The legend of the unicorn Tinkabelle
There are many legends about unicorns. But one of the most beautiful is that of Tinkabelle - more precisely the meaning of her name.
This legend is ancient and has been confirmed again and again. About people who are mostly lost in the forest and then take a break at some point and gradually perceive more and more noises from the forest. Then you hear it, but rarely - from a distance and completely surprising: "Tinka!"
It's always a very special experience. You can hear a lot in the forest when you are very quiet and all alone. You can hear the rustling of the leaves, you can hear the wind caressing the tops of the trees and stimulating them to grow, you can hear a bird in the bushes hopping over the leaves, you can hear an animal from the forest as it is somewhere on its way . You can even hear the insects go about their work. You can even hear the silence itself at some point. How she lays down imperiously over the hustle and bustle from time to time and commands "be quiet!" For a short time.
But the most enchanting thing you can ever hear in the forest, the most unique and wonderful, is this "Tinka!" It comes like a sudden joyful spark of life that unexpectedly flashes and outshines all the hustle and bustle in the forest in its brightness. Then it is suddenly very quiet for two or three seconds. As if all living beings, even the smallest ones and even the trees themselves, would stop, prick up their ears and insert a second of prayer. Then the whole hustle and bustle in the forest starts to go its way again and it seems, that is very strange, to be somehow even more carefree.
"Tinka!" It comes all of a sudden. Like a spark of life that outshines everything in the forest in brightness.
Unicorns can talk. This may surprise one or the other, but that doesn't change the fact. Unicorns don't talk much because they usually agree, they take everything in life as it comes and there is just not much to talk about. The saying "a smile is worth a thousand words" probably comes from a time when people lived more in the remote depths of nature and therefore - rarely, but still - unicorns were sighted. Often you saw them smiling at each other, because at such moments they are a bit careless and you could approach them with a lot of skill and caution within sight. That's why unicorns have few words. And one of them, but one of great importance, is Tinka.
Tinka means something like beautiful! Not just "beautiful." Not just beautiful with a point behind it. But "beautiful!" Nice with callsign. Or rather: with a double or triple call sign. At least! With callsigns full of astonishment - or rather "delight" - and full of joy.
Like all living beings, unicorns were created to perceive the world and its wonders. And again and again they discover something new that they enjoy. When they truly light up with joy. And then they just can't help it. Then they just have to let out a cry of joy. And that is exactly what TINKA! means.
There are all kinds of things in the forest that delight unicorns. A beautiful mushroom you have never seen before, a short but unrepeatable beautiful bird song, even a particularly beautiful leaf that falls from a tree in front of a unicorn - that alone is enough to make this Tinka! to bring forth. That alone? "How presumptuous!" A unicorn would think. What does that mean here alone? Would you want to tell such a unicorn that a leaf is actually nothing special at all, so that one Tinka! exclaims and bathes the forest in brightness? You may not, but many people would. And that's exactly why - although unicorns like and even love people in themselves - they prefer to stay away from them and shy away from them.
So much for the legend. This is Tinkabelle. The one born of the beauty of nature. For unicorns, Tinka - from which Tinkabelle is derived - is a word for the very highest and most wonderful that there is in the entire universe. And at the same time, however, as the legend emphasizes, everything in which the living lives is wonderful.
