The Unicorn: A Mythological Investigation

THE science of Heraldry has faithfully preserved to modern times various phases of some of those remarkable legends, which, based upon a study of natural phenomena, exhibit the process whereby the greater part of mythology has come into existence. There we find the solar Gryphon, the solar Phoenix, 'a demi-eagle displayed issuing from flames of fire,' the solar Lion, and the lunar Unicorn, which two latter noble creatures now harmoniously support the Royal Arms. I propose in the following pages to examine the myth of the Unicorn, the wild, white, fierce, chaste Moon, whose two horns, unlike those of mortal creatures, are indissolubly twisted into one; the creature that endlessly fights with the Lion to gain the crown (κορυφή) or summit of heaven which neither may retain, and whose brilliant horn drives away the darkness and evil of the night, even as we find in the myth that 'venym is defended by the horn of an Vnicorne.'1 As the Moon rules the sea and water, so the horn of the Unicorn is said to purify the streams and pools, and we are told that other animals will not drink until this purification is made; for the Unicorn ere he slakes his thirst, like the sinking Moon, dips his horn in water. As the Moon, Artemis-Selenê, is the 'queen and huntress, chaste and fair,' so is 'the maiden Unicorne' 'in the Classical and Middle Ages the emblem of chastity.' 'Their inviolable attachment to virginity, has occasioned them to become the guardian hieroglyphic of that virtue.' According to Upton, quoted by Dallaway, the Unicorn 'capitur cum arte mirabili. Puella virgo in sylva proponitur solaque relinquitur, qui adveniens depolita omni ferocitate casti corporis pudicitiam in virgine veneratur, caputque suum in sinu puellae imponit, sicque soperatus deprehenditur a venatoribus et occiditur, vel in regali palatio ad spectandum exhibetur.'