Join us at the campfire for tales from around the world, told by storytellers of all backgrounds and creeds. From the heros and heroines of old, let us relearn and rediscover the wisdom of our ancestors. Shhh..the story begins..

Medieval poets sang songs of Alexander, the Macedonian King whose armies swept across the world...the man who wept when there were no more lands left to conquer. Where Alexander marched, he found many wonders, but the greatest was the first, his own noble mount.

Storytellers say that this steed was a mighty horse that bore the proud ivory horn of the unicorn and the emerald-flecked tail of a peacock. It had been a gift from the Queen of Egypt, bestowed upon Alexander at the occasion of his birth. During Alexander's boyhood, however, the beast remained unmastered. It could scent the fears of mortals who approached, and it was invincible against them. Only Alexander himself was devoid of mortal fear and, when he became a man, he sought out the animal. It bowed before him, touching its horn to the dust in a token of submission. Alexander graciously accepted its speechless fealty and named the steed Bucephalus, which meant "oxen-headed," in honor of its enduring strength.

Astride the godlike creature, Alexander led his Grecian armies west into Illyria and then eastward to Thrace, across the Hellespont and through the vast provinces of the Persian Empire, the greatest dominion of its day. All whom he met, Alexander conquered...kings, princes, peasants, and other more strange beings.

In the forests of Persia, so it is said, Alexander and his men were set upon by hideous remnants of an ancient race...a tribe of manlike creatures covered with dark, oily hair, crowned with branching stag horns, and armed with sharp stones. Howling and gibbering, these horrors swarmed among the Greeks. In no more than a moment, the field was a maelstrom of rearing, panicked horses and unnerved soldiers. The army fell back in disarray. From the disorder, one mount charged. It was Bucephalus the Brave, with Alexander shouting the battle paean in a great voice.

In among the wild men he galloped and behind came his warriors, their courage restored and their swords whistling in the air. Alexander thrust left and right. Then, leaning from the saddle, he grasped with one hand the antler of a beast-man. With a sudden twist, he wrenched the horn from its head. The creature stumbled, blood welling from the horn socket and pouring into its eyes. It issued a long, nightmarish wail and, at the terrible sound, its companions froze and fell silent before darting and twisting among the hooves of the horses and fleeing into the forest. Suddenly, the beast-band was gone, leaving the land to Alexander and his human company.

Alike in valor, the King and his steed sped on into Persia's eastern kingdoms. To Grecian eyes, these were places new and exotic, inhabited by creatures few had dreamed of. Alexander slew the powerful among them and set his own rule over the weakened survivors. It was said that he swept over armies of warriors that consisted of human bodies and fire-breathing horseheads and over races of one-eyed giants. It was also said that Alexander fought with dragons and, it was said, most sorrowfully, that he fought even the cousins of Bucephalus.

This happened on the Red Sea shore one night when dusk had fallen, and the Macedonian host prepared to camp. Before the tents were fully pitched, however, a high, familiar call echoed amid the gathering shadows. It was a summons to Bucephalus, but the magnificent beast did not answer. Nor did Bucephalus appear when a unicorn tribe...fierce, wild, and free...thundered toward the encampment. The unicorns' hooves sent tremors through the earth, and their massive heads were lowered, aligning their horns to kill the mortals who had invaded their territory. But now nothing could daunt Alexander's warriors. One and all, the unicorns were slain, their hearts split by Grecian lances, their blood spilled by the bitter edges of Grecian swords. Bucephalus never joined them. His loyalty was no longer to his own kind. It had been given to Alexander the Conqueror, greatest among men.

All the earth was the Macedonian's to command, so it seemed. Then, according to some chroniclers, Alexander sought to subjugate the heavens. In a chariot pulled by captured griffins...winged lions of India and Persia...Alexander sailed one day into the sky. Below him, tiny as toys, were the tents of his vast encampment. As minute as flower buds were the trees that studded the plain. Alexander urged the winged creatures higher, until the sea beside the plain was no more than a sheet of gold. Then, Alexander turned his face upward directly toward the sun. But when he faced the steady eye of heaven and met, with his own eye, the power of that eternal lamp, Alexander retreated.

He was, after all, no god but only a man. He brought the griffins down to earth and captivity, and he assailed the skies no more. For the remainder of his life, Alexander trod upon the ground like all other men and, mighty though he was, he had no answer to death. When the valiant Bucephalus died, his gallant heart having finally failed, Alexander grieved and built a city in the unicorn's honor.

Alexander himself died soon after...only three years past his thirtieth birthday. Soon, the territories he had conquered and forged into a single great empire once again split asunder. In time, the cities he had built crumbled and fell until few signs of Alexander's power remained...only tumbled stones, the scattered bones of his armies, and the glittering dust of a unicorn's horn.

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