SACRED MARRIAGE BETWEEN MAN AND NATURE

      According to an ancient riddle, the bride must come to her husband, neither clothed nor naked, neither on foot nor on horseback, neither on water nor on dry land, neither with nor without a gift. In this, another of Laura's identities is revealed. She is the original Lady Godiva, the May-Eve goddess of Love-and-Death, Freya, Janu, Ishtar, Danu, Ostara, Holda and Hel.

      Morgen played the role of "Peeping Tom," but now, purified in the sacred pool, he awaits his bride on the hilltop, by the floral bower created atop the dolmen, wearing the stag's horned headdress and buckskin robe. Fiona leads the agitated unicorn by its bridle toward the flower-covered dolmen where Morgan awaits. Laura, wearing only the golden fishnet (and her very long hair), is neither clothed nor naked. Mounted on her unicorn (one foot dragging on the ground), she is neither on water nor on dry land, nor is she on foot or on horseback. The hare she carries in her lap is her gift, and when she dismounts, she offers the hare to Morgen and releases it at the same time, so that she is neither with nor without a gift. In this, Laura's fishnet symbolizes the harvest of the sea, her long hair symbolizes tall crops, and the hare symbolizes fecundity.

      But has Fiona, the Earth Mother, played them false? So rapt in Morgen's eyes is Laura, she does not see Fiona transform into her alter egos, the Muses, Fates and Furies, and the charging unicorn is nearly upon them when Laura does see. But for the desperate charge of the Mastiff, Morgen would surely have been slain. As it is, although the Mastiff's charge is enough to deflect the unicorns rush, both slam into Morgen, sending him headfirst into the stone dolmen.

      The unicorn's mystery is widely known. Here, we need go no further than its folklore. The creature is humble and tame in the presence of a virgin, but fierce against men, and therefore would be especially fierce against Morgen, whose presence threatens to separate it from its mistress. Anthropologists have discovered that in some cultures, wearers of ritual masks take on the attributes of the gods or demons they portray, but I doubt those studies would apply to a pony wearing an ornamental unicorn horn on its bridle. Clearly, this mystery is supernatural, and belongs, like the unicorn, to the realm of folklore.

Travis Edward Pike, 22 August 2021, Otherworld Cottage

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