Episode 372: Unicorns
/What do Victorians, kids of the 90s, and Renaissance Christians have in common? They were all SUPER into unicorns. We talk about unicorn stories from across the globe and from ancient times to now, to see how the unicorn has evolved over the years.
Content Warning: This episode contains conversations about or mentions of racism, colonialism, animal death, animal attacks, Christopher Columbus, poaching, illness, genitals, homophobia, and pornography.
Housekeeping
- Recommendation: This week, Julia recommends the A League of Extraordinary Women series by Evie Dunmore
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Cast & Crew
- Co-Hosts: Julia Schifini and Amanda McLoughlin
- Editor: Bren Frederick
- Music: Brandon Grugle, based on "Danger Storm" by Kevin MacLeod
- Artwork: Allyson Wakeman
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About Us
Spirits is a boozy podcast about mythology, legends, and folklore. Every episode, co-hosts Julia and Amanda mix a drink and discuss a new story or character from a wide range of places, eras, and cultures. Learn brand-new stories and enjoy retellings of your favorite myths, served over ice every week, on Spirits.
Transcript
[theme]
AMANDA: Welcome to Spirits Podcast, a boozy dive into mythology, legends, and folklore. Every week we pour a drink and learn about a new story from around the world. I'm Amanda.
JULIA: And I'm Julia. And Amanda, we've talked a lot about various different creatures that we've seen not only around the world, but in pop culture, in fantasy, in all different types of media. We talked about werewolves, we talked about vampires, we talked about dragons, all sorts of creatures, right? But one that we haven't talked about much on the show is the unicorn.
AMANDA: Now, Julia, have you been avoiding the subject out of, you know, politeness and care for me? Because early on in the podcast, I firmly asserted that narwhals were fictitious. And you said, "Baby, baby, they're— they're real." And I said, "No, that can't be right."
JULIA: I think enough time has passed that we can address that and you don't feel like a fool.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: And that is my kindness to you.
AMANDA: Thank you. You know, I'm learning along with everybody in the audience. It's been eight years, I'm— I'm— you know, the— the distance between when we started Spirits, and now is the distance between us starting high school and finishing it. So, maybe— or maybe mid— midway through high school. So, A, that's nuts, and B, I've grown.
JULIA: Yeah, that's fair. Hey, listen, we've all grown here, the show has grown. We've done 372 episodes. Well, this will be 372 episodes. We're all here to learn. We're all here to make mistakes and grow together, you know?
AMANDA: I'm into it, and I'm excited to learn about the sparkly extra horses.
JULIA: Well, Amanda, there is a lot to discuss about unicorns, but what is kind of the classic image that you picture in your mind when you think of a unicorn?
AMANDA: Oh, sure. Mine is gonna be the Avalon books, which were a real bisexual touchstone for me—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —and I know for you.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: A, like, pure white horse, a real kind of like Arthurian legend, like English folktale vibes, very much like pure, something around— you know, they can only be like ridden or tamed by virgins. That's a trope I've heard a lot. Unicorn like fur, or hair, or certainly their horn, or even hooves, being, you know, magical and having good properties. And what else? I know that some of them can be pretty bloodthirsty, and some of them can be pretty sweet. But the sort of like, you know, little girl, you know, brushing the mane of like a white unicorn doll is what comes to mind most.
JULIA: Okay. And that would be completely valid. You know, the— the modern unicorn is very much like— very much inspired by these kinds of European literature and art forms, right? But the origin of the unicorn actually dates all the way back to 2000 BCE, and not just in Europe, but also in the Middle East and Eastern Asia as well. So Amanda, as you kind of described, unicorns are— in case anyone doesn't know what we're talking about when we talk about a unicorn, they are a horse-like, though sometimes goat-like creature, with a long, straight horn. This is kind of the really classic Middle Ages and Renaissance version of this creature. I think what would be best, though, is if we start with the oldest version of the unicorn so that we can kind of have the opportunity to see how it has changed and transformed over time, and across various cultures. So we will start with the Bronze Age in the Indus Valley, where the unicorn is a bit less of a horse and more like a steer or a cow. It's distinctly bovine.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: Which Amanda, I know you— you love a cow, right?
AMANDA: I do. I— I love a cow. There was like a cow hanging up in my— in my nursery growing up, a painting of one, to be clear. And I've always had cow stuffed animals, so they're— they're very close to my heart, and makes sense given the livestock that people interact with day-to-day.
JULIA: Yes. And so for the Indus Valley, this image again, it's very different from the Middle Ages version that we've been talking about, which is more of the, like, single horn that goes straight out. But the Indus Valley version is a single horn that is curved as opposed to the kind of the straight but sometimes spiraled medieval unicorn.
AMANDA: Oh, sure. Like a steer, like a bull, like all kinds of mountain goats.
JULIA: Exactly, exactly. So what we know about the Indus Valley unicorn is mainly from art. So they are featured pretty prominently on several soapstone stamp seals from this time period, and archaeologists have even found, like, small terracotta unicorns that they've concluded are probably toys or some sort of decor.
AMANDA: They're just like me, Julia.
JULIA: Listen, little kids have been playing with unicorn dolls for literally millennia.
AMANDA: Incredible.
JULIA: Isn't that amazing? So we don't know a ton about the characteristics of the unicorn from this period, though, it's believed that there's two kinds of theories of thought here. It's either they were some sort of religious significance of a creature, or more likely, they were a symbol of some sort of like merchant community, or guild, or a powerful family.
AMANDA: Makes sense.
JULIA: Because, like, if they're having seals and stamps kind of carved for them, they're probably doing some sort of business. So it's either a rich family a la Succession, or it is like a guild, it's like, "Ah, yes, we're part of whatever the unicorn represents guild and stamp of approval."
AMANDA: Yeah. You're not gonna carve a stamp, like, for funsies. You're gonna have it to mark something meaningful.
JULIA: So we don't know a ton about the Indus Valley unicorn. All we really have remaining is art, and some scholars believe that they don't actually have much tied to other versions of the unicorn that we'll talk about in this episode, as this version of the unicorn really disappears at the end of the Indus River civilization period. But I did think it was worth discussing, if only because it is the oldest version of the unicorn out there that we know about.
AMANDA: And I love cows, so perfect combination.
JULIA: Perfect combination. And Amanda, we're a podcast that talks about mythology, but if you were to talk to someone in ancient Greece, they wouldn't tell you stories or myths about unicorns, rather, they would want to discuss with you natural history.
AMANDA: Oh, really? Was the unicorn meant to be like an extinct species?
JULIA: No. So the unicorn was meant to be a species that you would find in another country. Like we would—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —talk about, like, the Okapi, which is also known as the African unicorn.
AMANDA: Oh, really? I did a book report on the Okapi in— IN third grade. It's been close to my heart ever since.
JULIA: We love an Okapi. Yeah. people, like, genuinely thought that they were unicorns.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: It's pretty cool. No one could find them for so long.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: They were like, "Oh, yeah, the Okapi exists." And the white people are like, "No. Impossible.
AMANDA: Classic.
JULIA: But the Greeks, as we know, kind of make a distinction between myth and religion, as opposed to creatures that are found in nature. While something like the Sphinx is a supernatural creature to the Greeks that exists only in, like, stories about the gods and demigods. They genuinely believed that one could find the unicorn if you knew where to look.
AMANDA: Wow.
JULIA: And knowing where to look specifically is if you wanted to find a unicorn, ancient Greeks believed all you had to do was go to India.
AMANDA: Oh, they're just like walking all around there?
JULIA: So there was a Greek physician and historian named Ctesias, who wrote a book about India at the time, though, it wasn't based on his own experiences, because he had never been to India.
AMANDA: Classic.
JULIA: But rather on stories that he heard when he was acting as the court physician for the King of Persia.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. I'm sure people told the King of Persia really accurate and, you know, sympathetic evidence-based stories about India. Goodness gracious.
JULIA: So in this book, which we will take with a grain of salt because he never went to India himself, he describes a unicorn as being related to wild donkeys that can be found in that region, except that they were very like sure-footed, and fast and agile. And they had one long horn that was about two feet long.
AMANDA: I'm definitely getting the goat connection, so I'm— I'm grateful you started us in the Bronze Age.
JULIA: Yes. So unlike the unicorns that we imagined, the supposed unicorns of Ctesias were— basically they weren't just white, they came in red and black as well. And if you were thinking— Amanda, would you want to eat a unicorn?
AMANDA: I mean, my like, European folklore tells me that would be something blasphemous, so no?
JULIA: Well, it's not so much that it's blasphemous. It's more that the meat was unpalatable to humans because it was too bitter.
AMANDA: Sure. But also probably— but I don't know. The Greeks cook goat, like why— why not?
JULIA: Yeah, no.
AMANDA: Just gonna—you just kind of stew it for a long time. Give it a marinate.
JULIA: I guess so. Yeah, maybe you need to balance something out with the bitterness, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: I've been watching a lot of Top Chef lately. I'm sure they could have come up with something to eat unicorn with.
AMANDA: Unicorn Nero [9:11].
JULIA: But he wasn't the only one who was writing about unicorns at the time in ancient Greece. Aristotle mentions it while discussing one-horned animals, like Aristotle would. One he refers to as the Indian ass, which we now know is what he thought was a unicorn. And the other is what we now know to be the Oryx, which is a type of— kind of like antelope-y creature.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, Pliny the Elder also refers to the Oryx as one-horned but more to our specifications. He also mentioned what he refers to as the Monoceros.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Which is a fierce creature with, quote, "the head of the stag, the feet of the elephant, and the tail of the boar, while the rest of the body is like that of the horse. It makes a deep lowing noise and has a single black horn, which projects from the middle of its forehead."
AMANDA: It does just kind of feel like he's describing a goat weirdly.
JULIA: We'll get to what he may or may not have been describing in just a second.
AMANDA: Oh, okay, okay. Pliny has got to get a hand on the ball, and he's gotta, like, tear the ball apart, and then sew it back together bad, and be like, "Enjoy."
JULIA: As he always does. Pliny is really kind of the only one that talks specifically about the Monoceros during this period. But later, in the fifth century CE, a merchant named Cosmas Indicopleustes wrote about stories he heard of Ethiopia, which is in the modern-day Sadam, and he heard of a similar creature. So in one of those tales, he says that the beast was invincible with all of its strength stemming from its horn. It was said when hunters tried to catch it and it was cornered, it would jump off a cliff. However, in doing so, it would turn so that would fall on its horn, which then absorb the shock and allowed it to escape unharmed to live to see another day.
AMANDA: Bananas. And I don't think landing on a horn goes that way.
JULIA: No, I don't think so, either. So while these stories are wild and also most certainly fanciful, we can actually assume through the lens of time and biology that the creatures that both Pliny and Cosmas were talking about, were probably describing the rhinoceros.
AMANDA: Oh, Sure. Yeah. The— the feet of an elephant, I'm— I'm getting there. And maybe if it's like a very skinny rhino, then it looks kind of like a horse.
JULIA: Yeah. He does describe the body of a horse and I'm like, "Pliny, I don't think that's right."
AMANDA: Maybe— maybe he had a lot of like draft horses. I— I don't know a ton about the kinds of horses that were common to— to ancient Greece.
JULIA: It's true.
AMANDA: That's really funny. Poor rhinos, man. I feel like they— they get so much shit put onto them.
JULIA: They're odd-looking creatures if you've never seen a rhino before, right? Like you look at that and you're like, "Wow, that exists in the world. That's not an alien."
AMANDA: Rhinos look like they should be tiny but they are big, which is one of my favorite genres of creature.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: Like if you look at his proportions, you're like, "Oh, a chibi, little baby, like a little puppy, so squat." But they're like, you know, 3,000 pounds and pack a lot of force.
JULIA: Yes. They're, like, just living dinosaurs basically.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Alright, So Amanda, did you know that Judaism has a unicorn?
AMANDA: No, I didn't!
JULIA: Well, kinda. Let me clarify it. So there are nine references in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures basically, to something called the re'em.
AMANDA: Alright.
JULIA: It was a creature that was used as a metaphor for strength, basically. A fierce untamable creature that is quick, strong, and has a mighty horn, though sometimes it was described as two horns.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, you're like, "Okay. Well, that's just a— a creature. Sure, it has one horn. Whatever." And you're probably wondering, like, how does that tie to unicorns besides the horn? Well, it comes down to the King James Bible—
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: —which is easily the worst translation of the Bible. That's my hot take.
AMANDA: I— I have heard many people agree with you.
JULIA: Basically, this is the through line. So you go from re'em in Hebrew, and then you get the Greek translation of the Tanakh, which translates re'em to, you guessed it, monoceros.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: And from there, the Greek to Latin translation changes monoceros to, and then King James from Latin to English, unicorn.
AMANDA: I see. Man, it's so interesting and so direct. Like just— just study it in Hebrew people. You could— the—the truth is right— like, the word that they chose is right there.
JULIA: It's right there. And I will say there are more modern translations of the Bible that utilize wild ox for re'em—
AMANDA: Oh, sure.
JULIA: —instead of unicorn. And there is some rabbinic debate over what the re'em might have actually been.
AMANDA: There's got to be rabbinic debate, Julia. If it's in the Tanakh, it's a— it's a rabbinic debate.
JULIA: Exactly. So the consensus, for the most part, believes that, obviously, it was not a unicorn, but rather a domesticated kosher creature—
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: —that was from the time around when Moses would have been alive,
AMANDA: Right on. Fascinating. I like that King James was like, "Yup. Unicorn, that's what it is. Yup."
JULIA: And when you think about when the King James Bible was written, and what we're about to talk about in the second half of this episode, it makes sense. Everyone's just really into unicorns.
AMANDA: But I— I think it's a really fun distillation of the sanitization and making human-centric, a lot of stuff that does just appear in the Tanakh, in the Bible—
JULIA: Hmm.
AMANDA: —where, you know, biblically accurate angels, for example. Of like— yes, a sphere of eyes and someone's like, "Uh-hmm. A blond, white man, yes. Those are the same."
JULIA: With wings. Sure.
AMANDA: Exactly. But there's— there's a lot more strangeness and contradiction to be found, then I think a lot of us grew up just hearing.
JULIA: There truly is. Now, I also think that it's worth mentioning the Qilin or the kirin from China and Japan, respectively, which are sometimes referred to as the Chinese or Japanese unicorn. So, again, this is a creature that isn't exactly what we think of when we think of the Western unicorn. In fact, this is more like a chimera than anything, because it is this kind of hybrid creature with the body of a deer, head of a lion, green scales, and really, the only thing that makes it even unicorn adjacent, a long, curved horn.
AMANDA: Right on. Yeah. I'm— I'm hearing the, you know, the— the one horn and then some amalgamation of features that you don't really see in any other creature. Four-legged, you know, fairly sizable. It makes sense that these are all kind of swirling around similar ideas in different places. .
JULIA: Yes. Exactly. And unlike for the ancient Greeks, this is a distinctly legendary creature. It was said to make an appearance only when there was the arrival and/or death of a great ruler or scholar.
AMANDA: Hmm.
JULIA: And whereas we can tie kind of Western unicorns to horses, bovine, rhinos, the Qilin are actually tied to giraffes.
AMANDA: Really? I mean, I guess I see it with deer.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. They have distinctly like long necks, they have very graceful movements, and they have a bony protrusion coming out of their heads, much like a giraffe does.
AMANDA: No kidding.
JULIA: Yeah. In fact, this is such a lasting connection that the Korean and Japanese word for giraffe is the same as their version of the Qilin.
AMANDA: No way. That's awesome.
JULIA: Isn't that cool? It's also worth noting that Qilin do not always have one horn. Sometimes it is depicted as having two horns, sometimes it's antlers. The kind of unicorn Qilin connection is definitely more of a modern one, which means it is time for us to talk about what we consider our modern, quote-unquote, “unicorn”. But we will do that as soon as we get back from our refill.
AMANDA: Let's do it.
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JULIA: Hey, this is Julia, and welcome to the refill. We're going to start off today as we always do here in the refill by thanking our newest patrons. Thank you so much to Raymundo and Penguin for joining us here. Go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast to join our Patreon as well, and you can join the ranks of people like our supporting producer-level patrons, Uhleeseeuh, Anne, Arianna, Ginger Spurs Boi, Hannah, Jack Marie, Jane, Kneazlekins, Lily, Matthew, Nathan, Phil Fresh, Rikoelike, Captain Jonathan MAL-uh-kye Cosmos, Sarah and Scott. And, of course, our legend-level patrons, Audra, Bex, Chibi Yokai, Morgan H., Sarah, and Bea Me Up Scotty. And again, go to patreon.com/spiritspodcast, you can get really cool stuff like recipe cards for every single episode, both cocktails and mocktails, as well as our director's commentary, tarot card readings on every solstice and equinox, and so much more. Check it out. Again, that is patreon.com/spiritspodcast. And of course, I'm going to come in with a recommendation. I've really been enjoying the A League of Extraordinary Women series by Evie Dunmore. It is very fun. It's about like the suffrage movement for women in England during the, I believe, Victorian Period. And it is just an absolute blast. It's a fun little romance. They deal with a lot of interesting topics for a romance, and I am on the last book. I'm going to be reading it on vacation when I take my vacation next week and I'm so excited. So that is A League of Extraordinary Women by Evie Dunmore. And hey, if you wish you had more Multitude shows to catch up on, I have some good news for you. Members of the MultiCrew get a whole RSS feed full of bonus audio, including our newest show hosted by me, The MultiCrew Review. Every month I sit down with one of the other members of Multitude to talk about something that they love and think that you will love, too. From video games, to albums, to activities like gardening, the members are Multitude show their passion and their love for all different kinds of things with the hope that they can introduce you to something that you'll love as well. We just recently did an episode on Love Island with Dr. Moiya McTier of Exolore and Pale Blue Pod. It was such a delight. I did not know Moiya was into Love Island. It was so much fun to talk about. And I just recorded an episode next month with Corinne Caputo, also from Pale Blue Pod, about like reality shows as a whole, but specifically Vanderpump Rules, and it was such an awesome conversation. I am not a huge reality TV person, but it was so fun to talk to Corinne about that. So you can get that along with Head Heart Gut, which are exclusively for members of the MultiCrew, which is our membership program that supports all of Multitude. Get MultiCrew Review and Head Heart Gut as well as other audio exclusives by going to multicrew.club to sign up today. Now, this episode is sponsored by Brooklinen. Resolutions are all about you, and Brooklinen and wants to make sure that you're investing in yourself this year. And your biggest self-care investment should be and is sleep. So why not upgrade your night routine now with Brooklinen's award-winning home essentials? I know I snuggle into my Brooklinen sheets every gosh darn night, and it's really nice because not only are they buttery soft, but they also keep me cool when I overheat a little bit. And also keep me nice and warm in those cold winter months. So they're doing the best of both worlds here. They really are. And I think that starting the year off right will kind of set the tone for the rest of 2024, which is why you should make that bedding swap that you've been eyeing. Brooklinen's bedding bundles are customizable with high-quality sheets, comforters, and much more to make any room feel new in 2024. So start the year off right by investing in yourself with Brooklinen's sleep and self-care essentials. Visit in-store or online at brooklinen.com. That's B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N, .com and use code Spirits for $20 off your order of $100 or more. That's B-R-O-O-K-L-I-N-E-N, ., C-O-M, use promo code Spirits for $20 off. And now, let's get back to the show.
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JULIA: Now, Amanda, when you look up unicorn cocktails, there's a lot of rainbow cocktails. There's a lot of sprinkles and candy and overly sweet things. And that's just not going to do for us, right?
AMANDA: Yeah, that's not— that's not the kind of drink that we typically go for.
JULIA: So I am going to suggest my own little concoction minus all of the sweetness and the rainbow and stuff. Something a little bit more pure-tasting, which will make sense in a little bit.
AMANDA: Okay.
JULIA: But my unicorn cocktail includes gin, a little bit of like citrus, like orange liqueur, some orgeat. And if you're feeling really adventurous, I would recommend adding a little bit of like edible luster or glitter to kind of give it that, like, fantastic edge and vibe.
AMANDA: That sounds delicious. Like a— you know, a nice gin drink with some sparklies in it, which I'm always for.
JULIA: I— hey, listen, that's the best way to do it. And it does kind of give this sort of— when you add the— the edible glitter to it, it gives it— and because the orgeat is kind of like a milky color, it gives—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —it a kind of like swirling white, and it reminds me of like what unicorn blood in my mind would look like, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah. Like a slightly— like— like a— like a white gel pen, Julia.
JULIA: Like a white gel pen. That's perfect. Now before we get back to it, I have, of course, a little game for us, Amanda.
AMANDA: Oh, yay.
JULIA: So as we've talked about unicorns, for the most part, we're likely like animals that we know to be real, just seen through the lens of someone who has never seen it before. We've talked about unicorns that were rhinos, unicorns that were giraffes. Now, I want you to play the role of a person hearing an account of a creature that we, at one time, thought was mythical, but we now know is real. And I want you to tell me what you think that animal is. Does that make sense?
AMANDA: Beautiful. Yes.
JULIA: All right. We're only going to do three because a lot of them, like the Kraken, are super easy to determine, like what the origin might be. Like, obviously, that's a giant squid, but some of these are kind of fun.
AMANDA: Love it.
JULIA: So number one, we've talked about mermaids before on the podcast, but have you ever heard of the mermaids that known war criminal and overall monster Christopher Columbus claimed to have seen?
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: Yes. So while sailing through the water near what is now the Dominican Republic, he wrote, "Yesterday, when I was going down to Rio Del Oro, I saw three mermaids that came up very high out of the sea. They were not as beautiful as they are painted, since in some ways they have the face of a man.|
AMANDA: Would this be a manatee, Julia?
JULIA: It is in fact a manatee. Great job, Amanda.
AMANDA: Also, manatees are simply thick. Leave them alone.
JULIA: Manatees kind of classically are what a lot of people mistook for mermaids or like other kinds of like— for lack of a better phrase, sexy sea creatures at the time. So—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —sirens, mermaids.
AMANDA: Manatees and I, similar shapes. If you— you know, me and them swimming, we're— we're gonna look similar. I'm gonna blend in.
JULIA: I love that for you. I feel like— I just want a T-shirt that—
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: —says, "Manatee-shaped now."
AMANDA: Yeah, I've not an apple. I'm not a pear. Certainly not an hourglass. I think I'm manatee-shaped.
JULIA: Fair enough. Fair enough. Love that for you.
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: All right. The— the next one has a visual component, which I'm going to send to you.
AMANDA: And check out our Instagram, folks.
JULIA: Sea serpents have been something recorded since people started sailing, basically.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: Now, this particular great sea serpent apparently had washed up on the shore of Hungary Bay in Bermuda in 1860, and a drawing was shared in Harper's Weekly. Amanda, what do you think this is?
AMANDA: So this is a very long serpentine creature with scales along its spine, two little kind of fins by the face, and a traditional like fish-looking face. It does look a lot like the oarfish from Animal Crossing, but I'm gonna guess a kind of— is it a kind of eel?
JULIA: Amanda, it's a giant oarfish.
AMANDA: Yay! Thank you, Tom Nook.
JULIA: Thank you, Tom Nook, you nailed it. But, yeah, the—
AMANDA: Yay.
JULIA: —giant oarfish was something that— because they typically live in such depths, most people have never seen one alive. And if you do see one alive, it's mostly dying from depressurization from being too high in the water.
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: And so this one washing up on shore, people are like, "Oh, a sea serpent."
AMANDA: That's so funny. Man, I am constantly amazed by the fact that I'm like, "Oh, yeah, I know that— I know that work of art from Animal Crossing."
JULIA: Proud of you, proud of you. All right. And our last one, Amanda, you know the Phoenix? Of course, you do, right?
AMANDA: Of course, I do. The bird that's on fire.
JULIA: Yes. And the Greeks believed that this was a mythological bird that would erupt in flames before being reborn from the ashes.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: And here's a description from a Greek writer named Achilles Tatius, quote, "He comes from Ethiopia and is of—about a peacock size, but the peacock is inferior to him in beauty of color. His wings are a mixture of gold and scarlet. He is proud to acknowledge the sun as his Lord. And his head is witness to his allegiance, which is crowned in a magnificent halo. A circle halo is the symbol of the sun. It is a deeper magenta color like that of a rose, and a great beauty with spreading rays when the feathers spring."
AMANDA: All right. All right, guy, calm down.
JULIA: Calm the fuck down, my guy.
AMANDA: I can't think off the top of my head, but there's definitely a form of like— I don't know. Like— like a hen, or parakeet, or a parrot. Like there's— there's some kind of bird where I— I remember seeing that, like, cute, wispy, little crown. Not sure of the name, though.
JULIA: So I think Achilles Tatius never actually went to Ethiopia. So—
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: —again, this is one of those situations where, like, you heard it from the grapevine, you know? And what he's actually describing is a flamingo.
AMANDA: Oh, my God. Then he really missed the flamingos defining feature, which is legs for days.
JULIA: Legs for days. Yeah, he kind of missed out on the legs for days. I really like the part, too—
AMANDA: Oh, so funny.
JULIA: —where he's like, "It's about peacock size, but the peacock is inferior to him in the beauty of color."
AMANDA: Come on, my guy. But if anyone knows the bird I'm talking about, it has like very, like, wispy feathers on the top of its head that do make a cute, little crown. I'd love to know who he is.
JULIA: Send us pictures of birds that have wispy crowns, please, and thank you.
AMANDA: I mean, always, always.
JULIA: Amanda, you did an excellent job. I think 2 out of 3 is honestly fantastic, but let's get back to the origins of our modern unicorn. So the Medieval and Renaissance period kind of drew their imagery from both at this point, biblical references to the unicorn as well as the antiquity ones like from ancient Greece that we discussed. Now, art from this period depicts the unicorns similarly to how we see it now. And as the body of a horse, though, sometimes the donkey or goat, and a long spiraling white horn. I also really like the Medieval Era in particular, because it gives it a— like a goat's beard.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah, yeah.
JULIA: And it's honestly kind of adorable.
AMANDA: So cute.
JULIA: And I think— I think more unicorns should have beards nowadays.
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But like there— there's also that kind of like weird distinction and, like, weird like gendering of unicorns where they're like, "All unicorn—" if you went to a little kid and said, "All unicorns are girls, right?" They will probably be like, "Yeah!"
AMANDA: But I sort of love that we can embrace the gender fuckery of it and be like, "Yeah, give that unicorn a beard, give that unicorn a stubble, give that unicorn a goatee.
JULIA: And I don't think the unicorns are gendered in any way— well, actually, the Medieval period and Renaissance might disagree with me. But—
AMANDA: Julia, it disagrees with lots of things that we know to be true, so I think that's okay.
JULIA: So the unicorn during this time was this kind of fearsome creature. It was raw, it was wild, and it was for the most part, untamable. But the first reference to our idea of the unicorn was from a 2nd century CE Greek-Christian texts called the Physiologus which used the unicorn as an allegory for the incarnation of Jesus because, of course, it did.
AMANDA: Yeah, I mean, 2nd century, they're probably still swept up in Jesus fever.
JULIA: Oh, yeah. Easily. Very swept up in Jesus fever— or Europe still swept up in Jesus fever, let's be honest here.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah. That's true.
JULIA: So in the story, the unicorn is trapped by a maiden who represents the Virgin Mary.
AMANDA: Ah.
JULIA: Now, this maiden is able to trap the unicorn because the moment it sees her, it lays its head on her lap and falls asleep, because it sees her as a pure and trustworthy soul.
AMANDA: I see. So the— the virginity shit is in there from the very beginning.
JULIA: From the very beginning, yeah. From this allegory, we get one of the defining features of the Medieval and Renaissance unicorn that can only be tamed by a virgin.
AMANDA: Got it.
JULIA: Even Leonardo da Vinci wrote about what was considered the traditional method of hunting unicorns.
AMANDA: Everyone knows, everyone knows.
JULIA: Yes. Quote, "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.
AMANDA: Is da Vinci calling unicorns heavy drinkers? I— and I know temperance is specifically like Puritan— you know, US construction, but like damn.
JULIA: Yeah. You're like, "Damn. That unicorn be getting drunk every night."
AMANDA: Yeah. But, Julia, this makes total sense that it— that it kind of started as an allegory for Jesus, because that makes the sort of virginity thing and then, like, familiarity, and you know, supposed, like, purity and, like, moral, you know, highness of virgin women make more sense in context. I was always like, "Where did this virginity thing come from?" Like, it— it didn't, to my mind come up in so many other sort of Arthurian Era myths, which is really where I first heard of the unicorn, that now, I'm just like, "Oh, yes, there's at least a source for this, otherwise, kind of weird feature."
JULIA: Yes. And the Arthurian Myths are really interesting because they kind of go along the same lines as sort of like French romantic poetry and lore from that time period. Like, there is definitely a connection between those two things. I'm not an Arthurian Scholar, so I can't speak to that, necessarily. But I do love that the unicorn during that period was used in a lot of like analogy and romantic artwork. Here's one that's my absolute favorite. So this relationship kind of between the— the virginal maiden and the unicorn is something that was used by French authors in the 13th Century, saying something along the lines of, "A lover is attracted to his lady like a unicorn is attracted to a virgin."
AMANDA: Yeah. A lot of tropes circling around here, but I'm— I'm just busy thinking about the women who got a chance to go on the hunt, because they needed, like, the damsel to attract the unicorn. And the—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —women who were very interested in like going out and having adventures is in— perhaps even in hunting, and be like, "Yeah. Uh-huh. I'll— I'll be the bait. Don't worry about it." But they actually get to go— like go have an adventurous day.
JULIA: I also feel like I would be devastated if I was like— because I'm the kind of person who like if a puppy or a cat comes and sits on my lap, unprompted, I'm like, "I've been chosen. "
AMANDA: Yes. Exactly.
JULIA: So I think if I went on one of those hunts, and the unicorn laid its head in my lap, I would be like, "No one can touch this now. This is my child, my baby, my sweet time boy."
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. No, I'd— I— the— you know, kill the hunters and run away to the forest.
JULIA: Yes. And then I would just live with that unicorn and then—
AMANDA: Uh-huh.
JULIA: —you know, we would be companions forever.
AMANDA: Yeah, the fate would adopt us, like we've always fantasized about. It'd be great.
JULIA: Yeah. It'd be great. It'd be great. So by the time Marco Polo—
AMANDA: Oy.
JULIA: —started writing about unicorns in the 13th century, this kind of lore about the virgins has been well established. So here's— here's how Marco Polo describes them, quote, "Scarcely smaller than elephants, they have the hair of a buffalo and feet like an elephant. They have a single large black horn in the middle of their forehead. They have a head like a wild boar. They spend their time by preference, wallowing in mud and slime. They are very ugly brutes to look at. They are not at all as we describe them when we relate that they let themselves be captured by virgins, but clear, contrary to our notions."
AMANDA: Marco Polo, baby. That's just a rhinoceros.
JULIA: It is clearly just a rhinoceros, my guy. But the fact that he notes the difference from what he expects to the reality is kind of the notable part for us here. We even got like Shakespeare references to unicorns, such as Timon of Athens where he goes, " Wert thou the unicorn, pride and wrath would confound thee and make thine own self the conquest of thy fury."
AMANDA: Hmm. Just everyone's favorite dry political play.
JULIA: One of the worst histories probably that Shakespeare wrote.
AMANDA: Yeah, it's— it's pretty bad.
JULIA: Shakespeare's hot take for the episode, you know? We got to always include a Shakespeare hot take.
AMANDA: Can I add a sprinkle on it? Mer— Merry Wives of Windsor sucks. Continue.
JULIA: It's a bad play that Shakespeare wrote only because Queen Victoria really liked one character, and Shakespeare is like, "Ah, shit. I gotta write a spin-off now."
AMANDA: Yup. It's the— it's the side character spin-off which, you know, you got to write for your bread, I get it.
JULIA: Yeah. It's a real we made a Loki TV series because everyone likes Loki.
AMANDA: Yeah, exactly.
JULIA: Now, during this kind of medieval Renaissance period, which is quite a stretch, admittedly. We get many portrayals of the metaphorical and mythological unicorn, but we have to talk about the fact that unicorn horn aka the alicorn was very much something that rich and powerful people paid a lot of money for.
AMANDA: Yeah, poaching, bad.
JULIA: So the idea was that the alicorn could be ground down into a powder or into chips, and could be used in healing or as an antidote for most, if not all, poisons depending on who you asked. Not only that, alicorn was used in many royal objects. Sometimes used to make royal scepters, sometimes used in crowns, embellishment on swords, et cetera, et cetera.
AMANDA: I mean, I do kind of love the— you know, for me, somewhat feminine symbol, and like certainly a phallic symbol of the, like, single large horn and people being like, "Yeah, put that on the crown, man." It— it makes me laugh. You know, I can't lie to you.
JULIA: Well, you know what? It was something that they were like, "Ah, this is a symbol, one, of my tie to the Holy Empire." You know, the divine right of kings and like, "Ah, yes, God said that I am allowed to be king, be— and here's the proof, I have unicorn stuff which represents Jesus."
AMANDA: No one else does, do they? And Julia, what typically were they using? Like, whose horns?
JULIA: Ooh. I'll get to that at the end. No, no, you have to find all about the alicorn before you realize what everyone's huffing.
AMANDA: Oh, no, it's rhinoceros penis, isn't it?
JULIA: It's not rhinoceros penis. Don't worry.
AMANDA: Okay. Okay. Okay.
JULIA: So powdered alicorn was considered purifying and not only for illness. Actually, going back to the Physiologus from before, the horn was said to purify water, quote, "But before they are assembled, the serpent comes and casts his poison into the water. Now, the animals mark well the poison, and do not dare drink it, and they wait for the unicorn. It comes and immediately goes into the lake, and making with his horn, the Sign of the Cross, renders the power of the poison harmless."
AMANDA: Oh. Oh, no. Oh, no. Wow. I didn't expect the Sign of the Cross there.
JULIA: It's really interesting when animals are like, "Yes. I've accepted Christianity into my heart."
AMANDA: I, too, will venerate Jesus and transmogrify this water into wine.
JULIA: Uh-hmm. Uh-hmm. But mainly, mainly, it was used for its medicinal properties. We have sources that say that it was used from everything from measles to treating leprosy and even the plague, right?
AMANDA: Julia, you might as well— they're not listening to the people who insist on sanitation and good airflow, so, you know, might as well.
JULIA: They know better back then. I just have to keep telling myself they don't know what germ theory is. They don't know what germ theory is.
AMANDA: The— the times that I do romanticize the past or kind of wish that I could, you know, see some previous event in history, I do remind myself that I love to wash my hands, but there— that takes off so much of history from the map for me.
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: If I filter four times in history when people like to wash their hands.
JULIA: I think I would just— if I had to go back in time— and like they had soap, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah.
JULIA: But, like, they weren't like washing their hands. I would simply be carrying around so much, like, pure alcohol just to pour on my hands constantly.
AMANDA: Yes. The— bring me your finest spirits. Dunk, dunk, dunk. Eat.
JULIA: Now, because this thing is healing anything from measles to leprosy, to the plague, it was probably as expensive as you would imagine. So records indicate that during the 13th century, a unicorn horn, in a large piece rather than like being ground up—
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: —was sold for up to 11 times their weight in gold.
AMANDA: Oh, boy, that's like more than printer ink.
JULIA: Yeah. That's— it is more than printer ink. You're exactly right.
AMANDA: You know those charts that are, like, most expensive substances by volume, and it's like oil, blood, plasma, printer ink, and typically, printer ink is the most.
JULIA: All right. Cool. Good to know, good to know. Well, pretty expensive, the— the unicorn horn. And as such, most of the records that we have of it are in reference to the rich and more often royalty. We know that it was used in courts to, quote-unquote, "detect the presence of poison" in royalty's food, and drink. And we know now, actually— they actually figured it out in the 16th century, that the alicorn was, in fact, the tooth of a narwhal.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: Which is often mistaken for a horn, and it's not actually a horn. It is a tooth, and it also shares the same kind of long, twisted shape that is usually in the depiction of a unicorn.
AMANDA: Pretty close. Pretty— not so bad.
JULIA: Yeah. And also, the powdered version was occasionally elephant tusk, but either way, not actually unicorn, shockingly.
AMANDA: Yeah. If— if I were a king that rich, I definitely want the whole piece to have my guy grind, and not the— you know, whoever is promising me whatever.
JULIA: Well, also, having a, like, long piece was kind of a big deal, because again, we're talking about that, like, purify— like, you could just wave it over a person's body and that would "cure" them, quote-unquote.
AMANDA: Yeah, yeah.
JULIA: Or you can do the sign of a cross over a body of water and it becomes palatable.
AMANDA: Incredible. I don't know. If I were a unicorn, I wouldn't need Christ. Yeah, that's just my thought.
JULIA: But what if your existence was a metaphor for Christ?
AMANDA: Then it'd be like, "I'm newer, right? Isn't the whole thing about the next prophet? Like, come on."
JULIA: But Amanda, why have unicorns captured us so much even now? I mean, we've got so many examples of like— I don't know if the phrase secular unicorn was something that I thought I would ever say, but we have a lot of examples of secular unicorns nowadays. We've got My Little Pony, we've got clothing, bedazzled with unicorn graphics. We got the Lisa Frank folders of our childhood. How did it continue to be so impactful into who we are nowadays?
AMANDA: I mean, does Lisa Frank play a non-insignificant role in this?
JULIA: Lisa Frank is a little bit too modernity for me. You— Lisa Frank wasn't going back and looking at like 15th-century art and being like, "That."
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: "Girls are gonna like that." Partially, we have the Victorians to blame and/or thank for that.
AMANDA: Oh, yeah. You know, Julia, the word hyperfixation goes— goes around a lot these days. It can—
JULIA: Uh-hmm.
AMANDA: —be very helpful. I think a lot of people just use it to mean interested in and that's not exactly what that means for, you know, the neurodiverse. But may I say? The Victorians only hyper-fixated. The Victorians did not have a surface-level interest in anything.
JULIA: That is true. That is absolutely true. So the Victorians loved to romanticize the unicorn, mostly after the— and I use rediscovery, but mainly, this is like— someone saw it in a museum, and they're like, "Oh, shit, people are gonna love this." I mean— and so, like, pre— reprinted stuff, right? But this—
AMANDA: And also, the British Empire is going around, like, pillaging, stealing artifacts from all over the place. So I'm sure if you were a person benefiting from, you know, museums or galleries, or private collections filled with those images, you know, your specific particular mind is blown.
JULIA: This is a series of tapestries known as The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry. I won't blame it on colonialism, because it's France.
AMANDA: Just the ongoing sort of like war and imperialist exchange between France and the UK.
JULIA: Or just like when you would send rich sons to go and be like, "See the continent."
AMANDA: That's true.
JULIA: And they'd be like, "I like art."
AMANDA: They'd be like. "Great. Go to Paris. Don't be gay."
JULIA: Yup. Yeah, exactly. So these were a series of six tapestries made around 1500, which depict a noblewoman and a unicorn, as well as some like other animals, like a monkey and a lion, but mostly the unicorn is important. As a side note, this is different from The Hunt of the Unicorn Tapestries, which can be found at the Cloisters here in New York City.
AMANDA: Oh.
JULIA: So the Victorians were stoked by depictions of The Lady and the Unicorn tapestries, and it inspired a boom in unicorn art. And even, apparently, some Victorian unicorn porn.
AMANDA: I— Julia, I was going to say— I was debating with myself like, "Amanda will— will other people find it unusual if you say people been into beastiality for a very long time?"
JULIA: I don't think that— listen—
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: —we did a whole episode on like Beauty and the Beast and its iterations. We know people—
AMANDA: Yes.
JULIA: —have been kind of into beastiality for a long time.
AMANDA: There we go. I'm glad I'm among safe company here.
JULIA: So there is Victorian unicorn porn. No, I don't have—
AMANDA: Sure.
JULIA: —any other information besides that, because I did not want to dig further into that Google search. But it does exist. It's out there.
AMANDA: You make the printing press, Julia, and whatever happens after that happens.
JULIA: We can't blame Gutenberg. We just can't. We can't do it.
AMANDA: No.
JULIA: But, nowadays, though, I guess not in the Victorian era, unicorns are less the object of purity and Christianity that they used to be, right? The unicorn has become a symbol for the LGBTQ community. They've been tied to rainbows since the Victorian era, and so the two are kind of intrinsically linked.
AMANDA: Some gay shit. We love that.
JULIA: Exactly. And like the reasons as to why unicorns are some gay shit, definitely, like, differs from person to person who claims that, but like, who wouldn't want to feel represented by a creature that nowadays represents, like, uniqueness, and magic, and being highly valued, you know?
AMANDA: Yeah. And I— I think there's really a mix of feminine and masculine that people really are drawn to and can play with.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. And I think that it's also very similar to, I think, why a lot of queer people have a strong connection to monsters in horror and, like, the supernatural genres.
AMANDA: Uh-hmm.
JULIA: It's something that is, like, misunderstood or more than what society sees them as. And I think that's like a really good reason why we shouldn't claim the unicorn as something that represents us.
AMANDA: Queer folks, like if they're going to make us monsters, we're going to claim the monsters. And if they find us monstrous, we're going to call monsters ours.
JULIA: Yes, exactly. And if they are going to say that we're too hyper-sexualized or something like that, we're going to claim a creature that used to represent purity and— and you know, only be tamed by a virgin.
AMANDA: Exactly. God, I love it. I'm sure there are people who have done unicorn drag or burlesque performances, and I'm gonna look the hell into that.
JULIA: 100%. There's got to be. I can picture it in my mind. So whatever it is about the unicorn, we know that humans have been interested in these creatures since pretty much the dawn of civilization. And the fact that we're still talking about them to this day, in this podcast means that there is like something really special about them. And if you have a favorite unicorn story, if you feel personally, like, connected to the unicorn in some way, hey, let me know. I want to hear all about them.
AMANDA: If you go to archiveofourown.org, and type in unicorn, and something about this has lit up something inside of you, there's a world for you, baby. There's a world for you. Go ahead, check it out.
JULIA: You don't have to look up Victorian porn. You can look up the AO3 porn.
AMANDA: No, no. There's plenty of modern porn, literary artful of porn, Julia.
JULIA: Well, the next time that you wander into a grove, and see a beautiful maiden just sitting there, and want to rest your head against her lap, remember, stay creepy.
AMANDA: Stay cool.
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