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There are always patterns. If you stare long enough at the pages of history, you're bound to spot them as well. The yo-yo between peace and war, the rise of abusive rulers and the people who tear them down, and the countless moments when people looked at the world around them and completely got it wrong.
From ancient peoples who believed the stars were pinpricks in an otherwise solid, snow globe-like dome, to not-so-ancient New Englanders mistaking tuberculosis for vampirism, sometimes misunderstandings can lead to stories far more fantastical than the truth. And few places contain more delightful mistakes than medieval bestiaries.
For the unfamiliar, bestiaries were compendiums of creatures both real and imagined. Basically, they were encyclopedias of every known animal in the popular imagination. And while these books have been around since antiquity, they became really popular during the Middle Ages when monks spent their days hunched over illuminated manuscripts.
The text included both written and illustrated depictions of each animal, blending Christian allegory with real zoological facts. Well, sort of. You see, these monks had one tiny problem. Having spent their lives cloistered in European abbeys, they hadn't actually seen most of these creatures. Which led to some inventive entries. For example, male goats were considered to be so lustful that their blood could literally melt diamonds.
And hedgehogs? The reason they had spikes, they believed, was so that they could roll in a pile of grapes, get a grape stuck on each spike, and then waddle home to feed those grapes to their children. Honestly, countless medieval drawings of hedgehogs show them absolutely covered in grapes. Do yourself a favor and look it up.
From beavers and snakes to bats and goats, sometimes the myth of an animal can outshadow their reality. But of all creatures great and small, none have strayed further from their truthful origins than one very pointed icon. Everyone's favorite, the unicorn. I'm Aaron Manke, and this is Lore.
When I say the word unicorn, it probably evokes an elusive feminine horse glowing white as if drenched in moonlight. Maybe a glittery shimmer wafts up from its mane. Perhaps it even has a cartoonish pair of eyelashes which it bats while tossing its head. A head sporting, of course, a single, long, spiraled,
Pearl Whitehorn. What you probably don't imagine is a dragon-headed horse that may or may not include the mouth of a crocodile, a lion's nose, ears like a dog, a deer's cloven hooves, fish scales, and a mustache.
And yet, in Vietnamese folklore, that's exactly how unicorns are described. They're called quaili or lan. And as if that jigsaw puzzle of features weren't enough to keep track of, the quaili can also shapeshift, appearing in different forms to different people. But don't worry. They're benevolent creatures, bringing good luck and happiness.
In Japan, there are two versions of the unicorn: the Kideen and the Sinyu. While the Kideen is shy and docile, the Sinyu can literally tell if a person is innocent or guilty of wrongdoing just by looking at them. And you better hope this thing doesn't find you guilty. Because if it does, it uses its horn to spear you through the heart.
In Chinese mythology, there's the qiling, and it honestly sounds breathtaking, with a blend of red, yellow, blue, white, and black fur on its back and a dark yellow belly. It, like the kuilin, has a dragon's head and sometimes the green scales of a fish. It might have a deer's body or even a tiger's. Oh, and by the way, in some cases, the Chinese unicorn's horn doesn't point straight up, but curves backward over its head. And did I mention it can fly?
In the stories, Qilin are wise and gentle. They cause no harm to any living creature, even refusing to walk over living grass so as not to crush it underfoot. But the most exciting thing about them? Well, that has to be their habit of appearing at the births and deaths of great rulers. According to legend, there was a young couple who desperately wanted a son, and so the woman decided to journey to a holy shrine in the mountains to pray for one. On her way, she met a Qilin who gave her a gift.
It was a jade tablet, and engraved upon it was a prophecy. It said, "The son of the essence of water shall succeed to the withering Chu, and he will become a throneless king." Soon after, the woman gave birth to a son. She named him Kung Fu Tse, which means "the essence of water." But today we remember him by a different name. We call him Confucius.
Moving west, the biblical mythology had its own version of the unicorn. You've probably heard the story about unicorns in Noah's Ark, how Noah invited them aboard, but they refused, too busy frolicking at some kind of raging unicorn party. When the waters rose, they drowned, which is why we have no unicorns today.
There are other versions of this story, though. In one, Noah figured that he couldn't take both the unicorns and the lions on the ark because they were known enemies and would be a total nightmare together on a closed ship. Rather than have them fight the whole time, he decided to save the lions and leave the unicorns to die.
In another version, this time from Ukrainian folklore, Noah did invite them on board, only for the unicorns to say, thanks, but we'd rather swim. And impressively, that's exactly what they did. Through all 40 days and 40 nights of the storm, when the skies finally cleared, there were unicorns casually treading water alongside the boat.
It was all well and good, until the birds that had been sheltering on the ark re-emerged and perched on the unicorn's horns, accidentally drowning them. And of course, the unicorns of Western Europe have a rich legend all their own. And surely these must be these snow-white horses with pearly horns that we all know and love, right?
Well, not exactly. Think less Twilight Sparkle and more a murderous, bellowing beast with the feet of an elephant, the tail of a boar, and a long, black horn. That's right. European unicorns weren't always the glittery girl's best friend we know them as today. And they weren't always imaginary, either. In fact, for many centuries, unicorns were believed to be all too real.
The earliest surviving record of what would become our modern unicorn comes from the Greek historian Herodotus way back in the 5th century BCE. Except, well, he doesn't exactly use the word unicorn. No, Herodotus mentions Libyan animals that he refers to as
Horned asses. Not quite as romantic, I know. A few decades later, another Greek by the name of Theseus mentions them again. And he's the one to really put the unicorn on the map. Because Theseus doesn't just name-drop the one-horned creature. No, he provides an in-depth description of the thing.
"'They are in India,' he writes, "'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 a foot and a half in length. "'The base of this horn is pure white, and the upper part is sharp and a vivid crimson, "'and the remainder, or middle portion, is black.'"
And then he goes on to warn, Now, I'll admit, Theseus had never exactly seen this fantastical animal himself, but he trusted the Persian officials who told him about it. And he had seen a cup allegedly made from its horn. Proof enough, right?
A century later, another Greek historian by the name of Megesthanes actually did visit India, and he described seeing something similar, this time featuring a boar's tail and an elephant's feet. Even Aristotle mentions an, I quote, "...an Indian ass with, you guessed it, one single protruding horn."
And of course, no ancient creature feature would be complete without a word from good old Pliny the Elder. Pliny, too, describes an elephant-footed, boar-tailed beast with a horse-like body that, in his words, cannot be taken alive. And thankfully, by this time, he has a better name for it than the horned Indian ass. He calls it the Monoceros. And look, I know what you're thinking. A fierce, giant animal with elephant-like feet? No.
a bristly tail, and a big black horn that lives in India, this "monoceros" is starting to sound a whole lot like a "rinoceros". And there's a good reason for that. Because most historians believe that what all these early scholars were describing was actually none other than the Indian rhino. Yep, it turns out that unicorns have been real all along, and you've probably seen one of them at the zoo. They just look a little different than you might have thought.
From the beloved Lisa Frank stickers of the 1990s to the Starbucks unicorn Frappuccino introduced in 2017, unicorns are all the rage in pop culture. But how did a raging rhinoceros transform into a doe-eyed, glittering rainbow machine? Well, basically through a centuries-long game of telephone.
Over time, the "body of a horse" description got more and more literal, until eventually we land at Walt Disney's 1940 film Fantasia. This first introduced the idea of prancing feminine unicorns with pink, blue, or lavender fur, and people went wild for this horse of a different color. Fast forward to 1983, when Hasbro let My Little Pony out of the stables for the first time, and suddenly we were in a full-blown unicorn craze.
Heck, even Barbie had a unicorn companion. By marketing to little girls, this one-horned wonder had officially become a cash cow. Or should I say, a cash rhino. But honestly, if you think that we're obsessed with unicorns, you clearly haven't been to medieval Europe. Because no one went more bonkers for unicorns than those folks. You see, it was during the medieval period when the pearly white spiral-horned image really took root.
And when I say took root, I mean this thing was everywhere. There were unicorns carved into medieval pews and church altars. Unicorns chiseled into stone walls, mosaics and stained glass windows, and even intricate tapestries. Bards recited verse upon verse of unicorn-themed poetry. There were unicorn songs and paintings. They were even depicted in official heraldry.
Now, it's important to remember that in the medieval period, unicorns weren't just random animals. They had a specific story attached to them. It was called the Virgin Capture story. And, well, it might be easier to show you than to tell you. You see, one of the best examples of the Virgin Capture is depicted on the famous unicorn tapestries,
currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. Created around the year 1500, the tapestries consist of seven panels which together tell the chronological tale. Basically, it's a giant medieval comic book.
In the first panel, a group of men and their dogs enter a lush forest to hunt. They're wearing feathered caps and little striped skirts with red tights underneath. You know, standard hunting outfits, which nicely complement the sharpened spears in their hands. In the second panel, the men approach a fountain.
And there, with its horn dipped in the water, is a unicorn. Now, the horn in the fountain bit is important because an essential part of unicorn folklore back then was that their horns had the power to purify water. This was before the days of Brita filters, after all. Unicorn filtration would have to do.
Everything, for a moment, is peaceful and serene. At least until the third panel begins, and the hunting party attacks. The unicorn attempts to flee, and in the fourth panel, it fights back, skewering a hunting dog on its horn while kicking a hunter with its hind legs.
For a moment, it looks like it might just get away. But then, the fifth panel arrives. And it's here that we meet the real protagonist of the virgin capture story. That is, the virgin. A virtuous young maiden arrives and her very presence has tamed the beast entirely.
But, if you think the maiden is there to protect the creature, think again. No, she's only distracting it, allowing the hunters to strike. Which, in panel 6, is exactly what they do. The unicorn is at last killed, and with that, it's brought back to the castle, until finally we arrive at panel 7. Just like any good horror story, this one ends with a twist. Because, you see, in this final panel, we see the unicorn caged within a circular fence, still bloodied, but very much alive.
Somehow, the magical creature has come back to life. And that, my friends, is the gist of the virgin capture. Just about every medieval unicorn depiction examines this same tale. Hunters fail to capture the uncapturable beast. They send a virgin into the woods to tame it. Because, after all, everyone knows that only a virgin can tame a unicorn. The beast trusts her, and laying its head in her lap is then betrayed, attacked and killed by the hunting party waiting in the wings.
It is an odd little tale, and different historians interpret it in different ways. In fact, even during the Middle Ages, the virgin capture story tended to represent three different things, depending on who was telling the story. In some cases, it was a romantic allegory. Just like any pop song today, most secular writing and art back then was about the trials and tribulations of heartache, and artists soon realized that the unicorn story was a perfect metaphor for courtly love,
a specific multi-stepped courting process that men were required to follow to win over a lady. There were, of course, many other interpretations. The creature might have had just one singular horn, but it was layered with metaphor. Honestly, it turns the old tales into puzzles of a sort, and they aren't always easy to solve.
But one thing we know for certain is this. While scholars could argue all day over the allegorical meaning of the unicorn in art, plenty of people still believed that they were literally real. And if unicorns were real, their magical, purifying horns must be as well. Horns that people would do just about anything to get their hands on.
Maybe he had found it washed up on the beach. Maybe he acquired it in trade with Inuit travelers. Whatever the case, in 1000 AD, somewhere off the shores of Greenland, one Viking scored a real doozy of a treasure. It was a narwhal tusk, and at somewhere between one and a half to three meters long, with a spiraling pattern curling down the ivory, it sure looked a lot like, well, let's just say, another kind of horn. Now,
Now, sure, the Viking would have known that it belonged to a narwhal. After all, he would have seen all sorts of remote creatures in his seafaring days. But do you know who didn't know that it was a narwhal tusk, and in fact wasn't aware that narwhals even existed? The European who the Viking sold the thing to, promising that it had come from none other than a unicorn.
But little did that Viking know, his one small swindle was about to explode into a worldwide hoax involving kings, queens, and even the Pope.
You see, it wasn't just that one European customer who hadn't heard of narwhals. Most of Europe in general hadn't either. And you can't blame them. After all, these splotchy whales with one single long tooth live deep in the icy Arctic, far away from civilization. Oh, and by the way, the name narwhal, it comes from the Norwegian nar and hval, which together literally translate into corpse whale.
Why? Well, it was thought that their splotchy skin resembled that of a drowned sailor. Just another fun fact for you to whip out at parties. You're welcome.
Anyway, when the European trader returned with his new prize in tow, the people of Europe went berserk. Everyone wanted a unicorn horn. And where there's demand, supply will follow. Soon enough, the kings of Denmark caught word of what was going on and saw an opportunity. You see, these guys already knew about narwhals. Up north as they were, they even had access to them. And where before they had only seen creepy whales that looked like rotting corpses, they now saw something else. Money.
The match had been struck. The great unicorn horn boom had
had begun. Before long, these unicorn horns, and I say that with major air quotes, were worth more than 10 times their weight in gold. By the 1500s, a single complete horn was worth more than an entire town. In fact, Denmark grew so wealthy selling them that their royal family even built a lavish throne plated with unicorn horns. Basically, it was a very expensive way to laugh at how gullible the rest of Europe was, which, of course, went right over Europe's head.
Now, I know what you're thinking. Sure, unicorn horns sound cool and all, but why were they so coveted? Well, it all goes back to the folklore. Remember how in the virgin capture story the unicorn would purify water with its horn? Well, it turns out that it wasn't just water that could be purified, but the human body.
Basically, unicorn horn was believed to be a cure-all. In the 16th century, everything from fever to rabies to, and I quote, worms within the body from which children faint could be treated with a sprinkle of powdered unicorn horn. Heck, it was even an aphrodisiac. Not to mention the fact that impure water often led to typhoid or dysentery, so a magical water-cleansing horn was pretty handy.
But there was one final feature that pushed it over the edge, from a simple medicine to a must-have for kings and queens. And I'll let our old friend Theseus tell you about it. Way back in around 400 BC, he wrote, "...those who drink out of these horns, made into drinking vessels, are immune even to poisons." So there you go. If you were worried about being poisoned, all you had to do was drink all of your beverages out of a unicorn horn cup.
Which was a big deal, honestly, because during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, leaders were being poisoned left and right. It wasn't uncommon for rulers to be assassinated through food or drink tampering, falling dead right there at the dinner table. Unicorn horn, or alicorn as they called it, may have been costly, but what price won't a monarch pay to keep their throne and their life?
Now, big shout out to historians because we actually have quite a robust record of which royals purchased unicorn horns. For example, we know that in 1533, Pope Clement VII gifted King Francis I of France with a unicorn horn mounted
in solid gold. Ivan the Terrible had a unicorn staff while the royal Habsburg family had a scepter, both of which were absolutely covered in precious gems. King Philip II of Spain owned not one, but twelve unicorn horns. I guess he really wasn't taking any chances.
And of course, Queen Elizabeth I, after learning that her enemy Mary, Queen of Scots, had obtained a unicorn horn, wouldn't be outdone, so she bought two. Today, one of those horns, known as the Horn of Windsor, is still around, and it's part of England's crown jewels. Oh, and the Queen also drank regularly from an alicorn drinking cup, which she was convinced would, if tainted with poison, just straight up explode.
But I think my favorite is the grisly story of when King James I of England purchased a horn. King James was no fool and wasn't just going to believe that some random piece of bone had magical powers. And so he forced a servant to drink deadly poison, followed by some of the powdered unicorn horn. And let's just say things did not end great for that servant.
But, if you think that that woke King James up to the fact that this whole thing was a hoax, you would be wrong. No, he was only angry that someone had sold him a fake horn, rather than an authentic specimen like other rulers had.
But alas, nothing gold can stay. The alicorn boom had to fizzle out eventually, and in the end, its collapse was the fault of one single man. His name, and I swear I am not making this up, was Ol Worm. He was a Danish naturalist, physician, and bone expert.
and he eventually founded a respected archive called the Museum Wormanium. Seriously, this is all real. For years, Ole Worm had watched his country scam the rest of Europe, and as a man of science, that was probably super annoying. Eventually, he was tasked with investigating the alicorn industry, and at the conclusion of his research, he decided enough was enough. The lies had to stop.
And so, Ole Worm gathered the public, climbed up on stage, and told everyone about the existence of Arctic narwhals. Perhaps the crowd was skeptical at first, but they wouldn't be for long. Because for his grand finale, Ole Worm presented his audience with a narwhal skull, with a horn still clearly attached. And with that, it was over. The age of the unicorn horn had finally come to an end.
A Greek historian tries to describe a rhinoceros. Then a woodworker in a medieval church carves a horse-like creature into the walls. A weaver makes steady progress on a colorful tapestry. And suddenly, centuries have passed, and a little kid is braiding the blue, plasticine hair of a toy unicorn named Izzy Moonbow.
It may seem like quite a transformation, but actually the unicorn retains more of its origins than you might think, hidden beneath the surface. For example, I can't help but wonder if the modern link between unicorns and girlhood is simply a watered-down version of the virgin capture narrative. Maybe that medieval belief that only young maidens could tame a unicorn simply evolved into an association with young girls and unicorns in general. There are still lingering remnants of the alicorn trade, too.
Images of unicorns continue to adorn any number of chemist shops scattered around Europe, including over the entrance of London's Apothecaries Hall. Even Ol' Worm himself found his way into the present when H.P. Lovecraft based a character on him named Olus Wormius.
And then of course there are the Bronies, a term for die-hard fans of the animated series My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. But would you believe me if I told you that this fandom might just be a present-day version of those long-gone kings and queens desperate for an alicorn cup?
According to Dr. Marsha Redden, who contributed to a study on the brony phenomenon, the rise of My Little Pony's popularity among adults may have a lot to do with death. You see, Dr. Redden noticed that the brony fandom peaked in the early 2010s, a decade into America's seemingly endless war on terror. People were, in Dr. Redden's words, tired of being afraid.
And here was a world of sparkly pink unicorns, ponies, and pegasus to escape into. In other words, just like the royals of the 16th century who were terrified there might be poison in their cup, people are still, to this very day, turning to the magic of unicorns because it makes them feel safe.
It's clear that sometimes what may seem like sugar and spice and everything nice might actually be anything but. And as it turns out, unicorns aren't the only childhood figures with a secret past. In fact, I have one more story to share, and it reveals the sinister underbelly of one of folklore's favorite symbols of innocence. Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.
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First, the powerful djinn dealt with the princess, cutting off the woman's hands, feet, and head. Then he turned to her unfortunate lover and offered him a choice. What animal, the djinn asked, would he like to be transformed into? When the fellow refused to decide, the djinn had no problem making the call for him. Quit that shape, he said, and take thou the shape of an ape. And with that, the djinn doused the man with a pinch of magical dust, and voila, he became an ape.
It seems that a sprinkle of fairy dust can go a long way. Yes, it can turn men into apes, like in the second Calendar's tale from 1001 Nights, but it can also heal wounds and reveal secrets, or transform pumpkins into carriages and send a gaggle of children soaring over the streets of London. And most essential of all, even just a pinch of it
has the power to make dreams come true. At least, that's what the stories tell us. But have you ever wondered what exactly fairy dust is, and why fairies became associated with such a banal substance as dust to begin with? Well, first of all, like unicorns, fairy dust wasn't always the cutesy glitter stuffed into cosmetics and bath bombs that we know today. It wasn't even the gold and silver sparkle that Tinkerbell leaves in her wake.
No, that modern association of fairy dust with childhood was popularized by J.M. Barrie himself in the 1904 play and later the novel, Peter Pan. Then when Peter Pan made it to the silver screen in Disney's 1953 adaptation, they even renamed fairy dust as...
pixie dust, which has been used interchangeably ever since. But the original fairy dust? Well, it has a little less to do with childhood innocence and a lot more to do with the dead, and it all begins with the Sandman.
Now, you probably know him from the graphic novels or the upbeat 1950s doo-wop song. But the original Sandman was a character in European folklore. He was known for visiting children at night and sprinkling magic sand into their eyes, which gave them dreams and good rest.
But not all incarnations of this tale were quite so charming. For example, in Scandinavian folklore, the Sandman was known as "lakoia" or "the eye-closer" and he didn't just lull children off to sleep. No, this Sandman was a fairy who would punish children who stayed up too late. How? By rubbing sand in their eyes. Until their eyes popped out, of course.
Not to let a perfectly good eyeball go to waste, he would then collect the children's eyes and take them back to his home on the crescent moon, where he would feed them to his own children. See, doesn't that make you feel sleepy just thinking about it?
Now, to be fair, not all fairy dust lore is quite so grisly. Some folklorists point to fairy status as nosy domestic sprites when explaining how fairy dust came to be. That is, fairies were creatures who might engage in a bit of dusting and sweeping around the house from time to time, potentially causing them to become associated with dust. Take the scene from Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which the fairy Puck enters the stage with a broom and says, I
I am sent with broom before to sweep the dust behind the door. But then again, it isn't long before digging up the dirt on fairy dust brings us right back to the realms of horror. You see, many English and Scottish fairy stories include the idea that if a human visiting fairy land returns to the earthly realm, they will burst into, you guessed it, dust.
Beloved folklorist Catherine Mary Briggs explains it best. "The suggestion behind all these stories," she wrote,
is that Fairyland is a world of the dead, and that those who entered it had long been dead and carried back with them an illusory body which crumbled into dust when they met reality. So, hey, the next time you contemplate death, try to remember how intertwined it is with those ancient tales of fairy powder. After all, our human existence has often been described as ashes to ashes, dust to dust. So may all of us find a way, in between those bookends,
to add a bit of magic.
This episode of Lore was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Jenna Rose Nethercott, research by Jamie Vargas, and music by Chad Lawson. Don't like hearing the ads? I've got a solution for you. There is a paid version of Lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad-free. Plus, subscribers there also get weekly bonus episodes that we call Lore Bites. It's a bargain for all of that ad-free storytelling, and a great way to support this show and the team behind it.
Lore is, of course, much more than just a podcast. There's the book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime. Information about all of that and more is available over at lorepodcast.com. And you can follow this show on various social media platforms like Blue Sky or YouTube. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.
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