Arthur Charles Fox-Davies

#### English original

*The Unicorn*, however, it is not easy to resolve into an original basis, because until the seventeenth century every one fondly believed in the existence of the animal. Mr. Beckles Wilson appears to have paid considerable attention to the subject, and was responsible for the article "The Rise of the Unicorn" which recently appeared in *Cassel's Magazine*. That writer traces the matter to a certain extent from non-heraldic sources, and the following remarks, which are taken from the above article, are of considerable interest:—

"The real genesis of the unicorn was probably this: at a time when armorial bearings were becoming an indispensable part of a noble's equipment, the attention of those knights who were fighting under the banner of the Cross was attracted to the wild antelopes of Syria and Palestine. These animals are armed with long, straight, spiral horns set close together, so that at a side view they appeared to be but a single horn. To confirm this, there are some old illuminations and drawings extant which endow the early unicorn with many of the attributes of the deer and goat kind. The sort of horn supposed to be carried by these Eastern antelopes had long been a curiosity, and was occasionally brought back as a trophy by travellers from the remote parts of the earth. There is a fine one to be seen to-day at the abbey of St. Denis, and others in various collections in Europe. We now know these so-called unicorn's horns, usually carved, to belong to that marine monster the narwhal, or sea-unicorn. But the fable of a breed of horned horses is at least as old as Pliny" [Had the "gnu" anything to do with this?], "and centuries later the Crusaders, or the monkish artists who accompanied them, attempted to delineate the marvel. From their first rude sketches other artists copied; and so each presentment was passed along, until at length the present form of the unicorn was attained. There was a time—not so long ago—when the existence of the unicorn was as implicitly believed in as the camel or any other animal not seen in these latitudes; and the translators of the Bible set their seal upon the legend by translating the Hebrew word *reem* (which probably meant a rhinoceros) as 'unicorn.' Thus the worthy Thomas Fuller came to consider the existence of the unicorn clearly proved by the mention of it in Scripture! Describing the horn of the animal, he writes, 'Some are plain, as that of St. Mark's in Venice; others wreathed about it, which probably is the effect of age, those wreaths being but the wrinkles of most vivacious unicorns. The same may be said of the colour: white when newly taken from the head; yellow, like that lately in the Tower, of some hundred years' seniority; but whether or no it will soon turn black, as that of Plinie's description, let others decide.'

"All the books on natural history so late as the seventeenth century describe at length the unicorn; several of them carefully depict him as though the artist had drawn straight from the life.

"If art had stopped here, the wonder of the unicorn would have remained but a paltry thing after all. His finer qualities would have been unrecorded, and all his virtues hidden. But, happily, instead of this, about the animal first conceived in the brain of a Greek (as Pegasus also was), and embodied through the fertile fancy of the Crusader, the monks and heraldists of the Middle Ages devised a host of spiritual legends. They told of his pride, his purity, his endurance, his matchless spirit.

"'The greatnesse of his mynde is such that he chooseth rather to dye than be taken alive.' Indeed, he was only conquerable by a beautiful maiden. One fifteenth-century writer gives a recipe for catching a unicorn. 'A maid is set where he hunteth and she openeth her lap, to whom the unicorn, as seeking rescue from the force of the hunter, yieldeth his head and leaveth all his fierceness, and resteth himself under her protection, sleepeth until he is taken and slain.' But although many were reported to be thus enticed to their destruction, only their horns, strange to say, ever reached Europe. There is one in King Edward's collection at Buckingham Palace.

"Naturally, the horn of such an animal was held a sovereign specific against poison, and 'ground unicorn's horn' often figures in mediæval books of medicine.

"There was in Shakespeare's time at Windsor Castle the 'horn of a unicorn of above eight spans and a half in length, valued at above £10,000.' This may have been the one now at Buckingham Palace. One writer, describing it, says:—

"'I doe also know that horn the King of England possesseth to be wreathed in spires, even as that is accounted in the Church of St. Dennis, than which they suppose none greater in the world, and I never saw anything in any creature more worthy praise than this horne. It is of soe great a length that the tallest man can scarcely touch the top thereof, for it doth fully equal seven great feet. It weigheth thirteen pounds, with their assize, being only weighed by the gesse of the hands it seemeth much heavier.'

"Spenser, in the 'Faerie Queen,' thus describes a contest between the unicorn and the lion:—

'Like as the lyon, whose imperial powre

A proud rebellious unicorn defyes,

T'avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre

Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applies.

And when him running in full course he spyes

He slips aside; the whiles that furious beast

His precious horne, sought of his enimyes,

Strikes in the stroke, ne thence can be released,

But to the victor yields a bounteous feast.'

"'It hath,' remarked Guillim, in 1600, 'been much questioned among naturalists which it is that is properly called the unicorn; and some have made doubt whether there be such a beast or no. But the great esteem of his horn in many places to be seen may take away that needless scruple.'

Fig. 414.—Unicorn rampant.Fig. 415.—Unicorn passant.Fig. 416.—Unicorn statant.
"Another old writer, Topsell, says:—

"'These beasts are very swift, and their legs have not articles. They keep for the most part in the deserts, and live solitary in the tops of the mountaines. There was nothing more horrible than the voice or braying of it, for the voice is strained above measure. It fighteth both with the mouth and with the heeles, with the mouth biting like a lyon, and with the heeles kicking like a horse.'

"Nor is belief in the unicorn confined to Europe. By Chinese writers it is characterised as a 'spiritual beast.' The existence of the unicorn is firmly credited by the most intelligent natives and by not a few Europeans. A very trustworthy observer, the Abbé Huc, speaks very positively on the subject: 'The unicorn really exists in Tibet.... We had for a long time a small Mongol treatise on Natural History, for the use of children, in which a unicorn formed one of the pictorial illustrations.'"

The unicorn, however, as it has heraldically developed, is drawn with the body of a horse, the tail of the heraldic lion, the legs and feet of the deer, the head and mane of a horse, to which is added the long twisted horn from which the animal is named, and a beard (Figs. 414, 415, and 416). A good representation of the unicorn will be found in the figure of the Royal Arms herein, and in Fig. 417, which is as fine a piece of heraldic design as could be wished.

The crest of Yonge of Colbrooke, Devonshire, is "a demi-sea-unicorn argent, armed gules, finned or," and the crest of Tynte (Kemeys-Tynte of Cefn Mably and Halswell) is "on a mount vert, a unicorn sejant argent, armed and crined or."

The unicorn will be found in the arms of Styleman, quartered by Le Strange, and Swanzy.