Unicorns are a fantasy creature that everyone will not be unfamiliar with. Although I don't know who did the statistics, it is said that in the fantasy circles of Europe and the United States, the popularity of unicorns ranks second among all mythological animals. Of course it's the dragon, we talked about it before.
But many people may not know that the unicorn we are familiar with now that will release rainbow farts has only been described as a one-horned horse in the last 400 years, which is completely the effect of artistic processing. Some modern magicians believe that this unicorn in the image of a horse may have come from the decorations worn on the heads of warhorses in the past. Because at some point, people could no longer find real unicorns to participate in royal activities, so the knights cosified their horses as unicorns.
Although the rainbow unicorn can be said to have been on fire in European legends, this animal is not derived from european mythology. The legend of unicorns often appears in the myths of many regions in the East and the West, this ancient mythical animal in India and Mesopotamian civilization 4,000 years ago, there are carvings, seals, reliefs, in addition to the Chinese myths and legends of the unicorn there are several kinds: dragon horse, unicorn, Luduan, Shu shu, Horse, Barge, Maki.
I know that when I talk about unicorns, there are immediately people who retort that unicorns are double horns. In fact, the unicorn was originally a unicorn, and later in the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He was painted as a double horn after he brought back giraffes from Africa from Africa, because at that time they said that the giraffes were unicorns, and they didn't know what to think. In addition, it is easy to confuse the unicorn with the dragon horse, which is also a kind of auspicious beast. Legend has it that Ryoma taught the script to Fuxi, and the appearance of Ryoma is also regarded as a symbol of peace and prosperity.
In short, some of these unicorns in Chinese mythology are regarded as auspicious beasts, and some are extremely ferocious beasts, which can eat tigers and leopards and can resist soldiers. But either way, it's great anyway.
The adorable rainbow unicorn we now call it Unicorn, and early legends about it came mainly from travelers from West Asia and North Africa. In the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher Ctesiás made a more detailed account of unicorns in his book on India, and there is also a winged unicorn in Persian mythology. Later, the legend of these unicorns was used by Europeans in Christian fables in the Middle Ages, and gradually became the predecessor of the current rainbow unicorn.
In fact, most of the unicorns in early legends were fierce and difficult to tame, and people and livestock and wild beasts were afraid of it, which may be similar to the unicorns called barges recorded in the Classic of Mountains and Seas. It is said that there are several references in the Old Testament to an animal called ReEm, which has a one-horned superhuman, which is used in the Old Testament as a metaphor for symbolic power. But nut jun in the Chinese-English version of the Bible does not find a record of unicorns, what is the reason? Could it be that this legend is a rumor made up in a tavern? Later, after repeated investigations by Nut Jun, it was found that the unicorn was a translation of the Hebrew rem in the medieval Latin Bible, but in the later English standard version of the Bible, this Hebrew rem was translated as wild ox. The Chinese Bible is translated from the standard English version, which is why we don't find unicorns in the Chinese Bible.
Here I would like to list a few biblical references to unicorns in which the Rem unicorn is consistently translated as bison:
"God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an wild ox（unicorn）." —Numbers 23:22
God led him out of Egypt, and he seemed to have the power of a bison (unicorn). Mum 23:22
"Save me from the lion's mouth; for thou hast heard me from the horns of wild ox（unicorn）." —Psalms 22:21
Save me from the mouth of the lion; you have promised me to free me from the horns of the bison (unicorn). Psalms: 22:21
"He maketh them [the cedars of Lebanon] also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young wild ox（unicorn）." —Psalms 29:6
He also made it jump like a calf, and Lebanon and Silion jumped like a bison calf (little unicorn). Psalm 29:6
"But my horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of the wild ox（unicorn）: I shall be anointed with fresh oil." —Psalms 92:10
But you hold high my horns, like the horns of a bison (unicorn). I was applied with a new ointment. Psalm 92:10
Medieval unicorns were usually painted like deer-like goats, with even hooves and horns and goatees, and their tails were sometimes painted as lion's tails, a bit like the one-horned magical Billy. Although it symbolizes bravery, sacredness, nobility and purity. But medieval European legends popularized a bizarre story about the hunting of unicorns, in which the unicorn was a ferocious and inaccessible beast. Yet he will be attracted to the pure maiden. Hunters used a virgin in a trap under a tree as bait, and when the unicorn was drawn to her to sleep on her lap, the hunters killed her.
And the virgin in this story is usually equated with the Virgin Mary. During the Renaissance, the story was embroidered on a series of elaborate tapestries, and when the unicorn was killed, it was brought back to a castle where the unicorn was resurrected, but imprisoned under a fenced pomegranate tree, and its blood became the seeds and juice of the pomegranate. Although, Christian writers have long understood the death and rebirth of the unicorn as a parable of the Crucifixion of Jesus. But this strange story of the hunt for unicorns is extremely frightening, and the more you investigate, the more san values will be dropped, which is obviously related to some pagan tradition of nature worship.
If we understand that unicorns represent the moon in astrology and in alchemy as the earth element, that it represents the consciousness of the earth and the reproduction of natural values, then it is not difficult to understand this strange story. It is the product of a mixture of Christianity and multiple pagan cultures and has multiple symbolic meanings. In the context of Christian culture, the unicorn is also seen as the Messiah, and its appearance is thought to herald a brighter and better era. This implication is surprisingly similar to that of The Dragon Horse in China, and we can't help but wonder why, in very different cultures, unicorns are associated with a bright, beautiful, and hopeful world.
Unicorn horns have healing properties, and in fact such a claim was so prevalent in both The East and the West that some animals that were mistaken for unicorns, such as rhinos, were almost extinct. By the 19th century, some naturalists believed that there could not be unicorns in the world, and some archaeologists tried to explain the origin of unicorns, saying that ancient artists had not yet mastered perspective, thus painting the sides of animals with double horns as unicorns. To be honest, I think this explanation is stupid.
The unicorns in the myths and legends of the world that we listed above do not have a unified image, but they can all be called unicorns. It can be seen that the legend of the unicorn is like a river, made up of thousands of tributaries, which have been intertwined with religious ideas, chivalric literature, mythology and folklore for centuries. So unicorns, like dragons, are not just one, but there are many species, and they all have a common feature, with unicorns. It can be roughly divided into two categories, one is the sacred and noble auspicious beasts, whose appearance indicates peace and prosperity. The other is the proud and fierce beast, symbolizing bravery and being able to repel strong enemies.
But today's unicorn has mixed these two characteristics to become a powerful symbolic animal, and in modern culture our understanding of the unicorn, as it first came from the legend of travelers from all over the world, everyone has their own unicorn in the story, because for each ancient mythological animal we can have a new interpretation, in the specific application of mythological archetypes there is no absolute, as a kind of mythical beast, the unicorn, although often depicted as white to represent purity, sacredness, nobility, brave. But unicorns are not all positive meanings, things always have positive and negative sides, the negative side of unicorns represents extreme narcissism and love of vanity, just as some legends mention that the feces pulled out by unicorns are like shiny ice cream, and the rainbow farts are put.
If the appearance of a unicorn in your dream indicates that you have received a powerful signal from the spiritual realm, you should probably recall what the unicorn in your dream looks like. What color? What is it doing? Did you interact with you? How do you feel about it? You also need to tell whether the unicorn is pointing you in the right direction or reminding you of some kind of narcissistic or vanity negativity. All in all, a unicorn is a magical animal that can help us improve ourselves better. If you also want to make some good changes for yourself, you might as well put a small unicorn toy on your table, no matter what, looking at such a cute pony, the mood will also change, right?