Unicorn

The unicorn is a legendary creature shaped like a horse, but slender and with a single — usually spiral — horn growing out of its forehead. Though the popular image of the unicorn is that of a white horse differing only in the horn, the traditional unicorn has a billy-goat beard, a lion's tail, and cloven hoofs, which distinguish him from a horse. Marianna Mayer has observed (The Unicorn and the Lake), "The unicorn is the only fabulous beast that does not seem to have been conceived out of human fears. In even the earliest references he is fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary, but always mysteriously beautiful. He could be captured only by unfair means, and his single horn was said to neutralize poison."

Medieval unicorns

Medieval knowledge of the fabulous beast stems from biblical and ancient sources, and the creature was variously represented as a kind of wild ass, goat, or horse. By A.D. 200, Tertullian had called the unicorn a small fierce kidlike animal, a symbol of Christ. Ambrose, Jerome, and Basil agreed.

Related Topics:
Tertullian - Christ

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The predecessor of the medieval bestiary, compiled in Late Antiquity and known as Physiologus popularized an elaborate allegory in which a unicorn, traped by a maiden (representing the Virgin Mary) stood for the Incarnation. As soon as the unicorn sees her it lays its head on her lap and falls asleep. This became a basic emblemmatic tag that underlies medieval notions of the unicorn, justifying its appearance in every form of religious art.

Related Topics:
Bestiary - Late Antiquity - Physiologus - Incarnation

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The unicorn was also found in courtly terms: for some 13th century French authors such as Thibaut of Champagne and Richard of Fournival, the lover is as attracted to his lady as the unicorn is to the virgin. This version of salvation provided an alternative to God's love and was called heretical.

Related Topics:
Courtly terms - Thibaut of Champagne - Richard of Fournival - Heretical

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With the rise of humanism, the unicorn also acquired positive secular meanings, including chaste love and faithful marriage. It plays this role in Petrarch's Triumph of Chastity. It was a heraldic motif, appearing on the national arms and coins of Scotland. The royal throne of Denmark was made of "unicorn horns" (actually narwhal tusks). The same material was used for ceremonial cups because the unicorn's horn was believed to neutralize poison.

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The translators of the King James Version of the Bible (1611) employed unicorn to translate re'em in Book of Job 39:9-12, providing an animal that was proverbial for its untamable nature for the unanswerable rhetorical questions:

Related Topics:
King James Version - Book of Job - Rhetorical question

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:"Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"

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The unicorn, tameable only by a virgin woman, was well established in medieval lore by the time Marco Polo described them as

Related Topics:
Virgin - Woman - Marco Polo

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:"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 boars...They spend their time by preference wallowing in mud and slime. They are very ugly brutes to look at. They are not at all such as we describe them when we relate that they let themselves be captured by virgins, but clean contrary to our notions." It is clear that Polo was describing a rhinoceros.

Related Topics:
Mud - Rhinoceros

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In German, since the 16th century, the name unicorn ("einhorn") has become attached to the various rhinoceros.

Related Topics:
German - 16th century

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Most people currently maintain, based in part on the claims of Danish zoologist Ole Wurm, http://www.occultopedia.com/u/unicorn.htm that narwhal tusks provided the main source of "unicorn" horns in medieval times; however, there was concern about false horns being passed off as the real thing, and various "tests" were developed supposedly enabling one to tell the difference between the fake and authentic horns.

Related Topics:
Danish - Ole Wurm - Narwhal

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In popular belief, examined wittily and at length by Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica unicorn horns could neutralize poisons (book III, ch. xxiii). Therefore, people who feared poisoning sometimes drank from goblets made of "unicorn horn". Alleged aphrodisiac qualities and other purported medicinal virtues also drove up the cost of "unicorn" products such as milk, hide, and offal. Unicorns were also said to be able to determine whether or not a woman was a virgin; in some tales, they could only be mounted by virgins.

Related Topics:
Thomas Browne - Pseudodoxia Epidemica - Aphrodisiac - Milk - Hide - Offal

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The unicorn also served as a common symbol of indomitable pride and purity and of Jesus.

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One traditional method of hunting unicorns involved entrapment by a virgin. Another involved angering a unicorn, fleeing from it toward a tree when it charged, and diving out of the way just before the tree, causing the unicorn to strike the tree, rendering it dead, unconscious, or stuck, held by its horn in the wood.

Related Topics:
Virgin - Tree - Dead - Unconscious - Wood

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The famous late Gothic series of seven tapestry hangings, the Hunt of the Unicorn at The Cloisters, New York City is a high point in European tapestry manufacture, combining both secular and religious themes. In the series, richly dressed noblemen, accompanied by huntsmen and hounds, pursue a unicorn against millefleurs backgrounds or buildings and gardens. They bring the animal to bay with the help of a maiden who traps it with her charms, appear to kill it, and bring it back to a castle; in the last and most famous panel, “The Unicorn in Captivity,” the unicorn is shown bloody but now alive and happy, chained to a tree surrounded by a fence, in a field of flowers. Scholars continue to hunt the meaning of the resurrected Unicorn. The series was woven about 1500 in the Low Countries, probably Brussels or Liège, for an unknown patron. A set of six called the Dame á la licorne (Lady with the unicorn) at the Musée de Cluny, Paris, woven in the Southern Netherlands about the same time, pictures the five senses, the gateways to temptation, and finally Love ("A mon seul desir" the legend reads), with unicorns in each hanging.

Related Topics:
Tapestry - The Cloisters - New York City - Low Countries - Brussels - Liège - Musée de Cluny - Southern Netherlands

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