Unicorns, Defense Against

In the year 1493 CE, a man claimed to see a unicorn near Mt. Sinai, Egypt.

Emperor Julius Caesar once reported a unicorn sighting, describing it as looking “like a stag” and having “between the ears” “a single horn, taller and straighter than the horns we know.”

Confucius, Alexander the Great and Genghis Khan also each reported unicorn sightings at some point in their lifetimes.

There a great many sightings of unicorns through Europe during the Middle Ages.

These creatures have been sighted throughout human history, and up into modern times, around the globe.

Unlike the Pegasus—the winged horse from Greek mythos—and alicorn—a creation of fantasy fiction that is a winged unicorn—there truly does seem to be an endangered race of hose-like beings with a single long, spiral horn growing from the forehead out there somewhere.

On a brief side note, the alicorn is the name of the material that the horn of a unicorn of made from.

Unicorns are typically seen as being symbolic of peace, purity or tranquility. Yet there is one danger sometimes attributed to them. This is that people who claim to have come into physical contact with one—an extraordinarily rare event—find themselves pining away for the creature, wanting only to touch it again. This is sometimes equated to the same obsession that people who claim to have crossed the Veil into the world of the fey fall under—those people want nothing more than to return to the realm of the fey while people who come into contact with a unicorn have been said to undergo the same overriding obsession and want only to find another unicorn and touch it.

Yet, apparently contrary to this, it was said during Medieval times that the only way to capture a unicorn was for a young maiden—a virgin—to sit quietly alone. It is said that a unicorn, upon spotting the young maiden, would approach her and lie down, putting its head in her lap. At that time, hunters could move in and take the creature. Legend claims that, barring the use of a young maiden as bait, there was no way of capturing a unicorn.

Due to the single danger of the obsession after touching one being attributed to unicorns, and due to their being such wondrous creatures and symbolic of purity, the only defense against a unicorn that I will recommend of simple avoidance of them. That single danger is the only reason I chose to include unicorns in this series of articles to begin with.

If you are ever lucky enough to have a sighting of one of the creatures, please view it from afar and make no effort to get near to it.

Should you find yourself in close proximity to a unicorn, please be careful not to touch it.

Remember, where unicorns are concerned, look but don’t touch. It would seem that we humans are a far, far greater threat to unicorns than they are to us.