The quotation at the end of the first session is taken from the following section of Lewis Carroll’s ‘Through the Looking Glass’.
‘Who are at it again?’ she ventured to ask. ‘Why the Lion and the Unicorn, of course,’ said the King. ‘Fighting for the crown?’ ‘Yes, to be sure,’ said the King: ‘and the best of the joke is, that it’s my crown all the while! Let’s run and see them.’ And they trotted off, Alice repeating to herself, as she ran, the words of the old song:
‘The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the crown: The Lion beat the Unicorn all round the town. Some gave them white bread, some gave them brown: Some gave them plum-cake and drummed them out of town.’
‘Does — the one — that wins — get the crown?’ she asked, as well as she could, for the run was putting her quite out of breath.
‘Dear me, no!’ said the King. ‘What an idea!’………….
There was a pause in the fight just then, and the Lion and the Unicorn sat down, panting, while the King called out ‘Ten minutes allowed for refreshments!’ Haigha and Hatta set to work at once, carrying round trays of white and brown bread. Alice took a piece to taste, but it was very dry.
‘I don’t think they’ll fight any more to-day,’ the King said to Hatta: ‘go and order the drums to begin.’ And Hatta went bounding away like a grasshopper…….
At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by them, with his hands in his pockets. ‘I had the best of it this time!’ he said to the King, just glancing at him as he passed.
‘A little — a little,’ the King replied, rather nervously. ‘You shouldn’t have run him through with your horn, you know.’
‘It didn’t hurt him,’ the Unicorn said carelessly, and he was going on, when his eye happened to fall upon Alice: he turned round instantly, and stood for some time looking at her with an air of the deepest disgust.
‘What — is — this?’ he said at last.
‘This is a child!’ Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice to introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an Anglo-Saxon attitude. ‘We only found it to-day. It’s as large as life, and twice as natural!’
‘I always thought they were fabulous monsters!’ said the Unicorn. ‘Is it alive?’
‘It can talk,’ said Haigha solemnly.
The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said ‘Talk, child.’
Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: ‘Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!’
‘Well, now that we have seen each other,’ said the Unicorn, ‘if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?’
‘Yes, if you like,’ said Alice.
‘Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man!’ the Unicorn went on, turning from her to the King. ‘None of your brown bread for me!’
Wide Horizons 