What The Last Unicorn Learns About Love and Regret

In Peter S. Beagle’s The Last Unicorn, the unicorn is content to live alone until she overhears two hunters discussing whether any of her kind still exist. She has gone ages without seeing another unicorn, secure in the knowledge that somewhere, others live as she does. Once she begins to doubt that, the forest feels different. The first loss in the novel is the loss of that certainty.

Her search eventually takes her to King Haggard’s castle in the body of a mortal woman. As Lady Amalthea, she falls in love with Prince Lír and begins to imagine a future she could never have wanted as a unicorn. Beagle gives that future enough weight to make the success of her quest bittersweet.

This essay discusses the ending of the novel.

Molly Grue sees what others miss

Beagle has some fun with the idea that a unicorn ought to be recognizable on sight. Some people see an ordinary mare. At Mommy Fortuna’s carnival, the witch puts a false horn on the real unicorn so paying customers will see what they came for. They can recognize the costume more readily than the creature wearing it.

Molly Grue recognizes the unicorn immediately. What follows is less predictable. She is angry that a unicorn should appear now, after the years when she most wanted to see one. The encounter gives Molly something she has longed for and brings back the pain of all the years she went without it. She joins the quest anyway. On a reread, her anger sounds like an early echo of the regret the unicorn will come to understand.

Lady Amalthea gives the unicorn a future she can lose

When the Red Bull corners the unicorn, Schmendrick’s magic turns her into a woman. The transformation saves her and frightens her. For the first time, she inhabits a body that will age and die. In her forest, she could watch generations of animals live and die without measuring her own life against theirs. As Amalthea, time starts to matter to her in much the same way it matters to Molly.

Prince Lír makes that change personal. He tries to impress Amalthea with heroic feats, but the prospect of a shared life eventually matters more to her than his victories. By the time the party reaches the Red Bull again, she wants to stay human. That wish gives the quest a cost she could never have imagined when she left the lilac wood. Freeing the other unicorns may mean giving up a life she has only just learned to want.

Why the unicorn still feels regret at the end

Schmendrick restores Amalthea’s unicorn form, but she initially retreats from the Red Bull. Lír puts himself in its path and is trampled. Only then does she turn on the Bull and drive it into the sea, freeing the unicorns Haggard had kept there. She brings Lír back to life with her horn, then leaves him behind.

The ending gives her two reasons to remember the journey. She knows the joy of finding her own kind, and she knows the sorrow of parting from someone she loves. Her regret holds the life she imagined with Lír in view even after that future has closed. It also gives her something in common with Molly, who knows how it feels to meet a long-held desire at the wrong time.

What to watch for on a reread

Watch what Lír does when there is nobody to impress. Early in his courtship, he brings Amalthea evidence of his exploits and hopes for a response. When he steps between her and the Bull, he acts because she is in danger. Both scenes look like familiar fairy-tale heroics. The difference is what Lír expects to get from being brave.

If you enjoy fantasy that leaves room for humor, grief and a victory with lasting consequences, The Last Unicorn is a good place to start. For another fairy-tale fantasy with a solitary heroine whose attachments complicate her power, try Patricia A. McKillip’s The Forgotten Beasts of Eld. Find it in our guide to standalone fantasy books.

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