Lore of the Unicorn: Generation Zero · 3:06am May 11th
A little while ago I was making a celebratory book grab when I stumbled on one of those thick quaint paperbacks from when reading was a primary entertainment for people, a Senate or a Dover print of some old thing, called The Lore of the Unicorn. I got it for the memes, but admittedly also, to become knowledgeable on the matter, a little like a scientist who would like to prove divine existence; or at least, to discover the history of a small forgotten town, that I might know divinity a little better.
It was published in 1930 by one Odell Shepard, apparently a classical scholar (fluent in Latin) whose tone and purpose remind one of the optimism of that age—informed by evolution and charged by a renewed interest in psychology—that would culminate in totalitarian states and the second world war. Here, however, we are concerned with unicorns; and not in terms of making an anthology of stories, either, but rather in carrying out a kind of odd philological inquest. It was inspired by an account of a fourteenth century Italian lord, who, paranoid of assassination, kept a unicorn’s horn among other charms and viands as a means of protection against poison.
Not the least tinged by the currents of Positivism, Shepard writes, “How did this horn acquire its great reputation? How was it supposed to act in detecting poison? How could it maintain its prestige while the dukes and princes of Italy were dying on every hand suddenly and from no apparent cause? Where did these horns come from, and what was the nature of the traffic that purveyed them…” And so on, and so on.
For, “Whether or not there is an actual unicorn—and this is one of the questions upon which I will merely quote the opinions of others—he cannot possibly be so fascinating as the things men have dreamed and thought and written about him.”
He goes onto say that few have attempted to trace the origins of such a catholic and antique symbol of the imagination; but that, “[He] will not substitute a dull explanation for one of the most beautiful legends in the world”; that he will “let [the unicorn] stalk away, at the end, into the mystery out of which he comes.”
And so, though I had sought a town, I instead found (what I believe to be) the first brony; but what a town he belongs to, indeed, and what divinity!
Lmao, you're such a mark, Bedman.
Oh, you do this Faust-forsaken fandom justice, Mole. Never stop.
Unicorns are fascinating, aren't they?