Name of book with wild, dangerous unicorn

Question

I am looking for the title or author of a book I remember reading as a child in '70s or '80s.

I don't remember much about the plot. Most of the book played in our world, but there was a door or portal where something or someone from another world came through, resulting in danger to the protagonists or their families.

The protagonists were children, as is the case in many children books. However, I remember the book having a rather dark and somber mood, unusual for a children's book.

One distinct event in this book I remember: someone went missing, and all they found was their glove, which was embedded in a rock (or in the ground), with part of it sticking out.

I think there also was a unicorn, no the tame, fluffy rainbow-creature currently so popular, but a wild and dangerous beast.

I read the book in german, but I don't know whether if was originally written in german, or was translated from another language.

The book was a hardcover, and while I can't remember the design of the sleeve, I remember it being mostly orange or red in color.

Answer 1

Pretty sure the book you're thinking of is Elidor by Alan Garner (1965). This is the mostly orange and red cover of the hardback edition:

Four children find a portal to another world, on a bombed-out site in Manchester. In the other world, they are given four sacred objects they must protect (based loosely on objects from Irish myth). They bring them back to our world (where they turn into mundane objects), but the evil power they are protecting them from also comes through to our world in the form of a unicorn, and the children are besieged in their home.

I distinctly remember the detail about the glove partly embedded in rock, which is in chapter 3:

The fingers and the cuff were free, but the thumb went straight into the quartz.

Roland looked for the name tape inside the cuff. He found it: Helen R. Watson.

He stabbed the turf, but he could find no break in the quartz, nothing that he could lift. The glove was fused into the rock. There were no cracks, no lesions. The thumb went into unflawed rock, and turf had covered it.

The unicorn's name is Findhorn. The book was adapted for television by the BBC twice, once for Jackanory in 1968, and later as a miniseries in 1995 on Children's BBC.

Answer 2

Lords and Ladies by Terry Pratchett , which came out in 1992 fits the bill.

Portal to Faerie world? Check. Something coming through portal? Check. Wild unicorn that kills a man? Check. Somewhat somber mood? Check.

Magrat is stunned when King Verence proclaims their imminent marriage, having already made all the arrangements in her absence. The sudden appearance of crop circles reveals to Nanny and Granny that it is now "circle time", a convergence of parallel universes when the Discworld is susceptible to incursions from the "parasite universe" of the Elves. Elves are capricious and amoral creatures that enter the minds of animals and sentient beings in a more destructive way than witches do, using "glamour" to alter human's perceptions of them. They are normally kept away by a circle of magnetized iron standing stones known as the Dancers. When Nanny and Granny refuse to explain the situation to Magrat, she leaves the coven, disavows witchcraft, and moves into an apartment in Lancre Castle. She soon becomes bored with the courtly lifestyle and unsure of her place.

Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, leads a small group of faculty to attend the wedding. Along the way, they are joined by the Dwarfish lothario Casanunda.

Granny and Nanny discover that a group of local girls, led by Diamanda Tockley and including Agnes Nitt, have formed a new coven whose activities include dancing naked at the Dancers. The two elderly witches try to convince them to stop, with Granny ultimately besting Diamanda in a public witchcraft contest and discrediting the new coven. But a defiant Diamanda later runs through the Dancers into the land of the Elves, where she is knocked unconscious by a poisoned Elven arrow before being rescued by Granny. Nanny subdues an Elf that pursues them back into Lancre, using an iron fireplace poker; Elves and their powers are severely weakened by iron. The witches bring Diamanda and the Elf to Lancre Castle, where Magrat treats Diamanda and Verence agrees to imprison the Elf (though Magrat inadvertently frees it later). Meanwhile, Granny has begun to experience memories of other paths her life has taken in parallel worlds, as well as a growing sense of her own impending death.

Answer 3

To me, this sounds like "The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe", by C. S. Lewis. It's about 4 children in WWII era London, where the youngest girl, Lucy, finds a wardrobe that has no back, but leads to a fantasy world. Her 3 siblings later end up also finding this place while looking for her, and notice a glove (IIRC) on a tree that shows she's there.

This was first published in 1950, so I'd assume it had time to find a German translation by the 70's or 80's.

I believe that through the book, the youngest meets a wild unicorn and is able to come near it because of her youth. It's been many years since I read this book, so it could have been a pegasus (winged horse instead of unicorn).

The book is rather dark, in that it vividly talks about war and killing.