The UNICORN SERIES - Part FOUR

The Unicorn Series
Part Four - Contemporary Unicorns

The legend of the unicorn really began to develop when the scholars began to play with the 'lore' that had been carefully collected and transcribed. Between 1550 and 1700 approximately 25 extended 'discussions' were published focussing exclusively on its origins, history and evolution. These discussions were long articles, and heavily referenced and foot-noted books. They were in a sense a nightmare to read.

Conrad Gesner in 1551, in his book Zoology suggested that the unicorn had been wiped out during Noah's flood. For seventy years this book wasn't doubted. It described several different species of unicorn including a new one from the Carpathians, and even today is drawn upon in contemporary texts to further imply that the unicorn was a real species mostly wiped out by some earthly disaster.

Thomas Boreman in 1730 wrote his: A Description of Three Hundred Animals, viz. Beasts, Birds, Fishes, Serpents & Insects, With a Particular Account of the Whale-Fishery (remind anyone of Fiona Apple's last album anyone?). The unicorn here is described as having one iron-hard horn on a hart's head, elephant's feet, a boar's tail and a horse's body. His voice was an ox-low. The unicorn was entirely black, except for the tip of the rough edged horn, which is thought to be red. It is described here as a solitary herbivore, fierce to its own kind, and to men who would seek to catch it.

Almost all the scholars were Protestants, bent on maintaining the Bible storyline, so the virgin-capture lived on, as did the religious implications of purity if one drank from a unicorn horn, or if one ground it into his or her drink.

There were some evolutionary traits ascribed to the unicorn which are no longer written about in the mainstream today. The first is that if pursued, a unicorn will quite happily throw himself off a precipice, fall headfirst and let his horn slice the ground and take all the impact - where upon it uses its great strength to rip its horn out of the ground and keep running. Lore explained that any water that sprung from horn holes was sacred, and lent any drinker or bather power.

Another evolutionary trait passed by the wayside was that the unicorn would bow three times on one knee to any that it perceived was a true ruler (such as it did to Genghis Khan). Indeed Ssanang Ssetsen says quite lyrically of this, 'what may it mean that this speechless wild animal bows before me like a man? Is it that the spirit of my father would send me a warning out of heaven?' Genghis Khan did not invade India after seeing this creature, thus India was saved.

Another was that the single horn twisted from the base until about ten centimetres at the top where it split and unwound into two points that were exceedingly sharp. Some soldiers reported seeing rotting flesh hanging on these points, badges of men past slain for daring to capture the fierce brown creature.

As time went by, the sea unicorn emerged, that which had the single horn on the equine head, a mane and a solid strong swimming body. Here was the first clear parallel drawn with the narwhal, a single 'horned' whale whose horn is actually an extended tooth in males for purposes of territorial and breeding dispute.

Today the unicorn is; according to Michael Page and Robert Ingpen from The Encyclopedia of Things That Never Were:

'A particularly beautiful creature once widespread throughout the northern hemisphere. Known under different names in different countries, but now popularly known by its Latin appellation deriving from unus = one, cornus = horn.' Generally the unicorn was a solitary creature. Unlike other hooved animals it did not pasture in herds but walked alone, and after the male and female unicorn had come together for mating the male would resume its solitary habit. A unicorn colt, which was born without a horn, stayed with its mother until the horn had grown to full length and then went off on its own.

The horn of the unicorn was a fearsome weapon, especially since the unicorn was a very fierce and aggressive animal which could run faster than any other creature of the plains and forests. Adult unicorns protected their territory with single-minded fury. Even an elephant would steer clear of a unicorn. Lions, being carnivorous, often lived amicably in unicorn territory since the two animals did not threaten each other's food supplies, and a lion never attacked a unicorn for fear of its great horn.

The unicorn in mainstream culture is white, with a stag or equine body, stag or equine face, and single or cloven-hoofed often given a lion or goat's tail, and forelock and fetlocks. The horn is also portrayed as white. They are considered emulations of purity and of protection, though their history is somewhat one stained with the blood trade of trading false alicorns (often inciting the mass slaughter of narwhals and antelopes to do so), and betrayal.

The unicorn has been popularised in contemporary culture through anime, My Little Ponies, the artwork of Sue Dawe and through the animation The Last Unicorn based on a same-titled book by Peter S. Beagle. This is currently being re-written in the hopes of being re-made once more. The unicorn today still hasn't lost much of its splendour and grace, beauty or ferocity, and remains a favourite mythological subject of artists, poets and musicians worldwide.