The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described
since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn
projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the
unicorn has for the last thousand years or so been depicted as a white
horse-like or goat-like animal with a long straight horn with spiralling
grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard. In the Middle Ages
and Renaissance, it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland
creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could be captured only by
a virgin. In encyclopedias, its horn was described as having the power
to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In medieval and
Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as a
unicorn horn. A bovine type of unicorn is thought by some scholars to
have been depicted in seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization,
the interpretation remaining controversial. An equine form of the
unicorn was mentioned by the ancient Greeks in accounts of natural
history by various writers, including Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the
Younger, Aelian, and Cosmas Indicopleustes.
The unicorn continues to hold a place in popular culture. It is often
used as a symbol of fantasy or rarity.
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