Blog 49 - Unicorns

Have you ever seen a unicorn? One misty morning I believed I had. I will tell you about my scarf first.

By now, you will know I prefer pure silk scarves with hand rolled edges, in other words fine quality. My Unicorn scarf was made by American company GLENTEX in Japan and the label says it is silk. Now here is an interesting thing. In my blog 39, CONFETTI & PANCAKES, I also described a Glentex scarf, again made in Japan but that label declared it was polyester. I would have placed a large bet on that being silk also, as both scarves feel exactly the same and I ask….why go to the expense of hand sewing a man made fibre? Maybe a lawsuit against the company on account of their Japanese silk scarves being inflammable? I don't know. Blog 39 was written on a grey February day when I cheered myself with a sunny scarf and the purchase of new frying pans. Today’s Blog 49 is written in beautiful summer weather, I am enjoying my garden, I don’t barbecue so no fear of setting my scarf alight and this week’s indulgence was a silver photo frame for a recently found photo of my husband in RAF uniform, aged eighteen.

I am leaving the flying carpet to rest this week after its nighttime flight to look at the stars two weeks ago. I found most of the constellations but forgot to mention Pegasus, the mythological winged horse which was featured on my Hermes kerchief. I have a set of four painted plates, set on dark green velvet, framed, showing the mythological beasts Pegasus, Dragon, Unicorn and Griffon. I wore my dragon scarf on my granddaughter Ella’s 21st birthday and wrote about it early on when the pandemic first broke, and now I have mentioned the horse. After today, I may set myself a task to find a scarf to link with the winged lion, the griffon (possibly rather difficult) but now it is the turn of the unicorn.

My scarf shows two unicorns on hind legs, horns touching, no social distancing there….. bearded and cloven hoofed. Legend has it that the beast is a symbol of purity and grace and can only be captured by a virgin. At my time of life, I cannot claim virginity and some years ago, as I was driving through Richmond Park one misty morning on my way to the golf course, I had no plan to capture a unicorn, but there was one jumping from the undergrowth, white, with one horn. Admittedly, it was very early morning, I had not had a coffee to waken me up properly, and you will realise I have a vivid imagination... but there was this small, one horned animal before me with a very pretty face. Yes, I was looking at a very young fallow deer with only one horn developed and just the suggestion of a tiny bump on the other side. Later that year I wrote a fictional Christmas fable about a young boy with a prosthetic limb who saw the same unicorn. I hasten to add that apart from my imaginary carpet, my blogs are factual.

Now, here’s an interesting fact. You may have noticed the unicorn and lion appear together in heraldry. The Royal Arms show the unicorn to the right in the United Kingdom flag and to the left in the Scottish. Imagine the furore should Her Majesty get her Coat of Arms confused when visiting Balmoral! Nicola would be brandishing a claymore! As a Scot whose late husband was English, I am covering my bets and sporting a scarf with two unicorns, one facing left, the other right. Yes, I am a Libran and we like things balanced! We also like luxury and beauty. It’s a pretty little silk scarf.

Busy Bee, Scarf Face!

Series 2, Blog 49.