The Virgin & the Unicorn

The tale of the virgin's ability to tame the unicorn seems to have arisen in Medieval times. as the legend goes, if a virgin is lead to a place that the unicorn has been seen and left there, the unicorn, upon seeing her will run to her, rest his head in her lap and fall asleep. This was how the unicorn was frequently captured and killed. The unicorn was the symbol of chastity and was sought after by king's who wanted to display it as a symbol of power.

The following is a work in progress. 

The origin of the virgin-and-the-unicorn myth is rather complex.  The unicorn itself is not a creature with a definitive origin.  The virgin did not become a part of the text until much after the first tales of the unicorn surfaced.  Even now there is great debate as to just where the idea of the Unicorn and the Virgin originated. 

At the time the unicorn-and-the-virgin myth developed, the myth of the unicorn described by Ctesias & Aelian was circulating in the Mediterranean world.  The two mythos are very distinct from one another. For the first account of the virgin and the unicorn, we have to look towards a book called the Bestiary or Physiologus.  This text, originally the Christian Beast Epic, looked at all of nature as a fable, in other words they thought there was a lesson in all things.  Each article began with two items, a quotation from scripture and the line: “But the physiologus (the naturalist) says….”  This was followed by the description of the animal, its traits, and the lesson to be learned from it.  As the text was copied, it was altered.  The morals were separated from the animal descriptions, a key line was also changed: “The Physiologus says..”  As time progressed, Physiologus became the name of a person, the author, not a professional title.   Physiologus, as it came to be called, was translated into many languages and varied considerably.  Interestingly, Pope Gelasius condemned the text as being the work of heretics in 496ce. 

The references to the unicorn in the various copies of Physiologus offer this basic description of the unicorn (bare in mind that there were many variations, this is a summation of them): 

“He is a small animal, like a kid, but surprisingly fierce for his size, with one very sharp horn on his head, and no hunter is able to catch him by force.  Yet there is a trick by which he is taken.  Men lead a virgin to the place where he most resorts and leave her there alone.  As soon as he sees this virgin he runs and lays his head in her lap. She fondles him and he falls asleep.  Then hunters then approach and capture him and lead him to the palace of the king.”

The original Christian symbolism may hold the key to the addition of the virgin to the tale of the unicorn.  Symbolically, the unicorn is a representation of Jesus, the horn represents the unity of Jesus and God, its fierceness & defiance were said to be a reminder that nothing can control Jesus against his will, and the small size of the animal represented Jesus’ humility, etc.  The virgin, then, became the symbol of the Virgin Mary and the hunter become symbolic of the angel Gabriel.   It’s hard to say which came first, the virgin and the unicorn or the Virgin Mary and the Unicorn Jesus.  This, of course, gave a tremendous boost to the legend of the unicorn. 

However, not all copies of Physiologus agree on the symbology of the unicorn.  Syriac & Provencal versions of it the unicorn becomes not the symbol of Jesus but the symbol of the Devil.  Its capture by a virgin becomes reinforces the idea of the time: evil can only be overcome by virtue.  This is the Syriac version: 

“There is an animal called dajja, extremely gentle, which the hunters are unable to capture because of its great strength.  It has in the middle of its brow a single horn.  But observe the ruse by which the huntsmen take it.  They lead forth a young virgin, pure and chaste, to whom, when the animal sees her, he approaches, throwing himself upon her.  Then the girl offers him her breasts, and the animal begins to suck the breasts of the maiden and to conduct himself familiarly with her.  Then the girl, while sitting quietly, reaches forth her hand and grasps the horn on the animal’s brow, and at this point the huntsmen come up and take the beast and go away with him to the king. – Likewise the Lord Christ has raised up for us a horn of salvation in the midst of Jerusalem, in the house of God, by the intercession of the Mother of God, a virgin pure, chaste, full of mercy, immaculate, inviolate.”  (1)

(1) Translated, into Latin, by J.P.N. Land in his Anecdota Syriaca, Lugd. Batav., 1870, vol. Iv. P. 146

Many Christian authors expanded on the idea of the unicorn’s ability to detect virgins.  This expansion included the idea that if the young maiden was not really the virgin she claimed the unicorn would kill her.  This idea is not unique to unicorns.  The ability to detect virgins, and the killing of those who were pretending to be virgins, was also attributed to the stag, the elephant & the lion.  Other variations on the theme stated that the virgin must be completely nude and others insist she must be very beautiful.  Alanus de Insulis, a writer at the end of the 12^th century explains the phenomena of the virgin’s power over the unicorn in the terms of medieval science.  “He concludes that the virgin’s power is due to a radical difference in “humours”, the calidissima natura of the unicorn being drawn irresistibly to its opposite, the femina frigida et humida.  The unicorn, he says, has an excess of fervent spirits or humours which dilate his hear, and when he comes into the pure moist air surrounding the virgin he feels such relief and is so delighted by that feminine atmosphere that he lies down in her lap.”  (2) 

(2)  The Lore of the Unicorn.  Odell Shepard.  Avenel Books.  ©1930 

The unicorn’s ability to detect virgins is not as keen as one might think.  The Syriac Bestiary the ‘virgin’ can be, as Shepard puts it, “so obviously not a virgin that no unicorn with the slightest discernment in such matters would be deceived by her…”  Additionally, a Greek grammarian of the 12^th century states that a boy dressed as a maiden will suffice since the unicorn cannot tell the difference, but the garments must be heavily perfumed.    

Another development in the Unicorn-Virgin stories is the method the unicorn is drawn to the maiden.  In the early stories, the maiden is left alone in the woods in the hope that a unicorn would find her by scent.  In later stories, the maiden is no longer alone but is joined with several other maidens.  In a later development, the hunters were no longer passive observers waiting in the wings to capture the animal.  Now they a joined by hunting dogs, together they ‘herd’ the unicorn in the direction of the virgin.  Once in site of the virgin, the unicorn is drawn in by her captivating “virgin scent” thereby allowing itself to be captured by the hunters. 

There were numerous accounts of the unicorn throughout the Middle Ages.  However, they were only unique in the types of embellishments attached to much older stories.  As the stories grew in number it became much more difficult to tell who had borrowed from whom.  One thing is certain, the unicorn attracted more attention in the Middle Ages than nearly any other creature.  It was also the only creature among the mythological beasts mentioned in the Physiologus to survive into the Renaissance.   

As to the origins of the Unicorn-Virgin myths may lie in what we now refer to as a typo.  Dr. Leo Wiener of Harvard University draws a parallel to the descriptions of the unicorn in Physiologus to a creature called the antholops (antelope) from an 11^th century Latin manuscript.  The antholops is a fierce creature, unapproachable by hunters.  It has two long horns that can cut down oak trees.  It drinks from the Euphrates River where it finds soft branches of a vine that it plays in, and which it gets completely tangled in.  Once trapped in the vines it cries out for help only to be heard by hunters who then kill it.  This sounds strikingly like the unicorn stories.  The ‘typo’ referred to earlier lies in the words virge (twigs) and virgo (virgin).  It is Dr. Wiener’s opinion that a scribe may have copied the word incorrectly.  This text could have been a source for Physiologus.  If it was, it would date the Physiologus to 711ce – since this is when the Arabs came in contact with Latin.  However, Shepard states that there are flaws in this theory.  There existed Unicorn-Virgin stories before 711ce, some 400 years before.  Additionally, Pope Gelasius condemned the Physiologus in the fifth century, long before Wiener claims the work appeared.  Unfortunately my background is not such that I can determine the truth or falsehood behind either man’s theory.  Since I have not read Dr. Wiener’s work myself, I can only provide the opinions and statements of Shepard. 

Arabic literature in the 14^th century has its own Unicorn-Virgin story.  It contains a few differences from the other texts I have discussed.   Notably, once the unicorn sees the virgin, it goes to her lap and indicates it wants milk, since it loves milk.  Once it has suckled from the virgin’s breast it becomes drunk from the milk.  It is at this point that the hunters can kill it.  The text also indicates that any beautiful girl will do if a virgin is not available.   

Shepard draws in many interesting parallels between the Unicorn-Virgin mythos and other similar mythos.  One story details how elephants are hunted – 2 nude maidens go into the forest and sing, the elephant (who likes music) comes to them, suckles their breast and falls asleep, the maidens then drain its blood (which is used as fabric dye).   Another item Shepard lists is in Siam and South Africa the horn of a virginal female rhinoceros is sold for ten times the price of any other rhinoceros horn as it is believed to be a much more powerful prophylactic.  He even attempts to parallel the myth of Diana (the virgin goddess of the hunt) and her ties with the “horned moon which has had control over poisons since the beginnings of superstition.” (Lore of the Unicorn. pg 65)  However, one thing that Shepard continually leaves out of his book is the dates and origins of his sources.  These comparisons are certainly worthy of investigation but without knowing their age and origin, it is hard to build a timeline.  (I am working on creating this currently) 

Another interesting story comes from Jesuits missionaries who visited Ethiopia.  They tell of how the rhinoceros is hunted.  Ethiopians begin by training a female monkey for the hunt.  They wait for the rhinoceros at the base of the Mountains of the Moon (where they state is the only place a rhino can be found).  Once a rhino appears, they send the female monkey to dance and do tricks for it.  It is amused by the monkey’s antics and in its state of amusement the monkey climbs on the rhino’s back and ‘scratches & rubs his back.’ The rhino is even more pleased with this, the monkey then jumps off and rubs his belly.  The rhino is so sedated by this that it is easily overcome and killed by the hunters.  [My cat would fall for this too]  Shepard does point out that it is uncertain which tale is older but this one certain seems to be the more realistic of the two.  It is also more likely to be ancient as the monkey tale is one told by hunters