Fact Or Fiction?
Unicorn Of West
Unicorn Of East
Unicorn in Other Languages
Unicorns are as elusive in the world legends
as they are in the real world. At places where
they are most expected to be met, such as the
forests of Camelot in the Arthurian legends,
their absence is quite evident. Creatures that
belong far more to the sphere of fantasy
can be met there, like dragons, griffins, giants...
but almost no unicorns. It is also rare to find them
in medieval stories, like the ones of Charlemagne
and Roland. We could conclude that there is
a conspiracy of silence, if it wasn't for the
nature of this animal: Solitary and contemplative,
the Unicorn avoids conflicts with any means.
Action, especially the violent kind, is not in his
nature. He is an extremely capable fighter, terrifyingly
capable when needed, but only as a last resort.
that the world divides to those who love, loathe or are indifferent to common animals, so how
For all we could say about the Unicorns, they remain
a mystery, flitting through the Land of Possibility.
Creatures of the Moon and Water, Unicorns represent
the need to bring harmony through insight and
understanding. No matter what the basis of this
creature is in reality, what trully counts is the Idea:
The idea is that tinkles our imagination. It almost doesn't
matter if Unicorns are or ever have been "real". What
really counts is the nature of this animal, because it has
something to say about ourselves. Exactly like the way
each one of us responds to Unicorns says a lot about ourselves. The Unicorn has been sought
after and dreamed of for many reasons. It has prompted reverence and scorn.It has brought
out the worst in people at times - cupidity, selfishness and, at the least, the intent to deceive
(as with those who would trick the Unicorn to its death). But it has also brought out the best,
lifting people's eyes to an ideal of spirituality and forbearance, tempering the medieval warrior's
might with mercy, and lighting the way for those who would follow the steps of Jesus or Buddha.
Fierce in the defence of its liberty but otherwise very gentle, the Unicorn is a model for those
who believe freedom need not only be won at the expense of others, and as a symbol it is as
much alive today as it has ever been.
¼óï Elusive and mysterious, there is, nevertheless, always
one Unicorn anyone can find by looking up at the sky:
It rides through the wind, among Canis Major, Canis Minor,
Gemini, Orion and Hydra. We owe its discovery to the German
scientist Jakob Bartsch, who back at 1624 noticed the faint stars
which form the constellation. Both the celestial equator (projection
of the Earth's equator into the celestial sphere) and the galactic
equator (the extension of the plane of the Milky Way into the
celestial spehere) pass through it.
For more star infos, click here.
We can seek the Origins of the Unicorn into the Greek Mythology:
Zeus, father of all Gods and Humans, was nursed by the goat Amalthea, which was later transformed
into the star Capella (latin for "goat"), as a gesture of gratitude from the God. According to a version
of the greek legend, Zeus broke off one of her horns and an unlimited amount of food was spilled forth.
Lateron the horn became known as the horn of plenty, and can be seen on thousands of baroque and
classic paintings and ornaments of all kinds. Considering, though, the fact that the Unicorn is known
to mankind for quite a long time, other explanations are equally possible: In the old days people used
to move around a lot, hunting wild animals for food. The domestication of these animals was therefore
a very important step for the first settlers, as they wouldn't have to travel around any more in order
to gain their daily food. Due to the importance of wild cattle for the human race, traces of several
"ox cults" can be found in the history of Babylon, Israel, Egypt. The story of the golden calf in the
Bible is an example we all keep in mind. And it's not the only one... In the book of Hiob a creature
called Re-em was mentioned, a name that was later translated into Monoceros or Unicornis.There is also another explanation:
For people who lived in the years to follow, Re-em couldn't be an ordinary cow... Cows for them were nothing more than common animals, properties. Such an animal could never be seen gloryfied on the Ishtar Gate of Bablylon. Therefore still facing these old oriental legends, the Greeks and Romans started believing that there had to be another fabulous and exotic creature, a belief which which transformed Re-em into the Monoceros of the Bible.
After all, noone would adore a cow!
Giving a close look at egyptian paintings,
unicorn looked almost like a goat and was often described having the size of one.
the first thing we will notice is
the lack of the third dimension,
something that can easily lead
us to the wrong conclusions:
The antilopes of the picture seem
to be one-horned. In the later years,
when this way of painting vanished,
it is more than possible that the
antilopes of this picture became
"unicorns". This would explain why
the early form of of the EuropeanIn the medieval times, people believed in the magical power of the horn. The powder made
from this horn could neutralize every kind of poison, whilst the horn itself was said to bleed
when it was brought near to poisoned food. It was also said to stop arrows, cure the plague,
protect against fever, epilepsy and loss of memory. It was a talisman and at the same time
weapon and medicine. So it goes without saying, that back in the "glorious" days of assasins
and intrigants, the unicorn horn was highly desired by noblemen and kings, who offered
enormous amounts of money to obtain one. The famous horn of Windsor, which belonged
to queen Elizabeth the 1st, estimated in the 16th century at the amount of 40.000 pounds,
and the Elector of Saxon once paid 100.000 silver coins for such a horn.The healing power of the horn was doubted by many sceptical physicians. Ambroise Pare,
What these people didn't know, is that the horn
they really got, did not belong to the Unicorn of
the Land, but to the Unicorn of the Sea, also
known as narwhal. The narwhal is a whale, similar
to the beluga, that lives in the cold arctic north.
The male narwhal has a unique spiraling tusk,
which grows to a length of 1.5-3m (5-10 ft)
Three such horns are nowadays exhibited
at the Rijk Museum in Amsterdam. For more
about the Unicorn of the Sea, you can click here.
a famous physician who worked at the court of Maria de Medici, played an important role
regarding this matter: He experimented with various such horns, using pigeons and scorpions
and came to the conclusion that proofs of authenticity were false and lying. However, there would
pass quite a long time until people could finally accept the truth. The alicorn (unicorn's horn)
remained a medicine and it is still mentioned in the 18th century in the pharmacopoeia of the
English Royal Doctors Society.
Unicorns stood for many things: Most often virtues like purity and honesty. They were too proud to
For people who lived in medieval times, the existence of the unicorn was just as certain as the stories of the Bible. Some even asked where this creature was when Noah built his arch, as it wasn't mentioned in the Bible among the animals that were said to be on it. On some old pictures we actually can see unicorn on the arch, but as the legend wants Unicorn to be guardian of the Tree Of Life, some say that it wasn't allowed to leave its place then.
be caught alive. As a symbol of the Moon they also belonged to Artemis, who was the Greek Godess
of the Moon and the Hunt.
approaches tend towards strife. When the Lion and Unicorn are working in harmony towards the same goal,
The counterpart of the unicorn was the lion. Both were seen as the
kings of all animals and once the sounds of their clashes echoed in the
woods. How the lion came to Europe to actually be heard in the woods,
appears to be another mystery. Some time later, when the Unicorn
represented the Spring and the Lion stood for the Summer, the end
of their clashes was said to influence the seasons of the year. Where,
in symbolism, the Lion represents the urge to impose one's idea of order
upon the world, the Unicorn stands for the drive to bring harmony through
insight and understanding. Often their effects are identical but the contrary
no other creature can withstand them because they represent a union of opposites.
image of the fable beast. He described it as a bit smaller than en elephant, having the legs of one, the
The Unicorn in the European myths was a small goat-like creature.
It had cloven hooves, the tail of a lion and a large spiraling horn
growing from its forehead. This creature was far too small to ever
support the weight of a human. One of the first reports of the existence
of the unicorn in Europe can be read in every latin school. The later
emperor of the Roman empire Gaius Iulius Cesar mentioned it in the
"Bellum Gallicum" 50 B.C.: "It looks like a deer with a single horn on
the middle of its fore-head right between its ears. This horn is longer
and straighter than any horn we know of..." Marco Polo returned from
Java to Italy totally disappointed and having in mind a quite different
head of a pig and a black horn on the forehead. It enjoyed rolling in the mud: "They look monstrous,
these animals. They are completely different from what we write about them, completely different from
the image we had about them". Probably the animal that Marco Polo had met, was the Javanese rhinoceros.
In 400 B.C., the greek physician Ctesias, who lived and worked at the court of the Persian king Dareious
the 2nd and Artaxerxes as well, describes at his book "Indica" a kind of wild horse with peculiar characteristics:
White body, red head with dark blue eyes and a horn growing up to 1 ft and 6 inches, with white base, black
middle and red tip. The cups made from the horn, could neutralize every kind of poison, and whoever drank
from them was protected against epilepsy. This animal was fleet and fierce, no other creature could compete
with it. According to Odell Shepard (The Lore of the Unicorn), in this description three different animals are
combined: The indian rhinoceros, the onager (a kind of horse), and the antholops hodgsoni, a kind of large-sized
and fast antilope.years, by almost every person who could read latin. Pliney summoned seven animals with common feature the
Some decades later, Aristotelis (384 - 322 B.C.) in his book of Natural History,
criticizes. He didn't believe most of the absurd observations it included, despite
the assertions of Ctesias that in whatever he wrote, whether he was an eye-witness
or he heard it from trustworthy sources. Aristotelis, however, doesn't deny the
existence of one-horned beasts, like the oryx, a kind of antilope with split hooves,
or the indian ass, with unsplit hooves, and as we all know, in the medieval years
Aristotelis had the power of an authority. The power of an authority those years
had also the Roman writer Pliney. In his "Naturalis Historia" (Natural History)
he follows Aristotelis in almost everything but he also added quite a few fantastic
stories of his own, and moreover, he borrowed some from Ctesias. So, in Pliney,
magic is dominant. Despite that, his writings became inspiration for many animal
images, and many of his pure fabrications were believed in, for more than a thousand
single horn, and named one of them Unicorn. In this way, the creature with the deer's head, the horse's body, the
elephant's legs and the boar's tail, got its own name. This Unicorn could never be captive alive.
According to Aelianus, another Roman writer, and his book "De Natura Animalium" (The Nature Of Animals),
animals existed so that humans could learn from them. His ideas became very popular in the Middle Ages and
the Renaissance, when people tended to moralize a lot. He too speaks of an one-horned beast that lived in India:
Well-to-do potentates used the horn of this beast to make cups who would protect them against incurable illnesses.
Hunting this animal was like hunting the impossible: This could be the moral. From the pre-mentioned writers,
noone had ever come to an eye-contact with a Unicorn. One of the few people who had this chance, was Apollonius
of Tyana, a puzzling philosopher and traveller of the 1st century A.C., on one of his travels to India.
The oldest known Unicorn, existed in China back at 2600 BC, and was known by the name K'i-lin ("k'i" for
the male and "lin" for the female part). It was honoured as king of all animals and was said to bring peace and
prosperity. It is often represented with fish scales, shimmering in every shade of the rainbow. It had the body of
a deer, the hooves of a horse, the tail of an ox and on the forehead a horn curving to the back, with length up to
2 ft. This Unicorn used to appear as an omen, when important events were about to happen. It appeared for the
first time in 2697 B.C. at the palace of the emperor Huang-ti and was seen as a sign of lucky years. People say
that in the years that followed Huang-ti invented musical instruments, taught his people how to build houses with
bricks, and for the first time in chinese history he united the chinese tribes. The K'i-lin showed itself once more
at the end of the life of the emperor, and carried him on its back to the Land of Dead.
Elsewhere it is mentioned, that in the 6th century B.C., it
appeared in a temple in front of a young woman, Yen-Tschen
-Tsai and presented her into a plate off jade, an engraved
dithyramb about her son, who would become a king without
a throne. Despite that the woman tried to capture the K'i-lin
with a rope of silk, it simply bowed and vanished again. The
child born was Konfuzius, a man whose teaching would change
the current state of things.In India the Unicorn had a very important role, judging from the oral and written traditions of the country.
In Japan
the Unicorn is known by the name Ki'rin.
It was said to have a never failing sense of Justice,
which often made him to appear in courts, in order
to slay the guilty and free the innocent.
The mythical creature appears already in the pre-historical Harappa period. In the indian book "Mahabharata"
we meet "Rishi Ekasringa", known to us as Unicorn, living in harmony with the other creatures of the forest.
The indian tradition says that he was born by an ariel that drank from the fertile water of a lake. In the later
west traditions, the fertile water would become the poisonous water that could by purified by the alicorn
(Unicorn's horn). Ingredients of this and other indian legens as well, have influenced the writtend traditions
of Mesopotamy, and especially the epos of Gilgamesh. Here, too, the Unicorn makes its appearance, but not
as an indian hybrid, but as a common animal, as anyone can see on the various paintings of Mesopotamy.
After this period, it appears on Assyrian memorials as a bull with an arched horn and mane.
In south India lived a creature named eale or yale.
It was said to have two horns facing opposite directions,
so that it could attack and protect itself better, while
it was fighting against its opponents. It was claimed
by Indians to be guardian against Evil spirits.
In Persia the single horn symbolized cruelty and danger, and therefore the
shadhahvar was said to be a dangerous beast. It was similar to an antilope,
yet with a single horn on its forehead. The horn had hollow ends, and when
the wind blew through them it created the most beautiful and tempting melodies.
The animals were lured out of their hiding places and they were killed by the
shadhahvar, the very instant that they got close enough.A very important book for the unicorn's existence was compiled in the 2nd century A.C., in the city of
Alexandria: The Physiologus. Literally the title means "Physical Scientist", and perhaps it was used as
a penname. The real author never became known. This book consists of thelogical descriptions of various
animals, plants and stones, followed by christian morals. Existent and made-up creatures were used as
examples to follow or to avoid, with the help of complex allegorical associations. The Physiologus was
translated into many languages all over the world, like Syrian, Arabian, Armenian, Latin, German, French,
Icelandic, Italian and Anglo-saxon.The most popular Bestiary in the Netherlands was the "Der Naturen Bloeme" (about the nature of flowers),
In this book, we read about the Unicorn the following:
"He is a small animal, like a kid, but surprisingly fierce for his size, with one very sharp horn on his head, and no hunter is able to catch him by force. Yet there is a trick by which he is taken. Men lead a virgin to the place where he most resorts and leave her there alone. As soon as he sees this virgin he runs and lays his head in her lap. She fondles him and he falls asleep. The hunters then approach and capture him and lead him to the palace of the king." In the Netherlands the "Physiologus" became known through the translations of many of his abstracts in Bestiaria and Lapidaria(= books about the medicinal and magical properties of gems). Almost every Bestiary was based on the "Phsysiologus".
by Jacob van Maerlant (1201 - 1270). It is an adaptation of the "De Natura Rerum", that was written in 1271
not by Albertus Magnus, as it was believed for a long time, but by his student Ôhomas van Cantimpre. Thomas
van Cantimpre, in his turn, based his book on a three volume latin translation of the books of Aristotelis, which
was published in 1220 by Michael Scotus, under the title "De animalibus". In van Cantimpre's book we read
that unicornus, our known Unicorn, is also known as espentijn, while its greek name is rhinoceros, because it
has a horn between its nostrils. Here we notice on the on hand the influence of the bulgate, (latin translation of
the Bible by Hieronymous in 405 A.C.), where the greek word monoceros is replaced by both the latin unicornus
and the greek rhinoceros, and on the other the obvious mix-up of the Unicorn with the from the ancient years
known rhino.
Dutch: Eenhoorn
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