Unicorns

The unicorn has often been thought of as a mystical creature with a single horn protruding from its forehead.  Many believe that the horn has magical powers within it.  Throughout history, thousands of so-called unicorn horns have been sold for large profits to believers of its power.

 

The unicorn received its name from the bible.  The word re’em is mentioned several times in the Bible and translates into unicorn.  It is depicted in the Bible as a wild animal that can not be controlled, is very powerful, and has mighty horns. 

           

The aborigines left their drawings of unicorns in their caves.  They depicted a creature with a body shaped like a bull, a horse’s head, and two straight horns protruding from its forehead.  It was classified as a unicorn, because there was no other animal that looked like this picture.

 

In the ”˜90’s, satiric parody religion began.  The goddess of this religion turns into a pink, invisible unicorn that was ultimately named the Invisible Pink Unicorn (IPU).  This religion often replaces the word God with IPU.  While this religion is often ridiculed because how can you have a pink unicorn that is invisible? Doesn’t invisible mean that you cannot see it?  So, if you cannot see it how can you tell it is pink?  The answer from most who believe in IPU is that their faith tells them that the unicorn is pink and the fact that no one has ever seen the IPU tells them that they are invisible.  This religion is a very strange tale and for the most part is ridiculous.  If you are interested in reading more about it, check out this website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_Pink_Unicorn.  It is quite humorous.

 

Regardless of the religion associated with the belief of unicorns, there are hundreds of pictures and depictions of them, ancient and new.  Church windows are notorious for showing these magnificent, beautiful creatures.  Today they are shown as a horse-like animal with a single horn protruding from its head.  It has a strong body and a beautiful main and tail.  Typically they are white in color.  The unicorn has been appeared in many motions pictures including The Last Unicorn and the Harry Potter series. 

 

Do they really exist?  Hundreds of people have heard stories of these creatures, but there is no proof that they exist.  Bones that finders claim to be unicorns have been discovered, however the scientists that examined them deemed all of them fake.  One such story is of a set of bones that was discovered turned out to be hundreds of bones from different animals that were strategically placed together to look like a unicorns body.

 

What else could the unicorn be?  Scientists claim that most of the sightings of the unicorn are actually sightings of a rhinoceros, a mutant goat, a narwhal, or an oryx.  A rhinoceros as we all know is really large around, but there is a species of rhinoceros that was called the giant unicorn.  It is classified as a rhinoceros.  Its body is shaped much like a horse, but larger.  It had the same mouth shape as a horse including the teeth and had a large single horn sticking out of its head.  This animal became extinct with the dinosaurs and was later given the name giant unicorn because of how much it resemble the pictures the aborigines left behind.  The word Rhinoceros was derived from Greek, Rhino meaning nose and keros meaning horn.  Another interesting fact about the Rhinoceros is that the horn was used as a medical treatment in Asia.  That sounds an awful lot like the stories of unicorns. 

 

Is it possible that the rhinoceros and unicorn are the same animal?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that there are a lot of pictures that depict an animal that looks very similar to a rhinoceros and then there are some that do not.  Another mysterious being that cannot be explain or denied existence.