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Alexander the Great and Bucephalus:
One of the most famous historical figures to allegedly come into contact with a unicorn was the great conqueror and Macedonian king, Alexander the Great (356-323 BC). Alexander is most often pictured astride his beloved warhorse Bucephalus, whom he first trained as a child and who he rode almost his entire life (Bucephalus allegedly died in battle at the age of thirty). In fact, Alexander was so distraught when Bucephalus died that he named one of the cities he conquered after this brave horse.One of the most famous stories about Alexander (next to the story of the Gordian Knot), was that when he was a child, he saw Bucephalus about to be put to death. Seems the horse, which was living in Alexander’s father’s stables, was deemed completely untrainable. On top of this, he was described as “anthrophagos” — man-eating. Obviously, they coudln’t keep a man-eating horse around. But Alexander saw potential in Bucephalus, and bet his father, King Philip, that he could train the horse himself. He did, and thus was formed a lifelong bond.
Great. So where do the unicorns come in? Well, back when Alexander was alive, there was a popular book out about his life called the ALEXANDER ROMANCE. Some of the information in the book was what we would today call true, and some of it is more like the legend of George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. One of the legends about Bucephalus was that he wasn’t a horse at all — he was a special kind of unicorn called a karkadann (see above). There were many reasons for this belief. First of all, someone as cool as Alexander the Great — who was believed to be, during his own lifetime, both a god and the descendant of gods — might not ride anything so staid as a simple horse. Secondly, the karkadann was known to be absolutely untameable, man-eating, and, also, incredibly fierce — descriptions that applied to Bucephalus as well. And finally, there was his name: Bucephalus. In Greek, Bucephalus meant “ox-head,” which some believed to describe the fact that this animal had horns. In most classical and medieval manuscripts of hte Alexander Romance, Alexander is depicted as riding a horse with either one horn or two.
Pictured here is a page from an illuminated medieval biography of Alexander that shows the scene in which King Philip lets the young Alexander tame the man-eating unicorn, Bucephalus.
So much for the idea of innocent fluffy unicorns.
the hunters:
Unicorn hunters are usually female, for the need of virginity, so male hunters are few in this feild. Hunters also live in the cloister located in Rome, Italy.Hunters are immune to Unicorn Poison and are swift and agile.
the Llewelyns:
the family that killed the last Unicorn during the first extinction. the best hunters.
The Saint Maries:
the Nuns of the Hunters, they formed the Order of the lioness.
the Bartoli's:
the stealthyest of the hunter families, and the swiftest.
the Hornafius:
the craftsman
the Bourg's:
Belgian. the protecters.
the Temerin's:
the bloodthirsty.
The Bo's:
Orental. the scientists.
the Leandrus:
the bookeepers.
The Commato's:
the trainers of the Hunters, usually male.
this is all i can find of the 12 hunter family lines, sadly.if your not of these lines i suggest you stay away from the Cloisters. the home of the hunters and the training ground as well.
Mod
the alicorns and skulls are your prize. the only way
to kill a Unicorn though is to tear it to pieces.a
yellow liquid called the Remedy can cure and Alicorn
cut.
Weapons:
Axes,
Spears,
Bayonets,
long bows and crossbows.
Katanas,
shields.
arrow tips of alicorn,
swords with grips and pommels of alicorn.
Species:
Zhi: The Chinese Unicorn
One of the most enduring unicorn legends comes from China. The zhi, or xie zhi, was a one-horned mythical beast that could separate the innocent from the guilty. One story tells of a xie zhi who lived in the courts during the early Han dynasty (~200 B.C.) and assisted officials in their trials. It was said that the zhi would spare the innocent, but would gore the guilty through the heart.During the Han dynasty, court officials wore the symbol of the zhi sewn into their robes and hats. Even today, the Chinese character of fa (“law”) incorporates the symbol for zhi.
the Kirin: The Japanese Unicorn
The kirin of Japanese and Korean folklore is closely related to the ki’lin or Qilin of China. (By the Ming dynasty, however, the Qilin was associated with the giraffe, another animal which the people of Asia had never seen.) According to some ancient legends, the ki’lin was the combined name of a male unicorn (ki) and female unicorn (lin).
The kirin was considered one of the four noble or prophetic creatures, along with the dragon (air), phoenix (fire), and tortoise (water). The kirin was considered the king of all the land creatures, a designation that may have given rise to the perceived rivalry between the unicorn and the lion — the “king of beasts” of the West — in Middle Eastern tradition. It was thought to appear at the birth of a wise man or great ruler, such as the one who appeared to the mother of Confucius. The kirin was always described in the most glowing of terms: it was said to eat no living creature, to have the ability to walk on water, and that its hooves would not bend a single blade of grass as it skipped across the ground.
The kirin was often depicted with a body covered in scales, and occasionally surrounded by flames or clouds. Alternately, it was shown with dappled skin for camouflage.
Rimu: The Unicorn of the Ancient Near East
The civilizations of Mesopotamia, Assyria, and Babylon depicted unicorns as large, ox-like creatures or wild asses called — depending on the tradition — rimu or alim. A legend of ancient Babylon maintained that the sun was a lion who constantly pursued the unicorn moon (horned) about the sky.
In the fifth century B.C., during the time of the Persian Kingdom of Darius II, a Greek physician named Ctesias wrote of this unicorn: “There are in India certain wild asses which are as large as horses, and larger. Their bodies are white, their heads are dark red, and their eyes dark blue. They have a horn on the forehead which is about eighteen inches in length. The dust filed from this horn is administered in a potion as a protection against deadly drugs.”
The oryx, a type of antelope, looks similar to this unicorn, as the oryx’s symmetrical horns look like one horn when viewed from the side.
(Pictured is an ancient seal from the Indus Valley.)
karkadann: The Turkish Unicorn
The unicorn of Asia Minor was known as the karkadann, or kartijan (Sanskrit for “Lord of the Desert”). Many scholars now believe that those describing this creature may be confusing it with a now-extinct species of rhinoceros called an Elasmotherium that lived in that area. Both the 10th century Muslim writer Ahmad Ibn Fadlan and the 14th century Berber explorer, Ibn Battuta, claim to have seen this monster.
The karkadann, unlike the unicorns of Western Europe, was a ferocious beast. It was said that it was “born in blood,” that when it ran, the earth shook and when it bellowed, all creatures would flee from it, including elephants, its mortal enemy. The only animal that would go near a karkadann was the ring dove, whose song would soothe the creature’s terrible temper. Some legends claimed that hunters used women as bait for the creature, which may have given rise to the unicorn myths of Western Europe.
Many of the classical biographies of Alexander the Great (called “Alexander Romances”) claim that his warhorse was not a horse at all, but actually, a karkadann.
The Medieval Unicorn:
ecause the unicorn appeared in the Bible, most Christians of Western Europe took it as a given that the creature existed. They hadn’t seen elephants or lions either, but they also believed in those.
A popular book in this time period was called a “bestiary” or a “physiologus” which not only listed different types of animals and described their appearance, behavior, and habitat, but — in order to fall into the good graces of the Church — subscribed to each of them allegorical meanings and characteristics. In these books, the unicorn became a Christ allegory. This is where the creature’s association with the virgin became codified and ritualistic. According to the Physiologus, the unicorn was an utterly untamable and uncatchable beast, but it was susceptible to the charms of a virgin. Hunters who wished to capture this animal would take a maiden of noble birth and place her in a clearing. There, the unicorn would be helplessly attracted to her purity, and would come and lay his head in her lap, and thus, would be caught. The connection to virginity has an obvious correlation to the birth of Jesus, and so the unicorn began to appear in religious art as a symbol of Christ. (See more below, in the “unicorn and art” section.)
Another unicorn legend arose in the middle ages: a belief that the horn of the unicorn was considered to possess magical medicinal properties. This can be attributed partially to its association with Jesus, and partially with the long-term association the creature had with prophesy, greatness, and the Garden of Eden. Purity in one aspect of existence was thought to translate readily to purity in another aspect. (For instance, it was also a widely held belief that sleeping with a virgin would cure one of diseases, especially venereal diseases — which is clearly not true!)
Ancient classical scholars such as Aelian wrote that nobles would drink from the cups of unicorns as a preventative measure against poisons, and this legends was expounded upon. In the Middle Ages, it was thought that unicorn horn could neutralize poisons and purify drinking water. The demand for cups, eating utensils, and other items made from unicorn horn (which became known as alicorn) was very great.
The Sea Unicorn:
So where did the rulers of Europe and Asia get these alicorns? From a creature called a narwhal. The narwhal (monodon monocerous) is a type of arctic-dwelling whale, distantly related to the beluga. The males of the species have one tooth that grows in a long spiral shape, similar to what you would imagine is a unicorn horn, and eventually bursts through their front lip and protrudes like a tusk. It was big business back in the day for hunters up in the arctic circle to kill these creatures for their tusks, which were worth insane amounts of money, 10 or 20 times its weight in gold. Queen Elizabeth I owned one called The Horn of Windsor that was worth 10,000 pounds, today’s equivalent of twenty million dollars.
Because “alicorns” could be supplied, it was a lot easier to believe that unicorns existed, despite the fact that no one ever actually saw a unicorn. In addition, there was a belief at the time that every animal on earth had a corresponding creature in the ocean: humans had mermaids (don’t even get me started), snakes had sea serpents, birds had flying fish, etc. So if there was an ocean unicorn, there must be a land one as well.