The Natural History of Unicorns

by Chris Lavers

Where did the unicorn come from, and how was it accepted as a part of the animal kingdom for so long? The author follows the beast's trail to the plateaus of India and into the jungles of Africa to unearth the flesh and blood ancestors of our iconic unicorn, finding traces of it in a hotchpotch of existing species.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Mythology, Science, Animals, Unicorns, Natural History

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Dr. Chris Lavers is a senior lecturer in natural history in the School of Geography, University of Nottingham. He has written for The Spectator, New statesman, New Scientist, and The Ecologist, and has reviewed many popular science and history books for The Guardian. His first book, Why Elephants Have Big Ears, has been translated into five languages.

Reviews

[Anastasia Fitzgerald-Beaumont · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Natural History of Unicorns is a real treat! Chris Lavers, a writer on science subjects, embarks on an open-minded quest to discover the unicorn; to discover the origins and ‘natural history’ of this fabulous creature, which flits in and out of fact and legend in a tantalisingly elusive way, always just beyond the next horizon, always just at the limits of sight.

The author does not assume anything, does not work backwards from a pre-determined conclusion, but treats his quest in a scholarly though always lively manner. His epigraph is admirable: “There are two things to avoid in dealing with a legend. The first is to make too much of it, the other is to disbelieve it entirely.” And for enthusiasts there is a tantalising promise in his introduction, “For most recorded history people thought that the unicorn existed. Recently we have come to know that it never did: so this book must end in disappointment. Not so. Unicorns did exist. There are photographs.”

Yes, it’s a natural history of a particularly fascinating kind; but it is also an examination of symbols, of religious beliefs, of art, of language, of semantics, of exploration and of transformation.

Lavers traces the origins of the legend back to a Greek historian and physician by the name of Ctesias of Cnidus, writing in 398BC. While in Persia, ministering to the king and his court, he wrote of a tale that had come from India of “…certain wild asses which are as large as horses, and larger. Their bodies are white, their heads dark red, and their eyes dark blue. They have a horn on the forehead which is about a foot and a half in length.”

It is from this point that the author begins his hunt, with the fauna of India, each and every creature that could in any way resemble that described by Ctesias. We meet the Indian rhino, the Tibetan antelope, the yak and a rather fearsome ass known as a kiang. Trails are followed assiduously back through time, allowing us to discover not one fantastic beast but a range of real ones. They are disassembled and reassembled to give us something unique.

So the journey goes on, as myth and nature come close, but never quite meet. Ctesias’ wild ass even manages to appear in the Bible, though the numerous references to unicorns in the King James Version are based on a mistranslation from the Hebrew to the Greek. Instead of a unicorn the Bible authors were most likely talking about an ox.

Lavers takes us through time and over distance in his quest, passing civilizations and natural habitats, from Asia to the Arctic. The Chimera takes shape out of a variety of sources and a wealth of mythologies. It is this which transforms such mundane objects as the walrus tusk or the narwhal tooth into something quite different. Lavers is at his most compelling in his blend of natural history with local legend; legends which give rise to new legends, new quests, and ever more intriguing transformations.

The unicorn exists, yes; it exists as a symbol of so many things, of nature itself, perhaps, wild and untameable. But in the end it is caught and it is tamed. Its journey through the forests of time and experience end when it sits down in the company of a maiden, becoming a symbol of Christ in the company of Mary. Now mild and meek, it makes its way through Christian hagiography, through medieval iconography into a New Age avatar.

And, yes, there are photographs!

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was a lot of fun. Part natural-history, part cultural-history, it traces the history of the unicorn myth from the writings of Ctesias and Pliny in the classical period to the heraldic-Christian symbolism of the medieval period and finally to the quest to discover a real unicorn in the age of European exploration, before diving back to the mythologies of ancient Mesopotamia, Persia and India in search of the unicorn myth's shadowy origins.

Though I got a little lost in the khutu chapter, and though the claims towards the end of the book start to get a little wild and speculative, the book succeeds in being both highly scholarly and highly entertaining, thanks to the author's natural talent for storytelling and dry wit (there were some particularly good one-liners that made me chuckle).

I enjoyed this book a lot, and recommend it to anyone interested in mythology!

Edit: I don't understand why so many people reviewing this book have described is as "dry" and "dull". I read a lot of non-fiction, and this is the most lively and engaging non-fiction book I've read it a while. I basically devoured it because I enjoyed it so much. Yes, some of the chapters get a little involved, but overall this is a very light-hearted book. I can only conclude that these people don't read the kind of dense, weighty tomes on ancient history that grace my Goodreads shelf, otherwise they would have a very different definition of "dry"!

[Holly (The GrimDragon) · Rating 3 out of 5]

If your unicorn shifts disconcertingly between a goat, a horse, a rhinoceros, a marine mammal from the North Atlantic, assorted Tibetan ungulates and a six-eyed ass whose ears will terrify, the work of this book is almost done.

I love nonfiction, especially narrative nonfiction. Microhistories aren't usually my jam, because I tend to get bored easily. I prefer a broad scope of history, rather than focus on one subject matter. Unless it is the brain. I could read about the brain all day! I spotted this on the library website & it was on my tbr, so I had to request it. When the librarian called me to say that it was in, she held back a giggle & said I certainly have eclectic taste. Yes, yes I do lady! I am obsessed with unicorns -- the most magical mythical creature EVER! This seemed like it was going to be an interesting read.

It was, for the most part! It did seem to drag on in parts (mainly during the religious research), but was fascinating overall. It covers a wide range of history in a fairly short book. I guess we have Ctesias of Cnidus to blame for the unicorns! He was a Greek physician & historian who was the first person recorded to have written about the unicorn. Chris Lavers delves into the skeptical (Yak, Rhino, Mammoth) to the plausible (Oryx, Chiru, Okapi) & everything in between! How this elusive creature was thought of within a scientific viewpoint, to something fantastical & imaginative.

The unicorn does not exist. We know that. However, the ancestors that it was inspired by certainly do & they have their own interesting stories. Not quite unicorn level, but interesting nonetheless (LOOKING AT YOU, BADASS NARWHAL!)

& as a side note, the beaver from the Aesops fables that bites off his own testicles & throws them onto the ground, distracting the hunter? If this is in fact true, talk about a hardcore defensive strategy! JFC.


(Reading challenge: A microhistory)

[Turi Becker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm a sucker for what I call "microhistories," books exploring a single thing. The Natural History of Unicorns is a fine example of the genre, being extremely thorough while maintaining readability. Chris Lavers traces the myths that may have brought unicorns to us, the mistranslations and prevarications that have confused, and the scientific basis and searches for unicorns over the years. The main thing I'm taking from this is to take a huge grain of salt with anything promising "ancient wisdom" - the amount of confusion in translation over so many years seems staggering.

[Ulrike · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is honestly more like 3 stars but the topic was so interesting im bumping it up. this was the first book with footnotes i ever got (christmas or birthday present sometime as a preteen i think) and i tried to read it back then but it was a bit much for me.. but i finally finished it and had a great time! i really wanted to not have my books read this year be 39, gross number, 40 is much better, so i was speed reading this in the middle of a party at 10 minutes before midnight LOL

[Melanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

What would you think of someone who read a book about unicorns? That’s what I wondered as the guy sitting next to me on the metro took a glance at my book, then a second glance, and then one more quick glance at my face. I admit, I too would think someone reading a book on unicorns was probably either a spacey New Age mystic or someone stuck in little girl fantasy land. I, however, have been reading a book on the natural history of unicorns. That’s totally different.

Every girl alive in the 80s probably owned some kind of Lisa Frank merchandise – a pencil, a folder, some stickers, a Trapper Keeper. As a 10 year old I could think of no better color combination than pink, purple, blue, and yellow. And what could be more appealing to elementary school girls than unicorns and kitties? Not much, I tell you. Then there was the movie The Last Unicorn. Almost every girl my age that I know was both fascinated and creeped out by this movie. (It’s even creepier when you watch it as an adult.) So with this as background, you can imagine how interested I was to read this article about little girls and unicorns on the Slate magazine website.

The article referenced a couple of books on unicorns. Most were juvenile and/or fantasy fiction, but one wasn’t. The Natural History of Unicorns by Chris Lavers purported to be a history of the idea of the unicorn and an investigation of that idea’s zoological origins. It was definitely outside of my normal scope of reading topics, but it looked interesting and given my documented fascination with singular horned animals, it was worth a shot. Besides, I’m always up for broadening my scope of random knowledge.

I found the chapter on the unicorn in Christian iconography to be especially interesting. Honestly, though, I pretty much slogged my way through the rest of this book. There was just too much detailed discussion about various animals and how and why scholars and explorers throughout the ages discovered and wrote about them to shape the myth of the unicorn. This book is exactly what it claims to be: a natural history. I guess I just wanted to hear more about the unicorn myth and how and why it was spread and adopted and adapted in different societies; I was looking for a cultural history. Overall I give this book two stars, which is “it was okay” by the Good Reads standard. The author treated an interesting topic thoroughly. I’m glad that I read it, but it’s not something that everyone needs to go out and read immediately.

[Richard Conlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fun book! And not a fantasy, but an essay grounded in anthropology, literature, and biology. The author asks why the idea of unicorns emerged, and what might have been the basis for it? And takes us on a journey through biblical history, medieval romances, and biological reality. I had always accepted the idea that the narwhal was the source of the unicorn legend -- but, as the author notes, it is a long ways from the narwhal to a deer-like animal with a single horn. And the real history is much more interesting and full of surprises. No surprise is greater than the conclusion of the book, which delves into anthropology to uncover a startling reality behind the idea of the unicorn. A great read!

[Karen· · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm glad I borrowed this rather than paying out money for it: not that there's anything inherently wrong with Lavers' accessible and entertaining examination of the unicorn. But it was only the first four chapters that held my attention. There he examines the sources of the mythology and interprets the judaeo-christian icon and those famous tapestries of Verteuil. But after that it becomes a hunt for the true source of all the alicorn that was washing round medieval Europe, and various explorers' tales. That had more to do with natural history, as the title says, whereas I would have preferred more on art and cultural history.

[Deborah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty interesting stuff. I thought it was a bit too meandering at first, but I actually really enjoyed it by the end. It all started because we went to the Cloisters and saw all of the amazing Unicorn tapestries...and this book had some totally fascinating analyses of those very tapestries.

It misses out on 5 stars because of cheap shots taken in various irrelevant places aimed at free enterprise, Western civilization in general, and religion. Academic reads are not the place to vent personal frustrations.

[La La · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book has no illustrations (at least the ebook doesn't). They are sorely needed because the writing is extremely dry and text book like.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is very informative regarding the appearance of the unicorn within historical texts and theorizing potential origins for the myth. There were times, however, when I felt that the author focused too much on potential animal sightings that may have influenced the description of the unicorn; he goes on tangents about specific details of animals that do not seem to add a lot to the unicorn. Moreover, while I appreciated the link between the unicorn and actual animals, I was hoping for more information on the significance of the unicorn, rather than just its appearance and a small portion of its symbolism. Of course, this is a natural history, and a good one at that, so these complaints are minor. It would be very helpful in beginning research on the unicorn.

[Yvan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it. For those wondering, it's about the development of the unicorn myth and is presented much like a history text. It examines how several different factors affected how unicorns were created, including economics, mistranslations of several texts (religious and otherwise), and story embellishments. It also has plenty of fascinating asides that only vaguely relate to unicorns, and relevant texts from older scholars about their ideas on unicorns. And there are plenty of citations to check out if you want to do further research on the subject. I definitely will check out the rest of this author's works.

[Caleb · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title describes the contents about as straightforwardly as I could. Lavers writes about the history of the idea of the unicorn, paying special attention to where the stories and reports of the creatures might have come from (essentially reverse-engineering them and looking for the components among existing animals). It's a fun, accessible read that offers a great deal of interesting information in its relatively short page-count, dipping into Bible scholarship, 19th century exploration of Africa, medieval bestiaries and renaissance tapestry along the way.

[Mawson Bear · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is one to read and mull over a chapter or two at a time. There's no rush - unicorns have been around a long time and their prescence will be desired longer yet, I think.

Here is natural history at its rich and entertaining best, not just about the science of it but the myth making. And what a rich tapestry of thought, art, commerce, exploration and natural science unicorns have allowed us to weave - always staying just ahead of the hunt, of course.

May we always seek unicorns, and not quite catch them.

[Violet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little discombobulated, and sometimes repetitive. Overall, an interesting look at the building of a mythical creature, which has grown and developed throughout the written historical record.

[Sarah - All The Book Blog Names Are Taken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Who knew it was so easy to make unicorns so boring??

[Simon · Rating 5 out of 5]

People who enjoy the British zoologist Karl Shuker's studious attempts at finding the truth behind the myths of various legendary beasts, both on his blog Shukernature and in books such as Mystery Cats of the World: From Blue Tigers to Exmoor Beasts, will find this book worth reading for many of the same reasons.

Author Chris Lavers has here written an informative but concise investigation of how various unicorn legends formed. It's an entertaining reading experience learning how often garbled accounts of different animals got mixed together in an era where illustrations and books were much rarer and people travelled much less than now. To say nothing of all the language barriers involved. Many examples include travellers being told about rhinoceri but never seeing them in the flesh, then being shown single horns from various antelope species, then being told about wild horses and donkeys or deer species that did not exist back home then mixing all of those together in their memory when they got home. There are also quite a few photographs of the various animal species discussed, which come in handy in many cases when the real animals are obscure in the West.

The most interesting parts, if you ask me, are the chapters about the unicorn folklore of Asian and African countries and how much they differ from not just each other but also European unicorn lore as well as how all of those traditions have somehow still influenced each other. In particular, I appreciated the information about the khufu - a one-horned creature in Arabic folklore that's been depicted as alternately a deer, fish or bird depending on the regional variation!

People who are interested in strange animals both mythical and real, or folklore in general, can very much be recommended "The Natural History of Unicorns".

[Emma · Rating 2 out of 5]

The natural history of unicorns is a summation of work tracing the origins of the animals described in ancient texts which later became unicorns.

The book is accessable for a lay reader and a quick read. If you're interested in the minutea of how ancient texts came to have such inaccuracies as the existence of unicorns in them, this book will no doubt be fascinating for you. The work is pretty exhaustive and explores a wide range of options for which creatures might have been the original origins for unicorns, as well as drawing from primary texts.

Unfortunately, it can be kind of summed up as "Ancient writers were writing about something they'd never personally seen and often got things wrong and conflated different animals." That's it. That's the book. It then goes on to list in detail every animal which might have contributed to every ancient text which claims to describe unicorns and describe every feature that fits and doesn't fit. Ultimately, this is a futile endeavour as, while there were no doubt real animals described and real horns, with only ancient texts to look at, we have no way to say for certain which of the theories are right. While I entirely agree that accademic scrutiny into this is fine, it's a little tiresome for a popular science book and I found myself frustrated with how far into the minutea of things it sinks.

If you have a deep interest in the origins of animals described in anctient texts, this is a deep and fulfilling read but it is very minutea based and not much fun if you're interested more in broad overviews and unicorn mythology.

[Adam Stevenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book.

What makes it fascinating is that it is not really a history of the unicorn, it is the history of knowledge and its creation, dissemination and manipulation through the centuries - and the unicorn as representative of all brand of knowledge. It’s like a full-length expansion of TH White’s wonderful final chapter in his Book of Beasts.

There is a cast of liars, fabulists, genuine knowledge-gatherers and single-minded allegory hunters - each different place and person touching the unicorn legend and taking it somewhere else. ‘In reality, the beast dissolves into the globe-encircling milieu of human imaginings’ - which is just where the unicorn should be.

My favourite aspect of the book was when it doubled back on itself, where legends, informed by certain creatures led people to re-find those creatures in search of the legend. It could be a disappointment that the unicorn doesn’t evolve from one creature but I much prefer the hodgepodge figure that is drawn out here, which has ‘blossomed with the aid of real animals…’ including ‘…an ape’s runaway brain.’

Much of the writing is sardonically funny and I laughed at this book a great many more times than I was expecting to. Other people who describe this book as dry, academic or hard to read must have read a different book because I found this a constant delight.

My main criticism would be that the light tone of the book sometimes undercuts the authority with which other parts of the book are delivered, (see his explanation of the enlightenment).

[Dark-Draco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of course, we all know that Unicorns are real! An off shoot of the equine family that evolved a single horn in the centre of their forehead - after, all, how else can they defend themselves against dragons!

But this book attempts to follow the history of the legend behind our most favourite of mythical creatures, from it's very first mentions in ancient texts, through the birth of Islam and Christianity, through to the enlightenments of the Victorian era. Along the way, the author attempts to find alternative animals that have gotten confused with exaggerated traveller's tales, and ultimately find the true home of the Unicorn.

I enjoyed the read and the arguments are well presented and thought out. However, the author has a bad habit of reproducing long pieces of text from his sources, then adding long quotes from the same into his text, so you get a really annoying sense of repetition throughout. He also likes to jump around a bit, so I felt I needed to return a page or so to follow his arguments through.

He quotes quite a lot from Odell Shepherd's 'Lore of the Unicorn' which has been a favourite of mine for a long time. It was interesting to see where he agreed and where he didn't.

I loved all the pictures - it was so useful to see the sometimes obscure animals he was speaking about and see how a garbled description could give us our elegant horned equine.

Well worth the read.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

You know, I had never really thought much about unicorns one way or another before reading this, and now I know more about them than I ever would have expected. The Natural History of Unicorns traces the ancient origins and subsequent evolution of the enduring unicorn myth. For example, I had been unaware of the unicorn's connections with early Christianity, as well as of the widely-accepted medieval notions of unicorns' medicinal properties.

The natural-history bits of the story were in my opinion the best developed, in which author Lavers attempts to explain what known animals could have inspired the concept of the unicorn (narwhal, anyone?). I also found notable the chapter in which Lavers describes European explorers' attempts to find the creature in Asia and Africa -- as well as the section in which scientists attempt to turn a perfectly normal bull into a "unicorned" one (yikes!). This was a very quick read and well worth the small time commitment. Recommended.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

For millions of people, over thousands of years, unicorns were real. Even after their fellow mythical creatures were consigned to fantasy and fairy stories, even into the 19th century, there were some who still believed that a population of real, live unicorns (or perhaps evidence of extinct ones) might be discovered in some remote wilderness. And why wouldn't they? Unicorns are even mentioned in some versions of the Bible.

So I learned from this interesting little book. It traces the many cultural, historical, and natural-science roots of a fascinating, sometimes magical creature that most of the world used to believe in, but which never existed. The book is fairly short, and keeps moving pretty well despite the thoroughness the author gives this rather singular topic.

[Janny G · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a pleasant book to read. Relatively short, clearly well researched, and engaged with its topic. I just picked it off the shelf at my library because the title looked interesting. Some of it can be a little dry and may seem to veer off course, but Lavers ties it together pretty well. The physical copy has a lot of art and pictures which were very helpful. I would have loved a chapter on unicorns in modern pop culture but maybe that is for another book. A quote from the book I enjoyed was "Counting from significant times in our own cultural history often obscures histories belonging to others". Lavers is writing from a Western point of view but makes sure to include perspectives from other cultures (though occasionally using language that feels a little off).

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fascinating book looking at the many iterations of Unicorn lore in our world. It follows mainly the natural history as the title implies looking more at the actual animals that may have inspired or been confused for Unicorns over the centuries. Lavers does also cover some of the lore and symbolism of Unicorns from many different cultures. If you want more of that aspect, find a book that is dedicated simply to looking at the folk tales, lore, art, and mythology surrounding unicorns. If you want to know the history and development of our fascination of where these stories may have come from, this book may just be for you. I found this book informative, easy to read, and hard to put down.

[Jenny T · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a neat book! It discusses the potential natural origins of the unicorn myth, from the ancient Indian "one-horned ass," to aquatic creatures like the narwhal and walrus, to the Medieval view of unicorns, and the hunt for unicorns in Africa in the 1800s. This book covers a lot of ground, and it rambles something fierce, but on the whole I was hooked and learned quite a bit about one of my favorite creatures.

[Sharon]

Lavers' nonfiction book traces the mention of one-horned creatures through ancient literature, speculating on possible animals which might have given rise to the myth, but not concluding any one animal caused the myth. He traces the myth through 2000 years of history, showing how one author's translation of another added new elements into the unicorn as we imagine it. Informative, scholarly, well-written.

[Tom Griffith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Do unicorns exist, or have they ever? No. But reading this gives you a very detailed explanation for how and why humans created them. A journey through natural history, anthropology, scripture and myth which is very enjoyable and enlightening.

[Beatriz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly fascinating book, I love it. I have always been interested in the unicorn (and the mermaid) as a mythological creature and this book adds to my knowledge and amazement in equal measure. Beautifully researched. Great read and addition to my book collection.

[Mel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really good look at the history of unicorns. The unicorn in ancient writings and pictures, ancient myths, and garbled travelers' tale were all very convincingly presented, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly.

[Ryan Watkins · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an incredibly detailed and well researched look into the myth of the unicorn. My only complaint is the author’s lack of understanding of Christian typology and overemphasis of the impact of Physiologus on Christian theology.