• 100 story ideas
  • Checked October 2026

Unicorn Story Ideas

Each idea has one unicorn, someone who meets it, a trouble and an ending.

Unicorn Story Ideas

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  1. A fisherwoman on a still lake sees a horse swimming with only its horn above the water, like a mast.Trouble: her nets are in its way. Ends: she lifts them to let it pass, and they come up full.
  2. A florist finds the tops nibbled off every bunch outside the shop except the thistles.Trouble: Friday's wedding order is gone. Ends: the bride carries thistles and says they are what she wanted.
  3. A girl who has never told a fib sees a unicorn and, for the first time in her life, is doubted.Trouble: she has no practice at being doubted. Ends: her friend the fibber believes her at once.

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All 100 story ideas

A child who is not believed 20

  • A boy brings one long white hair to show and tell, and the class says it is his grandmother's. Trouble: it will not stay in a knot. Ends: it ties itself in a bow while only the teacher is looking.
  • A boy finds a hoofprint in the mud with a small star pressed into the middle of it. Trouble: rain is coming. Ends: he gets plaster into it in time, and the cast hangs in his classroom.
  • A boy keeps a notebook of unicorn sightings, and his sister keeps a notebook of his mistakes. Trouble: her notebook is thicker. Ends: both of them have the same thing written down for one Tuesday.
  • A boy known for tall tales sees a real unicorn and decides not to say a word about it. Trouble: keeping quiet is new to him. Ends: his silence is so strange that the whole class goes to look.
  • A boy points out a unicorn in the background of the town's oldest painting, and the guide says it is a smudge. Trouble: it stands in a different place on each visit. Ends: the guide starts checking too, before opening.
  • A boy promises the unicorn that he will never tell, and then his best friend guesses. Trouble: is a nod telling? Ends: the unicorn rules that a guess does not count, just this once.
  • A boy sees a unicorn on the night of a power cut and is told that candlelight plays tricks. Trouble: the lights come back and it is gone. Ends: his candle burns a whole night longer than it should.
  • A boy tells his grandmother he saw a unicorn, and she asks only which way it was going. Trouble: he did not notice. Ends: they go back together, and she brings a sketch she made at his age.
  • A girl counts the horses in the far field from the school bus: six, and on foggy mornings seven. Trouble: the bus never stops there. Ends: on the foggiest day the driver slows down without being asked.
  • A girl draws the unicorn she saw, and her teacher gives the drawing full marks for imagination. Trouble: she wanted marks for accuracy. Ends: it stands at the window all through the next art lesson.
  • A girl finds a unicorn asleep in the hay fort she built, and no grown-up will climb up to look. Trouble: the ladder is child-sized. Ends: her grandfather climbs it anyway and comes down smiling.
  • A girl leaves an apple on the wall each night and finds a neat round hole through it each morning. Trouble: her brother says woodpecker. Ends: the next apple comes back peeled in one long spiral.
  • A girl photographs the unicorn, and the picture shows only an empty field in very good light. Trouble: nobody is impressed by light. Ends: the photo wins the school prize, and only she knows why.
  • A girl sees a unicorn drinking from the school pond and is told it was the caretaker's white pony. Trouble: the caretaker has no pony. Ends: he admits it, and asks her to keep the secret with him.
  • A girl sees the unicorn only in puddles, walking beside her own reflection. Trouble: nobody else looks down. Ends: her baby brother, who is puddle height, waves at it.
  • A girl who has never told a fib sees a unicorn and, for the first time in her life, is doubted. Trouble: she has no practice at being doubted. Ends: her friend the fibber believes her at once.
  • A little sister says a unicorn ate her mittens, and her brother is sure she lost them again. Trouble: now his scarf is gone too. Ends: both turn up on the gate one morning, washed and folded.
  • A new boy says his last town had a unicorn, and the class decides he makes things up. Trouble: he has no proof and no friends yet. Ends: a postcard comes: a field, a fence and one white blur.
  • The smallest child at the campfire says the white shape in the trees is a unicorn, and the big ones laugh. Trouble: it comes closer when they laugh. Ends: it only wanted to hear the joke.
  • Twins both see the unicorn and describe it so differently that nobody believes either of them. Trouble: one says silver and one says gold. Ends: it is silver on one side and gold on the other.

Someone at work 20

  • A baker's bread rises twice as high on the mornings a white horse has looked in at her window. Trouble: now customers want tall loaves every day. Ends: she bakes at the window and leaves the shutters open.
  • A beekeeper's honey has begun to glow faintly, and something tall has been standing in the clover. Trouble: customers want ordinary honey. Ends: she sells the glowing jars as night-lights.
  • A bell ringer oversleeps and hears the evening bell rung anyway, one clear note, from the meadow. Trouble: now the town expects that note. Ends: he cannot ring it, so he opens the tower window at dusk.
  • A blacksmith is brought a horse with no owner, and its hooves ring like bells on his floor. Trouble: no iron shoe will stay on. Ends: he files the hooves smooth and keeps the filings in a jar.
  • A ferryman is paid for a crossing with one white hair by a passenger who came aboard on four legs. Trouble: his wife wants coins. Ends: tied to the bow, the hair keeps the ferry straight in any current.
  • A fisherwoman on a still lake sees a horse swimming with only its horn above the water, like a mast. Trouble: her nets are in its way. Ends: she lifts them to let it pass, and they come up full.
  • A gardener finds her hedges trimmed overnight into spirals, at exactly the height of a horn. Trouble: the owner ordered squares. Ends: the owner sees the spirals and orders more.
  • A lamplighter finds one lamp on his round already lit each dusk, though it has held no oil for years. Trouble: he is blamed for wasting oil. Ends: he shows his boss the dry lamp, and they both stand under it.
  • A laundress finds her sheets dry whiter on the line by the wood than they came out of the tub. Trouble: now everyone wants that line. Ends: she rents out the pegs and leaves a carrot on the post.
  • A mail carrier has a letter addressed to The Unicorn, Far Meadow, and a rule about delivering everything. Trouble: there is no mailbox. Ends: she reads it aloud to the meadow, and a reply is on her step by morning.
  • A mapmaker cannot finish her map, because a white shape stands in a different valley every morning. Trouble: the map is due on Friday. Ends: she draws a small horn in the key and writes: moves about.
  • A night watchman follows the sound of hooves around the town wall every night and never catches up. Trouble: it is always one corner ahead. Ends: he turns and walks the other way, and they meet.
  • A saddler is asked for a bridle with no bit and no reins, only a small bell. Trouble: he cannot see the use of it. Ends: he hears the bell some nights, far off, and knows it is worn.
  • A shepherd finds her whole flock gathered around a tall white stranger at dawn, as if listening. Trouble: the sheep will not come when she calls. Ends: she learns its whistle, more or less.
  • A sign painter repainting the board of the Unicorn Inn gets a visit from an expert on the horn. Trouble: the old sign had it twisting the wrong way. Ends: the new sign is right, and the visitor nods.
  • A stable hand counts the horses at night and gets one more than he counted at noon. Trouble: the extra one eats the best hay. Ends: he leaves the end stall open and stops counting past twelve.
  • A tailor is asked to make a coat for a customer who can only be measured after dark, on four legs. Trouble: his tape is too short. Ends: he measures in arm lengths, and the coat fits on the first try.
  • A toll keeper must decide what to charge a creature that is not a cart, a rider or livestock. Trouble: the price board has no line for it. Ends: she chalks one on: unicorns, one story.
  • A weaver finds a white thread in her cloth that she did not spin and her scissors will not cut. Trouble: the cloth is promised for a wedding. Ends: she works the thread into the border, and it suits.
  • A woodcutter marks a tree for felling and finds the mark gone next morning and the tree in blossom. Trouble: it happens to every tree he marks. Ends: he marks only the dead ones, and those stay marked.

Someone at a castle 20

  • A court painter must paint the unicorn from memory, since it will not hold still or come indoors. Trouble: every sketch shows a different animal. Ends: he hangs all nine, and it comes to look at the ninth.
  • A gate guard has orders to let no horse in after dark, and the late visitor is not a horse. Trouble: the rule book agrees with the visitor. Ends: he opens the gate and adds a rule in pencil.
  • A herald must announce a guest who has no title, no country and no patience for trumpets. Trouble: silence is not in his training. Ends: he bows and says nothing, and it is his best announcement.
  • A jester has one joke that never works, the one about the unicorn, because it keeps standing behind him. Trouble: the court laughs at the wrong moment. Ends: he makes it a double act.
  • A king puts a unicorn on his flag before anyone has checked that the kingdom has one. Trouble: a visiting queen asks to see it. Ends: a real one comes to look at the flag and stays for the visit.
  • A kitchen boy carries the scraps out each night to something that leaves the bowl polished. Trouble: he is afraid of the dark yard. Ends: from then on a soft light waits by the bowl.
  • A knight swears to search for a unicorn for a year and finds one on the first morning. Trouble: she has a year of supplies and no quest. Ends: they travel on together, and the unicorn picks the road.
  • A lady-in-waiting grows tired of waiting and goes to see what is at the end of the hoofprints. Trouble: they end at the river. Ends: they begin again on the far bank, and so does she.
  • A lonely scribe has a tower window over the unicorn's meadow and starts to leave the shutters open. Trouble: his pages blow out. Ends: one is returned to the sill each dawn, the right way up.
  • A page is sent to fetch the unicorn for the royal parade and learns that it has views on parades. Trouble: it will not wear the plume. Ends: it walks behind the drums at its own pace, and the parade waits.
  • A prince too shy to speak at court practices his speeches on the unicorn in the orchard. Trouble: the unicorn falls asleep. Ends: he practices until it stays awake, and after that the court is easy.
  • A princess asks for a pony and is given the kingdom's only unicorn, which is not the same thing at all. Trouble: it will not be ridden, brushed or named. Ends: she asks what it would like, and they go for a walk.
  • A royal messenger on the slowest horse in the stable is overtaken, politely, every morning. Trouble: his letters are always late. Ends: the unicorn sets the pace beside him, and the old horse keeps up.
  • A treasurer is told to put a price on the unicorn for the royal accounts. Trouble: every sum he writes has faded by morning. Ends: he lists it under Not Ours, and the ink stays.
  • A tutor is hired to teach the unicorn court manners and ends up learning meadow manners. Trouble: it will not use a napkin. Ends: the tutor eats lunch standing in the clover and likes it.
  • A young queen's crown goes missing and is found three days later hanging on the unicorn's horn. Trouble: orders do not get it back. Ends: she asks politely, and it bows its head.
  • The castle cook keeps finding the lid of every apple pie lifted off and set neatly to one side. Trouble: the king likes his pies whole. Ends: she bakes one with no lid and leaves it on the orchard wall.
  • The castle's old dog is the only one the unicorn greets, and the court would like to know why. Trouble: the dog is not saying. Ends: a page follows them and learns they like the same sunny wall.
  • The queen's gardener plants a maze, and the unicorn learns the way through before the queen does. Trouble: the queen is lost in it by teatime. Ends: it leads her out, and she never says who did.
  • Two kingdoms each claim the unicorn that grazes on their border. Trouble: it eats on one side and sleeps on the other. Ends: the meadow is shared, with a gate and no lock.

Another animal 20

  • A barn cat brings the unicorn a mouse as a gift, and the gift is declined. Trouble: the cat is offended. Ends: the unicorn brings her a daisy, she is offended again, and they are friends.
  • A bee lands on the horn, taking it for a very tall flower. Trouble: there is no nectar. Ends: the unicorn carries her to the best clover it knows, to make up for it.
  • A cow shares her salt lick with a tall stranger who has a very long way to bend. Trouble: its horn keeps knocking the fence. Ends: she noses the lick a little farther out each day.
  • A crow that collects shiny things wants the horn. Trouble: it is attached. Ends: the crow settles for its reflection in the pond and visits it daily.
  • A donkey is the only animal on the farm who is not impressed by the unicorn. Trouble: everyone else stares all day. Ends: that is why the unicorn spends its afternoons with the donkey.
  • A fawn follows the unicorn instead of its mother for one whole morning. Trouble: the unicorn has never minded a fawn. Ends: it grazes its way slowly back to the herd.
  • A frog offers to guide the unicorn across the marsh, one lily pad at a time. Trouble: hooves and lily pads. Ends: it wades, the frog rides on its nose, and both arrive.
  • A goose that chases everything chases the unicorn, which has never been chased before. Trouble: it does not know it should run. Ends: the goose explains, and they race every morning after.
  • A lamb lost in fog follows a pale glow across the hill. Trouble: the glow keeps moving. Ends: it stops at the fold gate and is gone before the shepherd looks up.
  • A mole who cannot see meets the unicorn and describes it better than anyone: warm, tall, smelling of rain. Trouble: nobody asks moles. Ends: the unicorn does.
  • A mouse spends the winter living in the unicorn's mane. Trouble: the mouse snores. Ends: by spring the unicorn cannot sleep without it.
  • A mule with a peddler's pack meets the unicorn on a mountain path too narrow for two. Trouble: neither has ever backed up. Ends: the mule lies down, and the unicorn steps over with thanks.
  • A plow horse shares a fence with a unicorn and asks it to swap places for one day. Trouble: the unicorn has never pulled anything. Ends: the furrows wander, and the beans come up anyway.
  • A rabbit finds something very large asleep across the door of her burrow and cannot get out for breakfast. Trouble: it is a sound sleeper. Ends: she digs a back door, and the unicorn says sorry with clover.
  • A rooster is annoyed that something else greets the dawn before he does, and without a sound. Trouble: he gets up earlier and earlier. Ends: they share the hill: one watches, one crows.
  • A sheepdog tries to herd the unicorn into the pen with the sheep. Trouble: it will not be herded. Ends: it walks in once, to be polite, and the sheep talk of nothing else.
  • A swallow builds her nest on the one thing in the meadow that stands still at dawn. Trouble: the unicorn has an itch. Ends: it does not scratch until the last chick has flown.
  • A white foal is sure that it is a unicorn whose horn is late. Trouble: the horn is not coming. Ends: the unicorn tells it what a horn cannot do: run in a herd.
  • An old pony who gives rides at the fair meets the unicorn behind the tents after closing. Trouble: he thinks nobody special would talk to him. Ends: it asks him what children are like.
  • An owl who has seen everything in the wood sees a unicorn and has to think again. Trouble: she has told the owlets there is nothing new. Ends: she wakes them all up to look.

Someone in a town today 20

  • A boy at the skate park at dawn finds that someone has been using the ramp on four hooves. Trouble: the marks go up and not down. Ends: he looks up, and it is watching from the top of the hill.
  • A crossing guard holds up her sign for a unicorn at the school gate, and the cars wait without knowing why. Trouble: a driver honks. Ends: it crosses at its own speed, and the honking stops halfway.
  • A dog walker's six dogs all sit down at once and face the far end of the playing field. Trouble: they will not move. Ends: she sits down too, and sees why.
  • A florist finds the tops nibbled off every bunch outside the shop except the thistles. Trouble: Friday's wedding order is gone. Ends: the bride carries thistles and says they are what she wanted.
  • A girl practicing soccer alone has every shot sent back out of the trees. Trouble: one comes back flat, with a neat hole. Ends: she brings a new ball and a rule: no headers.
  • A girl walking home sees it under the one working streetlight, as if it were waiting for the bus. Trouble: the bus comes and the driver sees nothing. Ends: she waits with it until it walks on.
  • A girl washing cars on Saturday hoses the mud off what she took for a very dirty pony. Trouble: the horn was under the mud. Ends: she does not charge, and the line of cars forgets to honk.
  • A hairdresser stays late for a walk-in with a very long mane and no appointment. Trouble: it wants only the burrs out. Ends: she sweeps up afterward, and the sweepings shine.
  • A laundromat owner finds one dryer warm every morning and long white hairs in the lint tray. Trouble: the door was locked all night. Ends: she leaves a blanket in that dryer when it is cold.
  • A librarian reads a unicorn book at story time while one listens at the open window. Trouble: the book has it wrong, and it snorts. Ends: the children ask the window what really happened.
  • A night guard with twelve screens sees it on camera nine at three each morning, looking at the lens. Trouble: the tape shows only fog. Ends: he waves at camera nine, and the fog dips its head.
  • A park keeper finds the fountain running each morning, though he turns it off each night. Trouble: the water bill. Ends: he stays late once, sees who drinks there, and pays the bill himself.
  • A parking officer must decide whether to ticket something standing in a loading bay. Trouble: it has no plate to write down. Ends: she writes a warning and tucks it under a hoof.
  • A pizza rider delivers to the field behind the gas station, where nobody is waiting to sign. Trouble: it is paid for in clover. Ends: the box is at the gate next Friday, empty and folded flat.
  • A school photographer cannot get the back row to stop looking out of the window. Trouble: forty spoiled pictures. Ends: he turns the camera around and takes the one he frames.
  • A train driver slows every Friday for a white horse on the line, and it steps aside at the last moment. Trouble: the train runs two minutes late. Ends: the timetable is changed, and nobody says why.
  • A vet's last patient of the day is a white horse with a splinter, brought in by nobody. Trouble: the form asks for an owner. Ends: she writes Self, and it is back the same day next year.
  • A window dresser arrives to find something white outside, studying its reflection in the shop glass. Trouble: it is blocking the display. Ends: she builds the window around it, and it stays until closing.
  • An ice cream truck has a customer at its last stop who wants only the cone. Trouble: it cannot hold one. Ends: the driver holds it out, and that is the last stop every evening after.
  • The driver of the first streetcar of the morning has one passenger who stands and takes up four places. Trouble: it has no ticket. Ends: it gets off at the park and leaves an apple on the seat.

How it works

These 100 unicorn story ideas are sorted by who meets the unicorn: a child nobody believes, someone at work, someone at a castle, another animal, or someone in a town today.

Read the full guide

Who meets the unicorn

The meeting decides the story. A child who is not believed has to find proof: a hoofprint with a star in it, an apple peeled in one spiral. A stable hand or a mapmaker has a job that the unicorn gets in the way of. At a castle, somebody wants to own it. Another animal only wants to know what it is.

A trouble and an ending

The line under each idea gives both. The troubles are small: a map due on Friday, a crown hung on the horn, a letter with no mailbox to take it. In every ending the unicorn stays free. Nobody catches it, rides it or keeps it.

  • Decide what your unicorn will not do. One that refuses to be named is a story already.
  • Give it one habit: it comes only in fog, or it will not step on a road.

Questions and answers

What can I write about a unicorn?

Write about the meeting. On this list a ferryman is paid with one white hair, a princess who asked for a pony is given a unicorn, and a goose chases one that has never been chased before.

How do you start a unicorn story?

With the person, not the unicorn. Show a lamplighter on his round or a girl on the school bus, then let them notice one thing that is off: a lamp already lit, a seventh horse in the fog.

Are these unicorn stories for kids?

Yes. They were written for children. The troubles are everyday ones (lost mittens, a spoiled class photo, a late train), nothing is frightening and nobody is hurt.

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