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The unicorn is a legendary creature shaped like a horse with a lion's tail but with a single - usually spiral - horn growing out of its forehead. The modern unicorn descends from the medieval myth: he is male and retains the billygoat beard of his ancestry and cloven hoofs, which both distinguished him from a horse.

"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." ( —Marianna Mayer, The Unicorn and the Lake.)

The classical and western unicorn is not directly related to the mythical Chinese qilin ("kylin") with the body of a deer and the head of a lion.

Unicorn in Antiquity

According to an interpretation of seals carved with an animal which resembles a bull (and which may in fact be a way of depicting bulls in profile), it has been claimed that the unicorn was a common symbol during the Indus Valley Civilisation, appearing on many seals. It may have symbolised a powerful group.

The unicorn does not appear in early Greek mythology, but in Greek natural history, for Greek writers on natural history were convinced on the reality of the unicorn and placed it in India, a distant and fabulous realm for them. The Encyclopaedia Britannica collected classical references to unicorns: the earliest description is from Ctesias, who described in Indica white wild asses, fleet of foot, having on the forehead a horn a cubit and a half in length, colored white, red and black; from the horn. were made drinking cups which were a preventive of poisoning. Aristotle must be following Ctesias in mentioning two one-horned animals, the oryx, a kind of antelope, and the so-called "Indian ass" (in (Historia anim. ii. I and De part. anim. iii. 2). In Roman times Pliny's Natural History (viii: 30 and xl: 106) mentions the oryx and an Indian ox (the rhinoceros?) as one-horned beasts, as well as the Indian ass, "a very ferocious beast, similar in the rest of its body to a horse, with the head of a deer, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, a deep, bellowing voice, and a single black horn, two cubits in length, standing out in the middle of its forehead." Pliny adds that "it cannot be taken alive."

Aelian (De natura. anim. iii. 41; iv. 52), quoting Ctesias, adds that India produces also a one-horned horse, and says (xvi. 20) that the "monoceros" was sometimes called carcazonon, which may be a form of the Arabic carcadn, meaning rhinoceros. Strabo (book xv) says that in India there were one-horned horses with stag-like heads.

Medieval unicorn

The unicorn, tamable only by a virgin, was well established in medieval bestiary 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 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." Surely this was a rhinoceros.

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

In medieval times Narwhal tusks, however, provided the main source of "unicorn" horns.

In popular belief, unicorn horns could neutralize poisons. 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.

The unicorn also served as a common symbol of indomitable pride and purity and of Jesus Christ. The traditional method of hunting unicorns involved entrapment by a virgin. (the following is disputed:) This is believed to stem from the method of trapping Rhinos, a creature that may have inspired some medieval accounts of unicorns, in Africa. A female monkey would be taken to where the Rhinos were and would dance for them. The Rhinos would become mesmerised by the antics of the monkey and would thus be an easier target for the hunters.

An extinct "unicorn"

Ignoring the Indian rather than hyperborean origins of the earliest unicorn mythology, it has been proposed that the unicorn is based on an extinct animal called giant unicorn, or Elasmotherium, a huge Eurasian rhinocerosnative to the steppes, south of the range of the woolly rhinoceros of Ice Age Europe Elasmotherium had a single horn in the forehead. It seems to have gone extinct about the same time as the rest of the glacial age megafauna. The relation between the two animals is uncertain, but a real giant unicorn was once seen and hunted by man; see the Elasmotherium article for more.

Heraldry

The unicorn also functions as a national symbol of Scotland and appears on many British symbols, notably as a supporter of coats of arms.

In fantasy fiction, a unicorn often has magical qualities or powers. A unicorn appears in the Harry Potter series.

The constellation Monoceros represents a unicorn.

References

• Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911: "Unicorn"
• Rüdiger Robert Beer, Unicorn: myth and reality 1977
• Lise Gotfredsen, The Unicorn Richly illustrated cultural history