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Unicorns (also called unicornios i wish i knew why -.-) can either be used as a symbol or referring to the actual unicorn and i will explain both
Real Unicorns- Are generally thought of as horses with a single horn on it's forehead. Quote: Marianna Mayer has observed (The Unicorn and the Lake), "The unicorn is the only fabulous beast that does not seem to have been conceived out of human fears. In even the earliest references he is fierce yet good, selfless yet solitary, but always mysteriously beautiful. He could be captured only by unfair means, and his single horn was said to neutralize poison." A unicorn could also be just referring to a single horned animal (such as the bull) and is considered a very high social rank. Quote: Among numerous finds of prehistoric bones found at Einhornhöhle (Unicorn Cave) in Germany's Harz Mountains, some were selected and reconstructed by the mayor of Magdeburg, Otto Von Guericke, as a unicorn in 1663 (illustration, right). Guericke's so-called unicorn had only two legs, and was constructed from fossil bones of a Woolly rhinoceros and a mammoth, with the horn of a narwhal. The skeleton was examined by Gottfried Leibniz, who had previously doubted the existence of the unicorn, but was convinced by it.[17] Baron Georges Cuvier maintained that as the unicorn was cloven-hoofed it must therefore have a cloven skull (making the growth of a single horn impossible); to disprove this, Dr. W. Franklin Dove, a University of Maine professor, artificially fused the horn buds of a calf together, creating a one-horned bull.[18] Since the rhinoceros is the only known extant land animal to possess a single horn, it has often been supposed that the unicorn legend originated from encounters between Europeans and rhinoceroses. The Woolly Rhinoceros would have been quite familiar to ice age people, or the legend may have been based on the rhinoceroses of Africa. Quote: A new possibility for the inspiration of the unicorn came in 2008 with the discovery of a roe deer in Italy with a single horn. Single-horned deer are not uncommon; however, the placement of the horn in the middle is very unusual. Fulvio Fraticelli, scientific director of Rome's zoo, has said "Generally, the horn is on one side (of the head) rather than being at the center. This looks like a complex case."[24] Fraticelli also acknowledges that the placement of the horn could have been the result of some type of trauma in the life of the deer.[24] This unicorn found in Prato, Tuscany is one of the most concrete living evidence of the legendary unicorn: notice that roe deer have also cloven hooves, like traditional representations. Maybe there were in the past similar morphological anomalies like a single-horn deer or a different animal that has been seen from a certain distance. According to Gilberto Tozzi, director of the Center of Natural Science in Prato, “this single-horn deer is conscious to its uniqueness and does not come out a lot, always hiding.”[25]
Symbolic Unicorns- unicorn symbolizes power, purification, healing, wisdom, self-knowledge, renewal and eternal life Quote: 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... The translators of the Authorized King James Version of the Bible (1611) employed unicorn to translate re'em, providing a recognizable animal that was proverbial for its un-tamable nature. "God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of the unicorn."--Numbers 23:22 "God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn."--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 the unicorn 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 of unicorns."--Psalm 22:21 "He maketh them (the cedars of Lebanon) also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn."--Psalm 29:6 "But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the unicorn: I shall be anointed with fresh oil."--Psalm 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 Quote: One traditional method of hunting unicorns involved entrapment by a virgin. In one of his notebooks Leonardo da Vinci wrote: The unicorn, through its intemperance and not knowing how to control itself, for the love it bears to fair maidens forgets its ferocity and wildness; and laying aside all fear it will go up to a seated damsel and go to sleep in her lap, and thus the hunters take it.[15]
how the unicorn was believed started as a myth- Quote: One suggestion is that the unicorn is based on the extinct animal Elasmotherium, a huge Eurasian rhinoceros native to the steppes, south of the range of the woolly rhinoceros of Ice Age Europe. Elasmotherium looked little like a horse, but it had a large single horn in its forehead. Quote: The unicorn horns often found in cabinets of curiosities and other contexts in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, were very often examples of the distinctive straight spiral single tusk of the narwhal (Monodon monoceros) Quote: The oryx is an antelope with two long, thin horns projecting from its forehead. Some have suggested that seen from the side and from a distance, the oryx looks something like a horse with a single horn (although the 'horn' projects backward, not forward as in the classic unicorn)
bibliography: all information and quotes are from wikipedia
the dark vampelf · Tue Jun 23, 2009 @ 03:23pm · 0 Comments |
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