Unicorn

The unicorn is a legendary creature that has been described since antiquity as a beast with a single large, pointed, spiraling horn projecting from its forehead. In European literature and art, the unicorn has, for the last thousand years or so, been depicted as a white horse- or goat-like animal with a long, straight horn with spiraling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat's beard. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, it was commonly described as an extremely wild woodland creature, a symbol of purity and grace, which could be captured only by a virgin. In encyclopedias, its horn was described as having the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness. In medieval and Renaissance times, the tusk of the narwhal was sometimes sold as a unicorn horn. A bovine type unicorn is thought by some scholars to have been depicted on seals of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization—an interpretation that remains controversial. An equine form of the unicorn was mentioned by the ancient Greeks in accounts of natural history by various writers, including Ctesias, Strabo, Pliny the Younger, Aelian, and Cosmas Indicopleustes. Some versions of re'em, a word appearing in the Hebrew Bible (in, e.g., Psalm 92:11 and Deuteronomy 33:17), are rendered as unicorn. The unicorn continues to hold a place in popular culture. It is often used as a symbol of fantasy or rarity. In the 21st century, it has become an LGBTQ symbol.