This mythical beast appears on the Royal Coat of Arms opposite the lion and can be found atop (the finials) of many of the pillars of mercat (market) crosses in Scotland which denote that the settlement is a royal burgh.
In recent years it has been adopted as a coy and whimsical emoji; it is the main character in numerous books aimed primarily at girls but this heraldic animal is something of an oddity with ancient origins very far removed from its playful use on today's smartphones.
It was first found in medieval bestiaries which are illuminated manuscripts combining stories of real and imagined animals and using them as allegories for Christian morals. Part theological and part crypto-zoological, they were designed to reinforce faith in Christianity throughout the Middle Ages in the British Isles and across many parts of continental Europe.
In the bestiary, the unicorn’s story is an allegory for Christ’s death. As with Christ’s crucifixion for mankind’s sins, the unicorn is caught and killed. One bestiary (Bodleian Library, Bodley 764) details the unicorn’s story and follows it with the Psalm 92:10; “My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn.”
In contrast to the mild mannered horse with a horn that features in children’s stories, the medieval unicorn is commonly described as ferocious; for example, it is said to be an opponent of the elephant, which it would stab in the abdomen with its horn. It is also moves swiftly, even impossible to catch. However the unicorn becomes a docile beast in the hands of a virgin—symbolic of the mother of Christ, the Virgin Mary.
In many bestiary representations, a virgin is used to lure the unicorn. She heads to the forest until a unicorn sees her and jumps into her lap. Some representations of this moment involve the unicorn sucking on the virgin’s breast until it falls asleep. During its slumber, the unicorn is caught by hunters and ultimately taken to the king.
Virgin and Unicorn
The unicorn was treasured for the magical powers of its horn, supposedly composed of a substance called alicorn, which was thought to have the ability to detect poison if placed in contaminated food or drink and render the poison impotent. The horn was also believed to function as an aphrodisiac or teeth whitener when ground into a powder.
For centuries quack doctors made handsome profits from touting alicorn to the gullible serfs and peasants. A substance which was in fact made from (real) ground walrus or narwhal ivory, which just goes to show that today’s Big Pharma pulling the strings of the world’s political and media bosses to boost the fear of new viruses and alleged vaccines to “cure” those viruses is not without its medieval precedent.
In bestiary illuminations, the unicorn is almost always shown as the victim of a momentous hunting scene. It is pierced in the side of the lower abdomen by a hunter, while blood falls from its wounds, recalling Christ’s sacrifice. The virgin stands next to the unicorn, embraces it, or holds it in her lap, often appearing remorseful for having colluded in the animal’s capture.
To emphasise the unicorn’s fierceness the hunters in some bestiaries are shown clothed in metal garb from head to toe often carrying a shield to avoid any damage from the unicorn’s horn.
The mailed knight lancing a unicorn
The unicorn became so universally believed in because it was so heavily integrated with their daily lives in church, prayer and oral folklore. Praised for its pride and strength, the unicorn first featured on an early rendition of a royal Scottish coat of arms by William I in the 12th century as a perpetuation of the idea that the unicorn and the lion, adopted by contemporary English king, were arch enemies in a constant state of battle for the title of king of beasts. That emblematic battle continues to this day in the Royal coat of arms found adorning the walls of thousands of public buildings, including courts and churches across the land.
Selling a Myth
There are four main aspects of how to sell a myth.
- It needs to provide for a need, which the unicorn provided through being an antidote to poison or contaminated food and drink which would have been commonly encountered in days before clean drinking water and standards of hygiene.
- It needs to fit into the scientific knowledge of that time - it can’t be this explanation of ‘just because magic’, or ‘the supernatural’. It really needs to fit in with the understanding people had and it needed to be plausible.
- It needs to be something people can interact with - so the importance of touch and the importance of those items which were sold and traded as unicorn horns. Whatever they were used for - whether it was goblets or jewellery or even just table decorations - the importance of that physicality.
- Also there needed to be tests of authenticity for these things – you couldn’t just give someone something and say that it works, there has to be some sort of confirmation that it works. We can look back at the steps the horn had to go through before it became important to society.
Today we know that unicorns do not exist and we need not worry about protecting ourselves with armour from its mighty horn. We can look to the medieval myth makers and peddlers of supposed cures as the antecedents for today’s propagandists and providers of “solutions” for "problems" which are of their own invention.
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