THE UNICORN

Evening Star, Issue 19659, 12 September 1927, Page 6

THE UNICORN

DID IT EVER EXIST 111 MATURE ? Everyone knows that tho unicorn is a fabulous animal, but few of us have taken the trouble to think out its evolution in literature and art. Indeed, it is a, very confusing story, one of the first snags that wo encounter being the fact that tlio unicorn of the Old "Testament had two horns. For Ephraim and Manasseh are likened to the two horns of a unicorn—two horns growing from a single head —namely, Joseph's. Hero is an initial difficulty, since unicorn obviously means onehorned (writes Professor J. Arthur Thomson, in ‘ .John o’ London’s Weekly ’). TRAVELLERS’ TALES.

In ancient days, bcloro photography and before drawing was taught in schools, the discoverer of x new animal which he could not bring borne had to rely on the convincingness of his description. But to win conviction the traveller tended to italicise, and emphasis readily becomes exaggeration. The visualiscr, hearing the description, made a sketch of what he thought the creature must have looked like; the sketch was copied several times and often conventionalised in carving; other travellers made decorative additions; and so fabulous animals evolved, such as centaurs, harpies, dragons, and basilisks. Tims there emerged (he unicorn, of which Pliny wrote; “It has the head of a stag, the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, while the rest of its body is like that of the horse; it makes a deep lowing noise, and has a single black horn, which projects Irom the middle of its ioreliead, two cubits in length.” There are oilier descriptions in Ibo classics, which give the unicorn a lion’s tail and cloven bools, and so forth, besides considerably reducing the length ol the single born. With some consistency, its home is nearly always said to have been in India and its powers are said to have been formidable. WAS IT THE BII1NOCKBGS?

Bub even a heraldic animal musl have a germ of objectivity, and the probability is that the Indian rhinoceros was the origin of the unicorn. One of the species has only one horn and if there arc two burns one is behind tho other, not side by side as in other horned mammals. Aristotle spoke of the oryx, one of the antelopes, as having a single horn, hut, except in tho rhino, the number is twe in all normal horned mammals. Only us a freak is the number occasionally reduced to one.

There is no difficulty in the technical point that iho horn of the rhinoceros is unique in being a wart-like skin growth, composed of hair-liko fibres agglutinated; but there is some difficulty in believing that Iho clumsy rhinoceros could give origin to the graceful unicorn which James i. adopted at the Union of the Crowns as the left-hand supporter of the Royal Anns. Hence has arisen another theory that tho unicorn was a side view of two-horned mammal like an antelope, one horn hiding tho other. Rut this seems too rationalistic to be true. On tho other hand, the spiral twisting of tho heraldic unicorn's horn is suggestive of what is soon in many antelopes, though it is regarded by others as a relatively modern addition based on tho great tusk of the male narwhal—an Arctic Cetacean.

The real narwhal, Monodun monocorns, which whalers sometimes cab the unicorn or “uni,” is more interesting than tho mythical monster. It is ;> dark spotted whale of the Arctic Ocean that turns white as it grows old. Its body may bo loft long, not including tho male's 'left upper jaw tusk, which may attain to a length of Bftthe longest tooth in the world! Bui anything over sit is considered a goo.) “ horn.” In ordinary cases tho corresponding tooth of the right side remains buried in the upper jaw, not more than a, foot in length; and the female has two such teeth—a remarkable instance of sex-dimorphism. Minute vest igos of other teeth have boon discovered in tho unborn young. WHAT GOOD IS THE HORN? Although the narwhal has been much “fished,” and is still of great importance to the Greenlanders —tiro skin for food, tho blubber for oil, the muscles for the dogs, and the tusk for ivory—there are no 'convincing observations in regard to the use of flic horn. Wc may exclude the’wild suggestions that it Serves as an ice-fcrcakcr or as a.spear for impaling skate; a more plausible

interpretation regards it as a weapon, especially in the contests of rival males. In all probability it belongs to the scries of masculine excrescences, like the antlers of slags, and illustrates a momentum in ovoluiion that has carried iho' structure—a canine tooth—beyond the limits of utility, yet without involving any great risk to its possessors. THE BIBLICAL UNJCOKN. The living unicorn is the narwhal; the mythical unicorn was probably the one-horned rhino; the heraldic unicorn was a monstrous mongrel; there remains only the Biblical unicorn, and it was a misunderstanding. It seems perfectly clear that the so-called “uncorn,” the Hebrew r’eni, was the wild ox, Bos prinugenius, the unis of Caiosar, the aurochs of the Germans, and one of the ancestors of our domestic cattle. The ironical passage in the Book of Job evidently refers to a fierce ox; “Will the unicorn be willing to servo thee or abide by thy crib? C'anst thou hind the unicorn with his band in the furrow, or will be harrow the valleys after thee?” Osar described fhc_ uri exaggeratedly as “ little inferior in size to elephants.” and comments on their untamable fierceness. “ Great is their strength and great their speed; they spare neither man nor wild beast on whom they may east their eyes.” Of tlio Scottish representatives Hector Buece writes: “In the Caledonian Forest were sometime white hulls with crisp, curling manes liko fierce lions, and thought they seemed meek in the remanent of their bodies, they were more wild than any other beasts. . . . They were so wily that they wero nover taken but by sleight and crafty labor, and so impatient that after they were taken they died ol insupportable dolour.” This was the Hebrew rein, to which the translators mistakenly gave the name of “unicorn.”