I went to County Wicklow to escape it all. I removed myself over the seas and into the
past, to the birthplace of an ancestor of mine who left the Emerald Isle to
escape the famine. She married a man
from County Cork and settled in Norwich, I think. At least, that is where their grandson, my
great-grandfather was from.
Anyway. I stayed in
Bray (watched Wanderers on the Friday) and went out driving and walking in the
surrounding countryside. It was such a
massive change to walk around relatively open ground. I could see for miles most places. And the sky.
So much sky. With great fluffy
clouds. Uninterrupted coverage, not a
canvas bordered by trees. Where I
couldn't see for miles my view was obscured by Great Sugar Loaf Mountain.
I had decided even before I arrived that I would climb this
feature of the countryside. On an
earlier trip it had captivated my imagination as I passed on the train to and
from Dublin. As well as on a trip to a
local estate where I couldn't take my eyes off her. All the beauty that estate’s owners had tried
to landscape into the garden seemed like a sick parody of nature in comparison
to the Wicklow Mountains' centrepiece.
On the third day I trekked around and up the slopes of the
Great Sugar Loaf. It was on those slopes
I met an elder of the Mountain’s elf inhabitants. I couldn't believe my eyes. A tiny (two foot by my reckoning, I never saw
him standing) old man with a great wiry grey and white beard that reached down
to his middle was sitting on a rock looking up at me as if we had an
appointment. What I could see of his
face was kindly and tanned, possibly from a lifetime of sitting on that very
rock. A stick leaned against his leg,
covered in elaborate decorative carvings that I never managed a complete study
of. "Good afternoon," he bid
me, in an accent that seemed to mix Scandinavia with Ireland and just as any
rambler would have done. When I did not
return the greeting, but stood open mouthed, he added, "Unicorn
hunter."
My jaw dropped further at that, although I did manage to
find it in me to talk. "Good
afternoon to you," I replied with a nod.
And then down to business, "How..?" I paused, unable to complete the question,
still just a bit too thrown by his greeting.
It didn't need to be completed. "My wife, a very wise and gifted
lady-elf, predicted your coming some years ago.
As a child she learned to see the future in the waters of the Vale of
Avoca. She saw you and I talking. She put an image of you in my mind so that I
would know you when you came. That you
sought to trap a Unicorn she sensed. I
know not how.
"The vision seemed odd to our minds at the time as we
elves have very little contact with you giants on account of your violent
nature-raping and elf-squishing tendencies.
Although there have been times.
We have fought side by side with your kind as well as helping out and
hindering in other ways.
"Come now, boy, sit and let us talk. My wife said I would be able to help you in
your task, although she did not know how.
Her visions are quite silent."
And so I sat down on the ground, removing a flask of tea
from my rucksack and offered the elf a cup.
He said yes, producing his own flask and a cup. Later on I would try a most delicious sweet
minted tea that tasted very much like humbugs.
He told me of the history of the Elves of Great Sugar Loaf
Mountain. The theories on how they came
to be there, in Ireland, and the story of how they came to be at the Mountain
itself. Apparently the leader of the
time, Olf, selected and rejected sites all over the country before finally
settling on a site close to where they had first landed.
And he also told me other tales from their past, involving
other key characters who had shaped their time and society living inside the
Great Sugar Loaf. He told of their
fights with the indigenous elves of Lugnaquilla and how they were solved, of
Morris and his trip to Iceland where he found the courage to return and end the
cult of kings and decadence. The old elf
told me of how they had played tricks on and helped in equal measure both
bandits and refugees in the times when the Wicklow Mountains were still remote
to humans. And of how they stole buttons
from the British Army at a time when they were not. Finally he told the adventures of his own
life and how he had met, fell in love with and rescued his wife from her own
elf brethren.
I learned too of their craft-bound ways, how they strived to
live surrounded by beauty merged with practicality at all times. It reminded me of that visit to the V&A;
I mentally shrugged. He spoke of the
great hall where they met and ate each evening.
And of the homes they lived in, all cut into the sugar found below where
we sat.
And then he asked about me.
I told him all I had told Schnizzelwort and the Merlungh, adding all
that had happened since in regard to the domestication and how the attempt had
ended.
"They rescued her because I got too close," I
ended, looking down.
The elf fell quiet.
After a long pause he asked thoughtfully, "Do you know why, or how,
you got too close, as you put it?"
I looked at him, puzzled, "The stable, making her
dependent," I answered firmly.
"Not exactly.
Your human things wore her down, you see. They took her magic, made her incapable of
escape."
"That's why she seemed lethargic and lost the appetite
to wander?"
"Precisely. It
is also why she has never got into your 'van'.
It is always on the road, yes?"
I nodded, “Mostly.”
"It is the man-made element she fears. Get her above the road and she will be
powerless and yours."
"But how?"
"The one thing you have never tried and yet would have
been obvious to so many. Sugar."
Now, given where we were and all, I thought the aged elf was
having me on. I gave him a look that
suggested as much.
"To be sure.
Sugar. Unicorns go mad for the
stuff. Do not try and feed it directly,
though. She will be too sensible to eat
sugar lumps, no doubt. Put it in her
porridge and she will go anywhere for you, mark my words, she will."
And that was that. I
couldn't believe I had not thought of it before. Always with the god damned oats it had
been. On discovering this secret I
thought not of the warnings hidden in our conversation. All I wanted was that unicorn at home and for
victory to finally be mine.
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