Solitary Unicorn: The Legend of The Fleurs de Lys

22.12.11

The Legend of The Fleurs de Lys

Well I have received a record number of Christmas cards this year, and among them, a card with the legend of the fleurs de lys on the back. I have posted this on my Institute website because I think this information is very significant about the nature of how history repeats itself:

The Fleurs de lys: Commemorating the marriage of the Duke of Bedford to Anne of Burgundy, the manuscript was given as a Christmas gift to their nephew, nine-year-old Henry VI in 1430.
~

The British Library, Add. MS 18850, f.288v

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My book the Fleur-de-lis was given to Prince William after his wedding to Kate Middleton, and the original manuscripts were sent to him as Christmas gifts in 2005, 2006, and 2008.

This book was published by Tate Publishing (2017 note: Tate Publishing is now in transition, and the book is not currently available).

Wishing everyone a Wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year from the Emily Isaacson Institute!

Emily

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Welcome!

Join with the mystical rambles of Emily Isaacson as she writes her medieval blog highlighting the makings of a poet and her career as a writer. She is a mythic soul, a solitary unicorn.

Weep, dance, cry here in the throes of an ancient universe as it draws near with riveting crash of cymbals. Be a stone groaning in the dark, see from nearer perspective whether she missed her mark. She is a hunter of visions and supernal influences.

Some people can just see in the dark, and they travel at the speed of light with luminous splendour. It is a miracle that makes a poem; it is an epiphany moment.

The unicorn is opposite the lion in the Canadian coat of arms. These two have similar natures, but one is proud and bold and one is reticent and reclusive. When you get near to lions they roar; when you get too close to unicorns they hide.

Unicorns are generators of the spirit world; they generate ideas and sell dreams.

Who will buy?

The Transparent Earth

Earth is bowed with a weight

Hard and heavy to bear;

Bowed and curved around the great

Core of despair.

Go into a deep cave,

Where the stone groans in the dark

Like a voice in the grave;

Lift up the light, and mark

The heavy sag of stone,

bearing its load of woe

Till time shall be undone

And the aching form can go,

So men have always said;

Earth is heavy and cold . . .

But in sleep I saw her, clear

As a drop of dew:

Like a crystal was her sphere,

And the sun shone through:

Standing at midnight in the street . . .

Solemn and lovely visions

and holy dreams,

Mysterious portents,

wanderers who range

Among unearthly themes,

Strong catalysts that change

The colors and the contours

of the mind;

Be silent in your valleys in the moon,

Fade to the country that we

never find:

For I am listening for that mortal tune,

The broken anthem of

my fallen kind . . .

These in the light of heaven

I shall behold,

If I can come there,

standing in the flame

Of glory, with the blessed

in their gold.

There is no dream more wonderful,

for they

Are worth the whole creation,

each alone.

Grant me to see their beauty

on that Day!

--Ruth Pitter

The Unicorn In Captivity

Here sits the Unicorn;
Leashed by a chain of gold
To the pomegranate tree.
So light a chain to hold
So fierce a beast;
Delicate as a cross at rest
On a maiden's breast.
He could snap the golden chain
With one toss of his mane,
If he chose to move,
If he chose to prove
His liberty.
But he does not chose
What choice would lose.
He stays, the Unicorn,
In captivity.

In captivity,
Flank, hoofs, and mane--
Yet look again--
His horn is free,
Rising above
Chain, fence, and tree,
Free hymn of love;
His horn
Bursts from a tranquil brow,
Like a comet horn;
Cleaves like a gallery's prow
Into seas untorn;
Springs like a lily, white
From the earth below;
Spirals, a bird in flight
To a longed for height;
Or a fountain bright,
Spurting to light
Of early morn--
O luminous horn!
...

Quiet, the Unicorn,
In contemplation stilled,
With acceptance filled;
Quiet, save for his horn;
Alive in his horn,
Horizontally,
In captivity;
Perpendicularly,
Free.
As prisoners might,
Looking on high at night,
From day-close discipline
Of walls and bars,
To night-free infinity
Of sky and stars,
Find here felicity:
So is he free--
The Unicorn.
What is liberty?
Here lives the Uniocrn,
In captivity,
Free.

Anne Morrow Lindberg