The Unicorn is a legendary animal, one might say mythical but for the numerous historical accounts of its existence and description. Cave drawings in Lascaux, France depict a horse-like animal with a single straight horn that archeologists have playfully named "the unicorn." Aboriginal paintings found in South Africa and South America are said to be those of unicorns, since they look like no other animal. In 1977, a South American scientist was recorded as stating he believed unicorns to be one of South America's "lost" species, hunted out of existence in pre-history. Still, due to lack of fossil records and other hard-core evidence, most scientists believe the unicorn has never existed.
The modern-day unicorn is depicted as a white horse with a long spiralled golden or white horn coming from its forehead. This has not always been so. In medieval times, the unicorn was considered to be the size of a donkey or goat. It was white, but had the head of a deer, the body of a horse, the tail of a lion, the beard of a goat and cloven hooves. It was a symbol of purity and faithfulness and was thought to be untameable, very fast and strong. In folklore, unicorns could only be captured by virgins. If the maiden they approached was merely pretending to be a virgin, the unicorn would kill her.
The famous traveller, Marco Polo, agreed the unicorn was only tameable by maidens, but when he wrote about the unicorn he'd been shown, he described it like this: "Scarcely smaller than elephants. They have the hair of a buffalo and feet like an elephant's. They have a single large black horn in the middle of the forehead. They have a head like a wild boar's. They spend their time wallowing in mud and slime. They are very ugly brutes to look at." It has since been realized Marco Polo was describing a rhinoceros.
Marco Polo is not the only famous person to have "encountered" a unicorn. Alexander the Great boasted he had ridden a unicorn into battle, and Julius Caesar reported seeing a unicorn in the forests of Germany. A unicorn appeared to Confucius's mother, heralding the great Chinese philosopher's birth. It later appeared to Confucius, foretelling his death. A unicorn was supposed to live in the garden of Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor. He believed it meant his reign would be long and peaceful. In China the unicorn is seen as a good omen and will only appear to humans if it has important information. If the world is suffering difficult times, the unicorn will disappear. The Chinese unicorn is called Kilin and takes on many different forms. The most familiar has a deer's body, an ox's tail and a horse's hooves. The singular horn is short and its coat is red, yellow, blue, white and black. Sometimes the kilin is covered with green scales.
Herodotus wrote about the "horned ass" of Africa in the 3rd century BC and around the same time, Ctesias, who was a Greek physician and historian, travelled to Persia where he heard tales of "the wild ass of India." This creature was supposed to as be as large as a horse with a white body, red head, blue eyes and a long white, black and red horn. It was tales of the horn – the alicorn as it is known – that intrigued Ctesis. As a physician, the idea of an object that cured ills, prolonged life and protected a person from all poisons was remarkable. Aristotle heard of Ctesis's stories, and although he believed the unicorn to be a real animal, he did not believe its horn held any special powers.
Mystical powers have always been associated with the unicorn. From its amazing strength – Jewish legend says they can kill an elephant – to its ability to tell truth from falsehood – confronted by a liar, a unicorn will pierce a liar through the heart – the unicorn occupies a definitive place in human history and culture. For centuries, unicorn horns were sold for their medicinal properties. Although there were many ways to test the horn's authenticity, most horns were simply goat or cow horns, with a few coming from exotic creatures like the narwhal To own a complete unicorn horn was to demonstrate your rank, wealth and power. Queen Elizabeth I possessed one and the throne of Denmark was supposed to be made of them.
Regardless of their highly questionable existence, unicorns continue to be popular. Their place in human culture is equivalent to that of dragons and faeries. They are depicted in our art and architecture and are frequently mentioned in songs, poetry, histories and stories. If they once existed, evidence now points to their extinction. If they never existed, than human imagination has truly created a marvelous creature.
10 Magical Facts About Unicorns
Just because unicorns are mythical doesn’t mean they haven’t had a real impact on history. Just ask a narwhal!
1. The first known depiction of a unicorn—found in the Lascaux Caves of modern-day France—dates to around 15,000 BCE! Or so people thought, until they realized that the so-called Lascaux unicorn had two horns, drawn confusingly close together.
2. The earliest record of unicorns in Western literature belongs to Greek historian Ctesias. In the 5th century BCE, he wrote that the beast had a white body, purple head, blue eyes, and a multicolored horn—red at the tip, black in the middle, and white at the base.
3. In his travels, Marco Polo believed he stumbled across unicorns. He wrote, “They are very ugly brutes to look at. They are not at all such as we describe unicorns.” That’s because they were actually rhinoceroses.
4. Genghis Khan reportedly decided not to conquer India after meeting a unicorn, which bowed down to him; he viewed it as a sign from his dead father and turned his army back.
5. During the Dark Ages, when science famously took a back seat to illogical hunches, collections known as bestiaries listed the biological properties and medicinal use of known animals, which at the time included unicorns. It’s in these collections that virgins were first described as having great power over the creatures.
6. The King James version of the Old Testament contains nine references to unicorns, thanks to a mistranslation of the Hebrew word re’em. The original word was likely the Assyrian rimu (auroch), an extinct species of wild ox.
7. The legend that unicorn horns could counteract poison and purify water was bad news for narwhal populations, as the single tooth protruding from the front of the whale’s head made for a popular counterfeit. The Danes even had a throne made of narwhal horns.
8. At its height, “unicorn horn” was literally worth 10 times its weight in gold. In 1560, German merchants sold a unicorn horn for an astronomical 90,000 scudi—then about £18,000—to the pope. Pharmacies in London sold powdered unicorn horn as late as 1741.
9. Early unicorn heraldry can be found on the ancient seals of Babylonia and Assyria, but it’s most famously attached to Scotland’s King James III in the 1400s. Two gold coins of that era were even known as the unicorn and the half-unicorn!
10. If you’re looking to hunt a unicorn, but don’t know where to begin, try Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Since 1971, the university has issued permits to unicorn questers. Anyone embarking on such a search is advised to carry a flask of cognac and a pair of pinking shears.