when you picture a unicorn what comes to
mind a white horse with a gleaming horn
maybe a Shaggy rhinoceros a terrifying
horned rabbit or a multi-colored Chimera
the tragic news is that only one of
these creatures is real but the good
news is that all of them are unicorns
before unicorns were cemented as the
universal symbol of Purity and Grace we
picture today they were a whole
malleable class of folkloric creatures
who shared a single trait that solitary
horn erupting from their head most of
the modern unicorn's predecessors had
dark dispositions and body parts
borrowed from multiple beasts likely
inspired by real world animal Anatomy
thus hidden in the mythology of the
Unicorn is a lesson in how humans
Collective imagination can adapt truth
into whatever Fable we need at the time
foreign
immemorial one-horned creatures have
proud our dreams and nightmares alike
but they didn't spring fully formed from
myths or fairy tales instead we find
powerful unicorns in natural histories
travelogues and geography from around
the world for this reason many unicorns
straddle the boundary between fact and
fiction and that only becomes more
obvious when we look at how they've been
translated across different cultures
while some one-horned creatures
influence the figure of the white equine
unicorn that became popular in the
western imagination they also complicate
its symbolism rather than denoting
Purity or Chastity the unicorns we'll
talk about today are hybrid creatures
with multi-faceted powers the
Millennials in the audience know who the
Last Unicorn is but one of the first is
the bovine unicorn of the Indus Valley
Civilization in South Asia described as
a bull ox or an antelope of heavy build
with a horn protruding from the back of
its head it's been found on official
seal dating to 2600 BCE figurines of
this creature have also been found
across ancient India Pakistan and
Mesopotamia some Scholars have linked
these stocky single-horned figures to
the very real elasmotherium a giant
rhinoceros that had already been extinct
for eons and whose fossils could have
inspired the Unicorn myth whatever the
inspiration the Indus unicorn was
usually shown beside a stand of Sacred
Water or other offerings indicating that
this is no ordinary animal another
exceptional creature continues this
trend of fusing zoology and mythology
the Chinese chilin it's described as
having the body of a deer or elk the
tail of an ox and a single horn but also
shows up covered in scales and
surrounded by fire like a dragon Chi Lin
were known for their gentle disposition
and as tokens of good luck with their
appearance often heralding the birth of
an important person while some accounts
picture the chilin as a supernatural
figure who clomps across the Earth
without disturbing a single blade of
grass they also made their way into real
life in 1414 the Ming Emperor was
presented with a chilin from a far away
land only to discover that what he
really had on his hands was a giraffe
amalgamations of mythical and real
animals continue in the carcadon which
appears in Islamic writing and art
described by polymath al-baruni as a
scaly Buffalo with yellow Hooves and a
horned nose Scholars generally agree
that he was talking about rhinos here
but embellishments and mistranslations
produce carcadons as winged antelopes
horses and even feline figures others
fuse different animals in one account
the carcadon sports the head of a camel
body of a mule and the tail and Hooves
of a bull in another it's a giant
elephant horse mashup the carcadon's
horn was also the source of much debate
the medieval geographer Muhammad
al-adrasi tells us that it's so big you
can't fit both your hands around it
while the naturalist album Miri insists
that the horn is so heavy the carcadon
can't even hold its own head up in all
their forms carcadons were fearsome they
were said to actively hunt humans or to
inflict death on all who heard their
voice it also has a fraught relationship
with other animals in one story The
karkodon takes out its mortal enemy The
Elephant by impaling the elephant so
deeply that it can't extract its horn
this story tends to end in pretty grisly
ways with all the elephants fat seeping
out and blinding the carcadon for
instance or a huge bird carrying both
animals to her nest and feeding them to
her chicks these stories convey the
brutality of the animal realm which the
carcadon appeared to rule over but never
with absolute Security in comparison to
other Islamic unicorns the sadhavar
seems deceptively benign this deer-like
animal Sprouts Hollow branches from its
single horn which makes sweet music as
the wind whistles through them but the
music ultimately attracts unsuspecting
animals who are promptly devoured by the
Wily sadhavar these dangerous Tendencies
don't stop people from coveting their
horns so-called carcadon horns whose
original owner was usually a rhino was
sold as a remedy for countless illnesses
it was said that a carcadon horn could
also be used to heat cold water ward off
evil forces and keep horses standing
upright in one Persian Legend carcadon
horn is mixed with dust and sprinkled
over a band of robbers immobilizing them
before they can ransack a village these
Middle Eastern unicorns look very
different from each other but are united
by their Rarity ferocity and
unpredictability descriptions of these
creatures reveal the overlap between
myth and observation and that they tend
to embellish the animal realm and
heighten the chaos of the natural world
early Western ideas about what the
Unicorn looked like Echo this
embellishment but they also stemmed from
confusion and Intrigue about exotic
Faraway creatures in a tangled
Zoological and geographical report of
the East the Greek physician satisius
reported Indian unicorns with Crimson
heads multicolored horns and shapely
ankles he also notes their bloodthirsty
violent nature Pliny wrote of
monocurosis meaning single horn who each
had a Stag's head elephant's feet a
Boar's tail and a single black horn
while Claudius elianes described a
red-haired horse with a curly pigtail
and spiraling horn these creatures have
been variously linked to the Indian
rhino the Tibetan Antelope and the
onager or kyong both a type of donkey
but Europeans had their own take on the
Unicorn throughout the early Christian
and medieval period Christian writers
linked unicorns and their mystical
powers to Jesus Christ himself or a
symbol of the cross the Unicorn was
thought to have kept Adam and Eve
company in the Garden of Eden cementing
its status as Supreme animal and a
spiritual allegory so as unicorns were
absorbed into Christian iconography they
became associated with Purity Chastity
and unity there's a clear distinction
between the pure Angelic unicorn and its
hybrid fearsome predecessors recently
the unicorn has earned a third
reputation as we in the queer Community
have claimed its Wild Side for ourselves
there are plenty of glittery horns and
flowing rainbow manes in queer
iconography but the connection goes
deeper than that in queer culture
unicorns are celebrated as creatures
that shun the status quo while reminding
us how special and resilient we are we
have adopted the Unicorn as slang and
symbol empowering ourselves and our
queer kin to embrace our identities
lgbtq plus soldiers fighting in
Ukraine's Army have started sowing
unicorn patches onto their uniforms as a
way to express Pride solidarity and the
desire to be seen here we see Echoes of
older and more varied understandings of
the Unicorn whose power lies in its
Outsider status its hybridity and its
resistance to classification ultimately
it's this lack of consensus that gives
unicorns their symbolic power as
creatures who muddy the line between
fact and fiction disrupt cultural
boundaries and reveal fears and
fantasies about the natural world
unicorns have always been about
subjective interpretation