The Last Unicorn

Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn is a fantasy novel originally published in 1968. The novel follows the titular unicorn as she sets out on a journey to find the rest of her kind. Through the unicorn’s journey the novel explores themes of mortality, mediocrity, innocence, and humanity. This study guide follows the 2022 Ace trade paperback edition of the novel.

Plot Summary

The unicorn is an immortal creature who lives alone in her forest in a never-ending springtime. The unicorn is very old, and it has been a long time since she has seen a fellow unicorn, which is fine because they are solitary creatures. One day, two hunters ride through and realize they are in a unicorn’s forest because the season never changes. The unicorn listens to their conversation as they speculate that the unicorn in this forest is the last on earth. The unicorn refuses to believe this at first, but then she becomes afraid that they are right. She ventures out of her forest on a quest to find her people.

Along the road, a farmer tries to capture her, revealing that he believes she’s a mare. He, and all the other men she encounters, cannot tell what she really is. A butterfly joins her, and the unicorn asks if the butterfly recognizes her. The butterfly is difficult to communicate with, but he eventually confesses to knowing her to be a unicorn. He tells her of the Red Bull, who chased all the other unicorns to the ends of the earth.

One night, while the unicorn sleeps, a witch named Mommy Fortuna captures her and puts her on display in her carnival of midnight creatures. Fortuna’s creatures are mostly ordinary animals with spells cast on them to appear as mythical beasts. However, there is a harpy in the carnival who, like the unicorn, is a real immortal creature. The unicorn meets Schmendrick, an incompetent magician who works for the carnival. Schmendrick can tell what the unicorn is and vows to help free her. Each day the harpy grows more restless, threatening to kill every creature of the carnival once it breaks free. One night, Schmendrick attempts to free the unicorn using magic, but his multiple attempts only end in failure. Finally, he reveals he’s pickpocketed the keys to the cage and sets the unicorn free. While Schmendrick wrestles with the other carnival worker, the unicorn frees every animal from captivity, including the harpy. The harpy attempts to kill the unicorn, but the unicorn evades the harpy. When Fortuna emerges to see the chaos, the harpy strikes the witch and kills her. The unicorn and Schmendrick escape by walking, which does not draw the harpy’s attention.

The unicorn offers Schmendrick a boon for freeing her, and Schmendrick asks to join her on her quest. Schmendrick tells the story of his mentor, who once turned a unicorn into a human man to save him from hunters. The unicorn is horrified by this story, but she allows Schmendrick to join her. Schmendrick tells her what he knows about the Red Bull and his master King Haggard. Along their travels, they stop in many towns where Schmendrick entertains the villagers in exchange for food and lodging. No one pays any mind to the “mare” traveling with Schmendrick. In one town, a group of raiders rides through. They pay off the mayor to keep themselves outside of the law. During their visit, one raider steals Schmendrick’s hat. Schmendrick attempts to use magic to retrieve it, but he manages to instead dump water on the mayor’s head. This results in the raiders abducting Schmendrick and taking him to their camp in the woods.

Schmendrick meets the outlaws’ leader, Captain Cully. Cully is a jolly man, who welcomes Schmendrick. Cully has his minstrel sing ballads about Captain Cully and his men to Schmendrick, hoping that Schmendrick is a collector in disguise, ready to publish work about Captain Cully. Schmendrick also meets Molly Grue, a ragged woman who has lived a hard life with Cully and his men. Molly doesn’t trust Schmendrick. After Cully’s men protest to hearing another ballad, Schmendrick entertains them with magic. When his tricks do not turn out as intended, he grows angry and lets the magic flow through him. He creates the figures from Robin Hood, and they walk silently though the camp, capturing the attention of most of Cully’s crew. Cully, upset by this diversion, ties Schmendrick to a tree and sings his ballads to Schmendrick until he falls asleep.

Schmendrick attempts to free himself with magic, but he instead enchants the tree to fall in love with him. The unicorn shows up and releases Schmendrick from his ropes. She compliments Schmendrick on his magical summoning of Robin Hood. As they leave, they encounter Molly Grue, who becomes reverent in the unicorn’s presence. She is sad that she never saw a unicorn before her life became hard and her spirit crushed. She joins the unicorn and Schmendrick on their quest, steering them in the right direction toward King Haggard’s castle. As they travel, Molly becomes revitalized by being in the unicorn’s presence, but Schmendrick begins to brood. When they see King Haggard’s castle in the distance, Schmendrick tells them how it’s cursed by the witch who built it because King Haggard refused to pay her. One day, the castle will fall into the sea.

Eventually, the party makes it to Hagsgate, which is the closest village to King Haggard’s castle. Though the rest of King Haggard’s land is blighted and barren, this town thrives. The party is welcomed by Drinn, who informs them that the town is cursed by the same curse on Haggard’s castle because they too refused to pay the witch. The curse states that the town will thrive as long as Haggard’s castle stands, but one of their own from Hagsgate is destined to bring the fall of both. The townspeople have stopped having children to prevent this fate, but one night, 20 years prior, Drinn found a baby in the snow. He knew this baby would eventually fulfill the witch’s prophecy, so he left it to die. However, King Haggard rode through later that night and found the child. He took the child as his own and raised him into the man now known as Prince Lír. Drinn commissions Schmendrick to poison Prince Lír. Schmendrick takes the payment but has no intention of killing a prince.

As they leave Hagsgate, the Red Bull awakens from the castle, huge and fiery, and barrels towards the party. The Red Bull chases the unicorn for a long time, herding her toward the castle. Eventually, the exhausted unicorn gives into the Red Bull’s strength. As she walks toward the castle, Schmendrick calls upon his magic and manages to change her into a human woman. The Red Bull loses interest and leaves. While Molly is horrified by the transformation, Schmendrick is ecstatic that he managed his magic so well. The unicorn awakens in her new human body and wishes she were dead instead. She is sickened to be a mortal and can feel herself dying. Schmendrick vows to change her back, but he cannot do it until the time is right. He reveals that he is cursed with immortality because of his incompetence with magic, and only mastering his magic will free him from the curse. The three of them continue their trip to Haggard’s castle.

At the castle, the party is greeted by sentinels, who wind up being King Haggard and Prince Lír themselves. King Haggard has a bare minimum of staff, and after some persuasion he agrees to bring Schmendrick and Molly on board as his royal magician and scullery maid, respectively. Prince Lír is enamored by the unicorn, whose human alias is Lady Amalthea. Lír wants to do anything he can for Amalthea, and he turns himself into a fairytale hero to gain her affections. Still, Amalthea refuses to speak to Prince Lír because she fears being caught up in mortal entanglements. Eventually, Amalthea feels herself becoming more human. She begins to forget her life as a unicorn and her quest to free the others. One night, she awakens from a nightmare about her time in Mommy Fortuna’s carnival, not realizing the images were her own memories. She encounters Prince Lír in the stairway, and he comforts her, thus beginning their love affair. Amalthea and Lír fall in love quickly, and eventually Amalthea forgets everything before she arrived at the castle.

One day while awaiting Prince Lír’s return from a quest, King Haggard confronts Amalthea. He knows she is the last unicorn in a human body. He informs her that he’s captured all the others using the Red Bull to round them up and imprisoned them in the sea, where they are afraid to come to dry land because of the bull. Amalthea is confused and frightened by what Haggard tells her.

That night, Amalthea, Molly, and Schmendrick manage to find the secret path down to the Red Bull. Prince Lír joins them, afraid Amalthea would leave him forever. As they travel, Lír reveals he knows about the curse on Haggard’s castle but wants no part in it. Amalthea eventually breaks her silence and begs to stay a human so she can live her life with Prince Lír. However, the Red Bull awakens and is no longer fooled by Amalthea’s human form. Schmendrick attempts to summon his magic again, and he changes Amalthea back into a unicorn. Schmendrick feels himself become mortal again. All of Amalthea’s human emotions disintegrate with the transformation. The Red Bull chases the unicorn out of the tunnel to the shoreline. After chasing her up and down the shore for a while, Prince Lír attempts to step in and rescue the unicorn. The Red Bull tramples Lír to death. Lír’s death gives the unicorn the strength to fight back, and she begins to wield her horn at the Red Bull, eventually herding the bull into the sea. Once the bull is submerged, the rest of the unicorns flood out of the water, crumbling the castle as they pass through. Haggard falls to his death along with his castle.

The unicorn brings Prince Lír back to life before leaving. Prince Lír becomes King Lír. Lír, Molly, and Schmendrick survey the country and observe how the unicorns who passed through have revived the blighted lands. The unicorn visits each one in their dreams. She tells Schmendrick that there will always be a piece of her that is still mortal. Eventually, King Lír returns home to rule while Schmendrick and Molly continue their journey together.