Don’t worry, there’s a fairy-tale ending.

Drives on Avenue 12 in Madera Ranchos in California must have thought they were seeing things — or perhaps had been transported into a magic story. 911 calls began coming in that there was a unicorn running loose.

They weren’t entirely incorrect: Juliette the pony, who regularly wears a false unicorn horn to pose for children’s photographs, had escaped from a job and was now running wild through orchards and along the roadway, still garbed with her mystical horn. For her five-year-old owner Tatum Boos, this wasn’t a fairytale but a nightmare: “I was afraid, and we had to catch her in the dark.”

Juliette led the state highway patrol as well as local residents on a merry chase evocative of the unicorns of legend: among the white blooms in an orchard, she essentially vanished as she blended right in with the scenery. Finally, by the light of a California Highway Patrol helicopter, a family friend rode in on her horse to lure Juliette into captivity.

As they say, a unicorn can be tamed by a fair maiden — or, in the words of Tatum, “get a time out because she was being a bad pony.” Sounds about right to us.

And they lived happily ever after, like all good fairy tales.

Go unicorns! Go riding!

[Runaway unicorn captured in California]