Unicorns Exposed!
By: Zoki Phantom
Have you ever wondered how the myths and stories about Unicorns started? Have you ever wondered if those completely perfect and innocent magical creatures aren’t just a fake rumor that became popular? What if they aren’t actually extinct but in fact they didn’t even exist in the first place?
In various popular cultures it is believed that all legends about the unicorns started from simple stories about goats. That’s right, unicorns were created by the look of goats! You could see how it all relates as back in those days goats were usually found roaming in the forests and higher mountain places, where unicorns also lived, according to mythologies. They both have their bodies covered in white fur, and goats also have longer hairs nearby their hoofs and at the back of their head. Unicorns have a similar shape, except instead of two swirled horns they have one straight and sharp one, which is mostly depicted in gold color.
Of course, various mythologies give unicorns various different characteristics, such as some portray them with golden hair around the hoofs and the back of their head, and others even state that their whole body is golden. But at least the reason of their extinction is almost exactly the same in all the stories – they’re hunted down because of their value. Some say their blood had healing powers, some say their horn was the one that held great magical power that could kill any evil being, etc. In most stories it is evil wizards and professional hunters who went after them, but it is possible that those could be just ancient huntsmen and woodmen that needed food, right?
Come to think about it, horses roamed quite freely back in those days as well, so if you take a white horse for example (which looks exactly as a unicorn, except for the horn), and take a goat in the other hand, you can almost see a pattern of how the stories of the unicorns were created. Horses and goats obviously ended up being of use to the human kind – the one providing a fast transport and the other providing food, which automatically puts them on the “good side”, for lack of better words.
If someone was hunting after nightfall, and they encountered a white horse in the wilds but didn’t manage to catch it, nor even get a good look at it, they could start telling stories of this legendary beast, which later on gets the attributes of a soldier of fortune due to men’s knowledge of horses and goats.
Myths also mention that the easiest way to get a unicorn was to lure it into charging at you, after which you trick it into hitting a tree, which will get it stuck with its unicorn in it, unable to escape. Interesting enough, it is assumed that’s how huntsmen started hunting goats as well. Horses, and pretty much most animals really, were obviously also lured into traps, but not all of them were lured into getting their horn(s) stuck in a tree.
So even though you might not like the fact that unicorns don’t exist and you won’t ever see one, hold on to the fact that no one actually has! It’s all an illusion created from pretty little silver-white horses and goats.
January 30th, 2012Topic: Articles Tags: articles, unicorns, zoki phantom
