Description
A unicorn is a mythical animal described since antiquity as a beast with a long, pointed, spiraling horn on its forehead. The unicorn was depicted on ancient seals from the Indus Valley Civilization and mentioned by ancient Greek authors such as Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the Younger, and Claudius Aelianus. The Bible also describes an animal, the re'em (probably a wild bull or aurochs), which in some translations was incorrectly rendered as "unicorn." In European folk culture, the unicorn was often depicted as a white, horse- or goat-like animal with a long horn and cloven hooves (sometimes with a goatee). In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was commonly characterized as a very wild animal of the forests, a symbol of purity and grace, that could only be captured by a virgin. Its horn was believed to purify poisoned water and cure disease. In those centuries, the tooth of a narwhal (a type of whale) was sometimes sold as unicorn horn. The ancient Indian myth of the hermit Gazellenhorn tells of Rsyasrnga (or Ekasrnga, literally "unicorn"). This Rsyasrnga is the son of a goddess in the form of a gazelle, and therefore has a horn on his head. He was brought to the palace by an attractive courtesan to end a period of drought. In 398 BC, the unicorn was described in considerable detail by the Greek physician and historian Ctesias, who heard about it at the court of the Persian king through accounts from travelers from India. The Indian wild asses, Ctesias recounted in Indika, were as large as horses and sometimes larger. Their bodies were white, their heads purple, and their eyes blue. On their foreheads, they had a sharp horn that was white at the base, red at the top, and black in the center. In India and China, the unicorn was already mentioned before then. The Roman Pliny the Elder also described the animal.
