Mythical Creature Part VI

Mythical Creature: Unicorn

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unicorn

he unicorn is a legendary animal commonly portrayed as a white horse with a goat's beard and a large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. First mentioned by the ancient Greeks, it became the most important imaginary animal of themiddle ages and Renaissancewhen it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodlandcreature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could only be captured by a virgin. In the encyclopedias its horn was said to have the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. Until the 19th century, belief in unicorns was widespread among historians, alchemists, writers, poets, naturalists, physicians, and theologians.


Unicorns are not found in Greek mythology, but rather in accounts of natural history, for Greek writers of natural history were convinced of the reality of the unicorn, which they located inIndia, a distant and fabulous realm for them. The earliest description is from Ctesias who described them as wild asses, fleet of foot, having a horn a cubitand a half in length and colored white, red and black.


Biblical:

An animal called the re’em(Hebrew: רְאֵם‎) is mentioned in several places in the Hebrew Bible, often as a metaphor representing strength. "The allusions to the re'em as a wild, un-tamable animal of great strength and agility, with mighty horn or horns (Job xxxix. 9–12; Ps. xxii. 21, xxix. 6; Num. xxiii. 22, xxiv. 8; Deut. xxxiii. 17; comp. Ps. xcii. 11), best fit theaurochs (Bos primigenius). This view is supported by the Assyrianrimu, which is often used as a metaphor of strength, and is depicted as a powerful, fierce, wild mountain bull with large horns."^[13] This animal was often depicted in ancientMesopotamian art in profile, with only one horn visible.

The translators of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible(1611) followed the GreekSeptuagint (monokeros) and the Latin Vulgate (unicornis)^[14] and employed unicorn to translatere'em, providing a recognizable animal that was proverbial for its un-tamable nature. The American Standard Version translates this term "wild ox" in each case.

• "God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of anunicorn."—Numbers 23:22
• "God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of anunicorn."—Numbers 24:8
• "His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of unicorns: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth."—Deuteronomy 33:17
• "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind theunicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him, that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?"—Job 39:9–12
• "Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns ofunicorns."—Psalms 22:21
• "He maketh them [the cedars of Lebanon] also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."—Psalms 29:6
• "But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil."—Psalms 92:10
• "And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with their bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness."—Isaiah 34:7

The classical Jewish understanding of bible did not identify the Re'em animal as the unicorn. Instead, the Tahashanimal (Exodus 25, 26, 35, 36 and 39; Numbers 4; and Ezekiel 16:10) was thought to be akosher unicorn with a coat of many colors that only existed in biblical times.

Qilin:

Though the qilin (Chinese: 麒麟), a creature in Chinese mythology, is sometimes called "the Chinese unicorn", it is a hybrid animal that looks less unicorn than chimera, with the body of a deer, the head of a lion, green scales and a long forwardly-curved horn. TheJapanese version (kirin) more closely resembles the Western unicorn, even though it is based on the Chinese qilin. The Quẻ Ly of Vietnamese myth, similarly sometimes mistranslated "unicorn" is a symbol of wealth and prosperity that made its first appearance during the Duong Dynasty, about 600 CE, to Emperor Duong Cao To, after a military victory which resulted in his conquest of Tây Nguyên.

Also:

Medieval knowledge of the fabulous beast stemmed frombiblical and ancient sources, and the creature was variously represented as a kind of wild ass,goat, or horse.

The predecessor of the medievalbestiary, compiled in Late Antiquity and known asPhysiologus (Φυσιολόγος), popularized an elaborate allegoryin which a unicorn, trapped by a maiden (representing the Virgin Mary), stood for the Incarnation. As soon as the unicorn sees her, it lays its head on her lap and falls asleep. This became a basic emblematic tag that underlies medieval notions of the unicorn, justifying its appearance in every form of religious art.