Of Fantasy Creatures

Once, a very long time ago, there lived a king whose greatest desire was to see and capture one specimen of the major fantastical creatures in his realm. Therefore, he called upon the great wizard Ildor to counsel with him on how to obtain his greatest want.

Ildor told the kind to send his three children to capture a creature each from the three races of magical beasts in the kingdom.

So it was that the kind sent his eldest son, Harbid, to seek the mighty dragon; his youngest son, Calidor, to find the clever gryphon; and his only daughter, Fymere, to capture the graceful unicorn.

The chosen three set off the next morn. Harbid, clad in steel and bearing a great spear, mounted his black charger and rode off for the stony plateaus. Calidor rode his high-stepping steed off into the mountains, wearing a leather hide and bearing a scimitar. Fymere took off for the woodlands, her bare feet and simple skirt wet with dew, and in her hand a small knife. The kind watched them departing from beside the cages he had prepared for the beasts.

Harbid reached the plateaus the next day. The black hooves of his steed sounded loudly upon the sooty rock. Upon the horizon, a bulge of rock stirred, and became a dragon.

Harbid halted his mount and called to the beast. “It is Prince Harbid! I have come to bring thee to an audience with my father, the king.”

The dragon stood, and his red scales gleamed as he made his ponderous way forward. The stones shook at his approach. Harbids’s horse screamed, rearing. Then, from within his own mind, the prince heard the high melodious voice of the dragon.

“Ye have come to challenge me?”

Harbid raised the visor on his helmet. “No, mighty one. My king wishes to see you.”

But the dragon was within...

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...or the girl, and of her noble heart.

Yet all three of them agreed that something must be done for the greedy king.

So it was that the very next day, the king was greeted not by his three children, but by three fearsome legends. They had come to deliver him a message. He saw it written I the unicorn’s bottomless eyes, he heard it from the clever beak of the gryphon, and he felt it within from the dragon.

And they said, “You have now seen us, human. But for your foolish want you have paid the price of your three children. Your race is always wanton and greedy, this we know now. You shall be one of the last to see us. From this moment forward, we will live to you only in imagination. And ever you will pine for us, but never again shall you see us. We will live, for you, only in tales and songs.”

Thus the beasts of magic and fantasy departed from our vision.