Of unicorn extinction

Fifty years ago, Peter Beagle’s fine fantasy novel The Last Unicorn was published. In that fall, the Irish Rovers released a song, ostensibly sad but somehow not really, “The Unicorn,” about the creatures perishing in the flood because they heeded not Noah’s call, preferring to play “silly games” instead. In the intervening years the unicorn has become extremely popular, especially in adolescent “culture,” shedding many of its older and more mystical associations perhaps, but maintaining a hold on the imagination.

Orthodox authorities present a muddled picture of how a “mythical” creature like the unicorn came to be, suggesting ancient confusion between antelopes-in-profile and the rhinoceros or something equally absurd. Archaic man knew a rhinoceros when he saw one and has left us some very good likenesses, including those on cave walls in Europe and plaques from Mohenjo-Daro and miniature figurines from the Ukraine. They look nothing like the heraldic unicorn, which resembles the beast portrayed in medieval tapestries—a goat-like animal about the size of a greyhound.

It’s easy to dismiss the idea of the extinction of unicorns as fancy or allegory because it is impossible to demonstrate they were anything but fabulous in the first place. If there ever was a single-horned cervid in the forests of Eurasia, it was certainly eradicated long ago due to a lusting after its horn. Alicorn, the powdered horn of the unicorn, was still included in official pharmacopoeias for several hundreds of years after it was recognized that most of what was called that was really narwhal ivory. Any “real” unicorn remains were ground up long ago to cure some nobleman’s gout or sexual dysfunction.

With the passing of the world’s last male white rhinoceros, it is sad to reflect how we have progressed so little. Rest in peace, Sudan. STANLEY G. JOHNSON

Little Rock