Unicorns


   'All of the beasts obeyed Noah when he admitted them into the
ark.  All but the unicorn.  Confident of his strength he boasted
'I shall swim!'.  For fourty days and fourty nights the rains
poured down and the oceans boiled as in a pot and all the heights
were flooded.  The birds of the air clung onto the ark and when
the ark pitched they were all engulfed. But the unicorn kept on
swimming.  When, however, the birds emerged again they perched on
his horn and he went under-- and that's why there are no more
unicorns now.'
          -- from a Ukranian folk tale

   The unicorn has been a topic of wonder and speculation for
centuries.  The writings of such men as Aristotle, Genghis Khan,
Saint Thomas, and Saint Gregory reflect the fact that these
men considered the unicorn as a very real creature.
   Webester's Seventh defines a unicorn as 'a mythical animal
generally depicted with the body and head of a horse, hind legs
of a stag, tail of a lion, and a single horn in the middle of its
forehead'.  The word 'unicorn' comes from the Latin 'Uni', meaning
one, and 'Cornu, meaning horn.
   The unicorn has been depicted in the folklore and legends of
other cultures besides ours.  The Chinese believed that they had
the body of a deer, with horses' hooves and an ox's tail.  Where
in the west the horn was made of bone, the Oriental unicorn's
horn was made of flesh.  The coat of the unicorn was of the five
sacred colors of the Chinese; red, yellow, blue, white, and black.
   The Chinese called the unicorn 'K'i-lin'.  To them, it was a
symbol of wisdom.  Around 2800 BC, the Emperor Fu Hsi wrote of
seeing a k'i-lin.  He saw markings on the coat of the animal, and
and perceived those symbols as a written language, thus giving
credit to the k'i-lin for the establishment of the written Chinese
language.
   The sighting of a K'i-in was a considered a good omen, and often
signified the birth of a good ruler.  Other times, it appeared to
give a warning to men.  A scouting party for Genghis Khan reported
seeing a Chio-tuan, a type of K'i-lin, that warned the party to stop
the war, and that 'moderation will give boundless pleasure'.  Upon
receiving the report, the Mongol stopped his battle plans.
   Unicorns were reported in India as well.  The Greek Ctesias wrote
of seeing a 'wild ass' there, which was as large as a horse.  He
said that the horn of the unicorn was about a foot and a half long,
and three colored, with the base being white, the middle black, and
the top red.
   The best known legends surrounding the unicorn are in Western
culture.  The common view of the unicorn as a horse with a horn
is popular, and has been depicted in our heritage for thousands
of years.  The unicorn is mentioned in the Bible in several verses.
The Palm Sunday tract in the Roman Catholic missal reads, 'Deliver
me from the lion's mouth, and my lowliness from the horns of
unicorns'.  Saint Ambrose, the Bishop of Milan in the fourth
century, considered the unicorn a symbol of Christ as he wrote,
'Who then has one horn, unless it be the only begotten son, the
unique word of God, which has been next to God from the very
beginning?'  Saint Augustine considered the horn of the unicorn
to be a symbol of the unity of the faith of the Church.
   The horn of the unicorn has been sought after for centuries.
In the west, it was thought to have magical properties, and could
purify poisons.  Therefore, it was a very valuable commodity to
have.  Pope Paul III is said to have paid 12,000 pieces of gold
for one, but James I of England got a much better deal for his,
only paying 10,000 pounds Sterling for one.  The horn of the
narwhal was a common substitute for that of the unicorn for those
unscrupulous businessmen.
   Because of that problem, a common test to determine the
validity of a unicorn horn was to use its magical properties
of purification.  David De Pomis wrote, 'There is very little
of the true horn to be found, most of that which is sold as such
being either stag's horn, or elephant's tusk.  A true test by
which one may know the genuine horn from the false:  Place the
horn in a vessel of any sort of material you like, and with it
three or four large and live scorpions, keeping the vessel
covered.  If you find four hours later that the scorpions are dead
or almost lifeless, the horn is a good one, and there is not
enough money in the world to pay for it'.
   The search for the unicorn, and proof of its existance, dates
back almost as far as the legends which surround it.  Ctesias
spoke of the unicorn in the court of Darius II, the King of
Persia in 416 BC.  Chinese writings date back to 2800 BC.  The
men of the ancient world believed in the existance of the unicorn,
so the object of their searching was to find it, not to prove it
existed.  It wasn't until later in history that man began to doubt
the unicorn's physical existance.  In the ninth century, Margoulies
wrote, 'It is universally held that the unicorn is a supernatural
being and of auspicious omen; so say the odes, the annals, the
biographies of worthies, and other texts whose authority is
unimpeachable.  Even village women and children know the unicorn
is a lucky sign.  But this animal does not figure among the
barnyard animals, it is not always easy to come across, it does
not lend itself to zoological classification, nor is it like the
horse or bull, the wolf or deer.  In such circumstances we may be
face to face with a unicorn and not know for sure that we are.  We
know a certain animal with a mane is a horse and that a certain
animal with horns is a bull.  We do not know what the unicorn looks
like'.
   Even though the existance of the unicorn is questionable, its
symbolism is not.  The beast, like all mythological creatures, has
been a reflection of man's hopes and fears, dreams and nightmares,
and inner consciousness.  Freud considered mythological beasts as
representations of 'universal fears and feelings'.  Specifically,
Jung thought that the purity of the unicorn was of greater
importance.  Most mythological creatures represent man's worst
traits, and are usually more evil than animals, or man.  They kill
for pleasure, and are often involved in unspeakable atrocities.
The unicorn is an exception to the rule, being a symbol of purity,
hope, love, and majesty.
   The decline of the unicorn began with the Renaissance and the
advent of scientific thought.  The beliefs that had held for
thousands of years began to crumble when man could not prove the
existance of the unicorn.  Systematically, report after report
of a unicorn was attributed to a more believable occurance of
a more mundane animal.  Rhinos, goats, and horses were all considered
explanations of unicorns.  As technology advanced, more exact
tests and record keeping were developed, which added to the mounting
evidence against the unicorn.  Finally, the unicorn was added to
the list of animals regarded as 'mythical', and would later only
be found in children's stories and other fables.
   What of the unicorn today?  The unicorn is returning, if only
symbolically.  It is that symbolism that people are seeking today,
the idea of natural truth, purity, and love that much of society has
lost in the shadow of technology.  Odell Shepard wrote, 'It is not
that the men of the Middle Ages who believed in unicorns were less
intellegent than we; their intellegence was turned in a different
direction... we wrong ourselves when we insist that if they cannot
make good their flesh and blood actuality on our level we will have
none of them'.  To find the unicorn, as the ancients did, we have
to unlearn what we have learned; we must go back to an earlier
way of looking at the world.  Only then will we find the unicorn.

 'Well, now we have seen each other,' said the unicorn, 'if you'll
believe in me, I'll believe in you.  Is that a bargain?'
                                          --Lewis Carroll























































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