University of Virginia Library

Magic Well

This play is set in Scotland, as
an American returns to the meeting
place of his parents, a magic well,
to ask the lady of the well his own
fortune.

The play is heavily allegorical,
and at least in form is much in the
style of a medieval morality play. A
man no longer young returns to his

past or that of his parents looking
for hope in the form of a girl-dream
of his lost innocence and youth
called Helen.

The lady of the well does appear-to
the man as a guide, and proceeds
to grant his wish for a view of
himself "he doesn't even know
himself." This is achieved as the
lady appears to the searcher in the
form of various women he has
known. Each woman is a stage in
his life, and fairly clearly an
allegory of a life style. But each one
is rejected as the searcher holds on
to his vision of Helen.

Finally Helen does appear, and
is a monster that as his goal has
kept him from life. But even this is
erased in his search and his
innocence is returned.

But with the restoration the
man realizes that innocence in itself
is stagnant and prevents development
and growth. The innocence,
he sees, must be sacrificed to make
room for a continuing process of
life. And with this observation the
man is freed.

The First Unicorn also contains
a very short short story by Dennis
Covington called Salvation On Sand
Mountain that is one of the best
works in the magazine. It is an
ingenious story of a religious revival
and the conversion of Simon Clapp
and his brother-in-law, John. The
reasons for this conversion are
examined in a very interesting and
worthwhile story.

In addition to these works The
First Unicorn contains many poems
by graduate and undergraduate
students. One of the best, I think, is
by M.W. Walsh and is called
"Atropes Near Bay Ridge." This is
essentially a recollection of an
Italian knife grinder in Brooklyn;
and an examination of the man
himself, "gentle, an old man," and
the conflict with "the music of the
knives."