Mythologia 1 – The Unicorn Question · 8:34am Oct 29th, 2013
Link to Mythologia 2 – The Pegasus Puzzle
As one of the principal races of the show, unicorn is highly salient to our mind. I felt that it would be more appropriate to discuss its origins in a separate series instead of treating it as side-notes for toponyms that contains "unicorn".
Unicorn obviously means “one horn”. But plenty of animals have only one horn, why are unicorns one-horned horse? We should perhaps start with the earliest mention of unicorns in history to find out. It turns out that the myth of unicorns has a very fascinating and complex history, and the iconic image of the unicorn as a white one-horned horse in the secular world was not so ubiquitous before the modern era.
The first to describe the progenitors of the modern unicorns known to the Europeans were the Greeks. Ctesias of Cnidus was a Greek in the Persian court from around 4th to 5th century BC, and it was to him we owe the original unicorn story. Ctesias was presumed to arrive at the Persian King’s court, perhaps involuntarily even, during the tumultuous period in which Persians and Greeks often fought wars. His great medical skills impressed the King and as such he was respectfully treated. This allowed him time and resources to satiate his stereotypically Greek curiosity for all things foreign in the bustling capital of a continent-spanning empire. He collected tales from travelers from India and composed his magnum opus Indica, in which we found the first mention of monoceros. The monoceros as described by Ctesias was not a mythological creature, but a natural species supposedly living in the highlands in the heart of India. They were described as wild asses which were larger than a horse, with a white body and dark red head. Their eyes were dark blue; and their horns, which were white in the base, black in the middle and crimson red at the top, protruded from their forehead a foot and a half in length. They were exceedingly swift and powerful, no common horses could overtake them even at full gait. Their horns were also said to have anti-poison properties.
Even though the eastern border to India was long open and Ctesias was fascinated by all things Indian, he never set out to see for himself whether the travelers’ tales were of substance. We now know that no creature of such live in the Indian subcontinent. But we should probably not too harshly accuse Ctesias of fantasizing, for he’s probably more of a bookish, note-taker type of person than an adventurer.Ctesias probably took a faithful note of existing myth from the Indian subcontinent, and Chris Lavers suggested that the prototypes for Ctesias’ monoceros were most likely equines on the Himalayan plateau, namely the kiang and the chiru, also known as the Tibetan antelope.
A herd of kiangs
Kiangs have given the original monoceros horse-like properties. They are large wild asses which are fast-moving and strong like a mule. Their chestnut red upper body and white belly and legs also gave the classical unicorn the vivid colors too.
Two chirus
On the other hand, antelopes on the Tibetan plateau, the chiru, has likely given monoceros the horn. Tibetan antelopes are not single-horned, but they often appear beside kiangs and are similarly quick-legged and elusive. When ancient Tibetans look at them far and sideways, which was usually the only possible angle since they ran away quickly as you approach; they seemed to have only one single horn.
Indian rhinoceros
When the legends of some sorts of one-horned kiang-chiru hybrid pass down from the plateau to the Indian subcontinent, some physical properties of the Indian rhinoceros, which is also one-horned, presumably also got into the mix, and this hot stew of travelers’ tales eventually produced the one-horned creature as described by Ctesias.
Pliny the Elder
Later classical writers like Aristotle and Pliny the Elder also incorporate the monoceros as described by Ctesias. Early descriptions or depictions of unicorn sound to modern ears more like those of a chimera-like creature than a horse. For example, Monocerotem was described by Pliny the Elder as having a deer head, elephant feet and a boar tail; and they bellow instead of neigh or whinny. Note that Pliny the Elder was a writer of natural history, and he, and his contemporaries, regarded “unicorns” as real, but lived in somewhere far away from the Roman world.
Particularly, a Grecophile Roman writer Claudius Aelianus (Aelian) gave us the most vivid account of monoceros, which he alternatively named “Cartazon”2; Cartazon is described thusly as follows (text translated by A.F. Scholfield, 1958):
It is the size of a full-grown horse, has the mane of a horse, reddish hair, and is very swift of foot. Its feet are, like those of the elephant, not articulated and it has the tail of a pig. Between its eyebrows it has a horn growing out; it is not smooth but has spirals of quite natural growth, and is black in colour. This horn is also said to be exceedingly sharp. And I am told that the creature has the most discordant and powerful voice of all animals. When other animals approach, it does not object but is gentle; with its own kind however it is inclined to be quarrelsome. And they say that not only do the males instinctively butt and fight one another, but that they display the same temper towards the females, and carry their contentiousness to such a length that it ends only in the death of their defeated rival. The fact is that strength resides in every part of the animal’s body, and the power of its horn is invincible. It likes lonely grazing-grounds where it roams in solitude, but at the mating season, when it associates with the female, it becomes gentle and the two even graze side by side. Later when the season has passed and the female is pregnant, the male Cartazonus of India reverts to its savage and solitary state. They say that the foals when quite young are taken to the King of the Prasii and exhibit their strength one against the other in the public shows, but nobody remembers a full-grown animal having been captured.
Among other fantastical properties, this text described an ancient red and black unicorn. It turns out that the most clichéd OC color scheme has the deepest historical roots. Who knows?
Several centuries went by, the Roman world crumbled and Christian Europe arose from its ashes. If not for the early Bible translators, the monoceros may have become yet another curious creature in the classical bestiary. Instead, its heavy use in the Scripture has made the unicorns into one of the most known mythical beasts in the medieval world.
Papyrus fragment of the Septuagint Bible
In the Hebrew Bible, there was a creature called Re’em in Hebrew. It was often employed as a metaphor for strength in Biblical verses. When Greek influences started to spread around the Mediterranean and to the Land of Israel, translators, later collectively named the Septuagint, had taken up the task of translating the Tanakh/Old Testament into Koine Greek, in a process that took successive translators several centuries to complete. A difficult problem came up in the face of the Septuagint: What on earth was a re’em? During their time (around 3-4th BC) they had never encountered or heard about re’em, but re’ems were apparently familiar to their ancestors. From the sense and context gathered from the scripture, re’ems were apparently real animals which possessed horn or horns, were large, domestically useless, imposing and indomitable, plus, they were not cows. That perplexed the Septuagint translators because none of them have the knowledge of such animals in nature.
At the end, they independently elected to use the Greek word monoceros to translate re’em, highlighting its hornedness. It was from here subsequent Bible translators translated it into Latin (unicornis) > Vulgar Latin (unicornus) > Old French (unicorne) > English unicorn. For example, in the King James Version, Numbers 22:23 was translated as follows:
God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.
To the uninitiated, this verse, and many other verses that also mentioned unicorns, brought forth confusion and weird mental imagery, another example also from the KJV:
(Isaiah 34:7) And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
So what is a re’em after all? It turns out it is the auroch, or wild ox, the ancestor of domestic cattle. Newer Bible translation recognized this and hence adjusted the terminology, for example the same verse from Numbers 22:23:
God bringeth them forth out of Egypt; He hath as it were the strength of the wild-ox. (American Standard Version)
God, who brought them out of Egypt, is like a magnificent wild bull for him. (Common English Bible)
Artist conception of aurochs, or wild ox
To primitive humans, aurochs certainly are formidable animals. They could grow to a shoulder height of 2.1m, which means you probably have to slightly raise your head to look at aurochs in the eyes. They were exceptionally strong and of violent temper, the latter trait you can glimpse from one of their descendants – the Spanish fighting bulls. It certainly is a fitting metaphor for strength and power. Unfortunately, aurochs were hunted extensively, and in the times of the Septuagint, they have already been hunted to almost extinction around the Mediterranean, especially in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, so it was no wonder that the translators did not know what a re’em is. Still, thanks to this misunderstanding, early translators of the Bible injected new blood to the old image of monoceros, and brought unicorns into the imagination of wider medieval audience.
Unicorn depicted on the floor mosaic (c.1213) in Basilika S. Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna
In the Middle Ages, unicorns became the representation of qualities of Christ through its repeated association with Jesus; some early Biblical scholars like Tertullian and Ambrose of Milan even argued that unicorn is the avatar of Christ. In medieval times, unicorns were variously depicted as one-horned asses, deer, goats or horses. The mixture of animal prototypes was probably traced to the chimeric composition of the unicorn as depicted in classical sources. Notably, even when unicorns were depicted as horned horses, they often retained cloven hooves like a goat; however, this trait was increasingly ignored, and can hardly be spotted in modern works any more.
Medieval Christian scholarship often saw the natural world as storage of metaphors and allegories; it is no accident that unicorns themselves were subject to vigorous interpretation with regards to their characteristics. For instance, the medieval unicorn is small, symbolizing the lowly and humble stature of Christ; it evades huntsmen, since Christ is divorced from worldly, human institution and influences. Its goat-like appearance in religious depictions signified its role as the scapegoat of our problems, just as how Christ died to rid people of sin in Christian traditions. The one horn of unicorns symbolizes the oneness of Christ and God. Lastly, the legend that unicorns are tamed and brought in among men with the aid of a virgin is clearly seen as a allegory to the story of Virgin Mary.
A scene from the Verteuil tapestry
Speaking of taming, it is interesting to note that in the medieval imagination of unicorns, they were usually not the elegant and gentle animals commonly shown in contemporary art and stories. They were wild, easy to anger, and generally prone to violence. In the Verteuil tapestry (c.1500), which was arguably the most famous of the religious-romantic artwork depicting unicorns in the medieval times, unicorns were shown to be quite belligerent and strong. Medieval hunters were used to the violence in the last stage of a stag hunt, in which animals were cornered and most agitated, and casualties were most likely during this stage. One can imagine the degree of violence if the prize was instead incredibly strong equines with sharp horns.
The above strip from the Perry Bible Fellowship faithfully represented the expected strength of unicorns in medieval imagination, even though it seems wacky to modern eyes. Maybe that is exactly the point.
Europe gradually moved from the feudal era into the tumultuous age of discovery and increased trading. Starting from High Middle Age, previously rare specimens of “unicorn horns” started to become common in the European market. Unicorn horn, or alicorn1 was long rumored to have various medical qualities, some bordering miraculous. Scholars speculate that the supposed medical and anti-poison properties of unicorn horn, in addition from classical Greek sources, were at least partly transferred from those of the horns of similarly horned mythical creatures in the Middle East, which were burgeoning trade centers at the time. Candidates included the karkadann (see 2), and the mysterious owner of the khutu, a material with unclear origins (alternatively hypothesized to be tusks, teeth, bones or horns of various animals) even to the ancient traders that purportedly counters poison and was used to make Islamic cutlery.
In the previous centuries, relatively few “unicorn horns” managed to trickle into the European market, but as navigation technology improved, more sailors can reach the freezing Arctic to hunt the true owners of the horns en masse. The said owners were the narwhals, whose horns are actually extremely lengthened canine teeth protruding through a hole in the left side of the upper jaw.
A narwhal
As narwhal tusks, billed as unicorn horns, became increasingly sought after, either by nobles with various malaises or intense interest to fill up their cabinets of curiosities, artists, beginning from the 13th century, started the long process of remodeling the image of unicorns based on the incoming rare biological artifacts. Specifically, the (ivory-colored) spirally-twisted horn we now associate with unicorn horn, likely came from the texture of narwhal tusks. Another speculative suggestion is that since the narwhal tusks/”unicorn horns” were often impressive in size (easily up to 4m, or the height of two tall grown men in length), romantic artists who were less influenced by traditional religious portrayals might be more inclined to place the horn on an equine with more appropriate and sleek stature, of which a horse would do better than a small, lean and slender deer, or goat. Perhaps that was partly how the popularity of depicting unicorns as large, horned horse was sustained throughout the Middle Age.
Curiously, the sightings of actual narwhals in the Age of Discovery did not diminish people’s hope on actually finding a unicorn, since back then many people in Europe believed in a dualism of creatures in the sea and on the land – since there were “sea unicorns”, “land unicorns” must exist as well!3
As technology progressed, we arrived at the Age of Industrial Revolution, Enlightenment and people faced a society increasingly influenced by rationalist thoughts. During this time, the fervent search for unicorns slowly died down, with zoologists correctly pointing out that actual animals that fit the medieval imagination of unicorns most certainly do not exist. But the stories of unicorns lived on in the form of existing literature and lore. Even as scholarly interests diminished, the myth of unicorn continues to fascinate people’s mind.
Fast forward to the 20th Century, it is where mysteries and traditions gave way to New Age mystics, advertising executives, and modern consolidation and re-imagination of old myths at the hands of writers. It is during this time the unicorn’s secular image became increasingly fixated into a white one-horned horse whose whiteness indicates an absolute, child-like purity.
Diverging from what people with traditional Christian religious background might have in their imagination, in which a gentle young lady carefully laid a small deer-like or goat-like horned creature in their lap; the horned horse representation of unicorn, already popular in the Renaissance, got further bolstered by the general perception, especially among Anglo-Saxon-influenced cultures, that horses are family-friendly creatures and suitable for bonding with the youth.
Naturally, marketing executives and writers would seize the most palatable representation of the unicorns in the media and in their actions further perpetuate the image. Undesirable, or family-unfriendly characteristics of the original unicorn myth were shed, their docile nature reinforced, much in parallel of the process in which we saw the unpalatable aspects of certain fairy tales are omitted by Disney to prevent upsetting children and their family.
Eventually, the gentle, elegant horned horse became the default stereotype of unicorns, and from there modern writers might liberally innovate and reinvent to create many marvelous literary works that we know.
FIN
1 Originally a term coined by Odell Shepard (1884-1967), an American professor, poet and politician who was known for his in-depth study on unicorn lore. According to Chris Lavers, he created the term to avoid saying "horn of the unicorn", "unicorn's horn" repetitively. The word either came from Italian alicorno, which is a variant of liocorno "Lion-like (in terms of strength) unicorn", or newly coined using Italian articles a + li + (uni)corn.
2 Of obscure etymology. Some say it’s related to Arabic Karkadann / Persian Kargadan كرگدن “Lord of the Desert”, which is often referred to the “Arabic unicorn” in its own right, though it probably has a much different developmental history compared to the European unicorn, though the supposed medical value of Karkadann’s horn as suggested by Persian scholar Al-Qazwini (c. 13th century) lead to its association with the latter.
3 The reverse of the logical pathway that leads to sea ponies, if you will.
Recommended Reading: The natural history of unicorns by Chris Lavers. 2009.
This book served as the primary reference of this post. Concise and yet highly informative.
The next post of the series will pick up some miscellaneous peripheral information not mentioned above.
Fascinating as always.
Brilliant!
I have a feeling the Pegasus article is going to be epic.
I love these blogs.
First, sorry for the late reply, there was that RL thing; can't live with it, can't live without it.
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Thank you! I am truly flattered.
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Thank you!
By the way, did I leak my intent on doing a Pegasus article next somewhere in my post?
Then again, it is only natural to do one on Pegasus after Unicorn, and I did already have some leads to appropriate materials.
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Thank you!
I couldn't be more glad that the blog posts entertain at least some of you.
I would definitely keep it up.
Wow! That was cool!
I always like learning new things. Thank you for putting this together.
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I agree. that was interesting to read.
Awesome blog man, thanks! I love doing all this scholarly putting together of old mythology and decrypting it, but I haven't found the time in years
)
Another thing that can be noted for the basis of unicorns being antelopes is that a not-so-uncommon mutation in goats and antelopes can cause the horns to develop as a single twisted horn. Theoretically, an isolated herd of chirus could over many generations all end up with the mutation. Being rare, if these were seen by hunters they would be talked about a lot. The mutation would then likely disappear once genetic exchange is re-established with other herds, as it's a recessive trait, or the herd could be killed off. If a small enough number of descendants of such a herd survive, no evidence is left that the little subspecies ever existed.
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This was truly fascinating. I love getting into the nitty-gritty of fairy tales and myths!
Interesting. If you ask me, the unicorn has fallen far from what it was in the middle ages and renaissance. It's been childproofed much like fairies. That's a shame.
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Hey, thank you all and welcome! I presume that there is a signal boost about this post somewhere and I thank him/her kindly for that, and of course all of you who generously take your time and read this.
As you may have noticed, I have been in a state of relative inactivity for quite some time now. It's partly because I have been indulging in a drawing telephone game site called Drawception (Think Draw Something but turned up to eleven, come play if you have time left after writing/reading fics!)
But more importantly, I have been unable to secure reliable source materials to write the next entry for Pegasus. I can still scarcely believe that I can't find a single specialist book on the net or in a city with 7 mil people. All I could find were modern stories or Greek myths, which are far from suffice to give a relatively complete picture as above. Anyway, I still have some leftover materials that deal with Oriental "Unicorns", and I would organize them and post a new entry in due course. Once again, thank you kindly for your interest in the tl;dr... er, I mean essay above!
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You're welcome.
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No prob. and have fun, dood! I'll probably check that out later. (In school right now)
1702533 Well, Pegasus was (for the west at least) a Greek myth, and a metaphor for the spirit of creation. He was born from the blood of Medusa when her head was cut off by Perseus. Pegasus was an untameable steed who befriended the hero Belleraphon, who created a brotherly bond of love and trust with Pegasus with the help of the goddess Athena. An interesting note is that Athena had turned Medusa into a hideous mortal beast so ugly that she turned people to stone with terror after Medusa had sex with Poseidon in Athena's sacred temple. Poseidon happens to be the creator of horses, making the first ever horse from ocean foam as an offering to the city of Athens (before it was called Athens in honor of Athena, who gave them a better gift in the form of the olive tree) His chariot was pulled apparently by hippocampi, which were giant seahorses or seaponies, with the front of a horse and back of a fish. This, again, is based on the movement of foam on big ocean waves like stampeding horses, but also probably based on real seahorses: Of course no-one ever saw the Greek gods, they made up what the gods would ride based on what seemed symbolically appropriate. The literal belief in these stories later on is probably what inspired the obsession of early philosophers with the cryptic animals.
Research along these routes if you want more on the origin of the myth.
1705390 Thank you kindly! I did research upon the original Greek myth myself, and indeed the Pegasus myth was much less ambiguous in its origin than Unicorn's. However, without a concise summary like Lavers and Odell, I would need to further piece up and compare individual winged horse myths from other European cultures myself, and examine piecemeal cultural information from each time period from antiquity to pre-Modern era, that includes a wide range of data, for instance, the use and symbolic meaning of Pegasus in medieval heraldry. And that would not be small work. I might raid the university and public library several times more to see if I could have better luck.
And ah, it was Ob's post. I wonder how was my post found?
1710788 Ooh, yeah, that looks like a whole lotta work ahead of you, so good luck. Someone must have entered this in the selection spot (wherever that is) for Obs' post. It is a very good piece
I have a feeling I'm gonna like the Fimfiction Editorials. This was fascinating.
So very long ago, I saw this in my feed. It looked like a good read, but I put it aside due to its length and the fact that I wanted something quick and easy to read that morning. That was back in 2013. I'm so glad I revisited the link I saved to this blog post. Brilliant! It, you, the research, and the history are all brilliant!
I'm subscribing to you right now. I should have done so 2 years ago.
I can already feel the 'stupid' sheading off of me. Um... I needed a pallet cleanser after crud like Scootaloo gets her cutiemark. D... Don't judge my reading habits.