded artistic depiction unlike any other that successfully captures the beauty, splendor, and marvel that is The Transformation of Bernard to Bernice Bachelor.

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If you receive a unicorn horn as a Valentine's gift today, take heed of Bernice Bachelor's cautionary tale (and tail)!

Wat and LL worked together to bring us this special Baird's entry, presenting the full transformation sequence and story as recorded by Baird himself at the time of telling. It took a little more effort to produce, but if you like this type of presentation, we can consider doing it again for future entries from time to time! What do you guys think?

Month by month, we'll keep filling out the compendium with new and mysterious creatures voted on by you. Sponsors can vote on next month's beasties here:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/62580188