unicorn

Book Review by: charmed

Original Author: Beer, Rüdiger Robert, Unicorn: Myth and Reality (1977). , Gotfredsen, Lise, The Unicorn (1999). Shepard, Odell. The Lore of the Unicorn. (1930) , "The Last Unicorn" 1972, an Australian Animated movie

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What is Unicorn ?
The Unicorn (from Latin unus ''one''

and cornu ''horn'') is a fictitious legendary creature. The unicorn is a horse-type animal with a single horn. Though the modern popular image of the unicorn is sometimes that of a horse differing only in the horn on its forehead, the traditional unicorn has a billy-goat beard, a lion''s tail, and cloven hooves, 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 stemmed from biblical and ancient sources, and the creature was variously represented as a kind of wild dumb ass, goat, or horse.
The predecessor of the medieval bestiary, compiled in Late Antiquity and known as Physiologus, popularized an elaborate allegory in which a unicorn, trapped 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 emblematic tag that underlies medieval notions of the unicorn, justifying its appearance in every form of religious art.
The unicorn also figured in courtly terms: for some thirteenth-century French authors such as Thibaut of Champagne and Richard of Fournival, the lover is attracted to his lady as the unicorn is to the virgin. This courtly version of salvation provided an alternative to God''s love and was assailed as heretical. With the rise of humanism, the unicorn also acquired more orthodox secular meanings, emblematic of chaste love and faithful marriage. It plays this role in Petrarch''s Triumph of Chastity.
The royal throne of Denmark was made of "unicorn horns". The same material was used for ceremonial cups because the unicorn''s horn continued to be believed to neutralize poison, following classical authors.
The unicorn, tamable only by a virgin woman, was well established in medieval lore by the time Marco Polo described them as:
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 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 Marco Polo was describing a rhinoceros. In German, since the sixteenth century, Einhorn ("one-horn") has become a descriptor of the various species of rhinoceros.
In popular belief, examined wittily and at length in the seventeenth century by Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica, unicorn horns could neutralize poisons.<10> 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.
To be continued ……….

Published: May 25, 2007

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