Sources : Unicorn
Ctesias [5th century BCE]: There are in India certain wild asses which are as large as horses, and larger. Their bodies are white, their heads dark red, and their eyes dark blue. They have a horn on the forehead which is about a foot and a half in length. The dust filed from this horn is administered in a potion as a protection against deadly drugs. The base of this horn, for some two hands'-breadth above the brow, is pure white; the upper part is sharp and of a vivid crimson; and the remainder, or middle portion, is black. Those who drink out of these horns, made into drinking vessels, are not subject, they say, to convulsions or to the holy disease [epilepsy]. Indeed, they are immune even to poisons if, either before or after swallowing such, they drink wine, water, or anything else from these beakers. Other asses, both the tame and the wild, and in fact all animals with solid hoofs, are without the ankle-bone and have no gall in the liver, but these have both the ankle-bone and the gall. This ankle-bone, the most beautiful I have ever seen, is like that of an ox in general appearance and in size, but it is as heavy as lead and its color is that of cinnabar through and through. The animal is exceedingly swift and powerful, so that no creature, neither the horse nor any other, can overtake it. - [Shepard translation]
Aristotle [ca. 350 BCE] (De animalibus, Book 2, 2.8): We have never seen an animal with a solid hoof with two horns, and there are only a few that have a solid hoof and one horn, as the Indian ass... - [Cresswell translation, 1887]
Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 8, 31): He [Ctesias] says that in India there are also oxen with solid hoofs and one horn [unicornes] ... but that the fiercest animal is the unicorn [monocerotem], which in the rest of the body resembles a horse, but in the head a stag, in the feet an elephant, and in the tail a boar (wild), and has a deep bellow, and a single black horn three feet long projecting from the middle of the forehead. They say that it is impossible to capture this animal alive. - [Rackham translation]
Aelianus [170-230 CE] (On the Characteristics of Animals, Book 3, chapter 41): India produces horses [or asses/onagers] with one horn, they say, and the same country fosters asses with a single horn. And from these horns they make drinking-vessels, and if anyone puts a deadly poison in them and a man drinks, the plot will do him no harm. For it seems that the horn both of the horse and of the ass is an antidote to the poison. - [Scholfield translation]
Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 2:12=13): [Book 12, 2:12]The rhinoceros [rhinoceron] is named with a Greek word; in Latin it means “horn on the nose.” This is also the #~A165 monoceron~>, that is, the unicorn [unicornus], because it has a single four-foot horn in the middle of its forehead, so sharp and strong that it tosses in the air or impales whatever it attacks. It often fights with the elephant and throws it to the ground after wounding it in the belly. [Book 12, 2:13] It has such strength that it can be captured by no hunter’s ability, but, as those who have written about the natures of animals claim, if a virgin girl is set before a unicorn, as the beast approaches, she may open her lap and it will lay its head there with all ferocity put aside, and thus lulled and disarmed it may be captured. - [Barney, Lewis, et. al. translation]
Alexander Neckam [1147-1217 CE] (De naturis rerum, Book 2.103-104): [Book 2.103] The color of the rhinoceros [unicorn] is light brown, with a single horn in his nose, turned up, which he constantly sharpens by rubbing it on rocks. He raises his sharp horn to fight against elephants, but as he is only equal to them in length and his legs are shorter than their legs, he naturally seeks to strike their stomach, which he understands to be the only part accessible to his blows. [1.104] Isidore reports that the beast is of such courage that he cannot be captured by any of the hunters' strength. But a virgin girl is presented who opens her lap to the one who comes, and he lays his head there despite all his ferocity, so that he is caught asleep, as if unarmed. Some have likened this to Christ and the church. But it is not only to Saul who breathed these threats that they refer, but to anyone who passes into free and spontaneous slavery. For wisdom cherishes this in its bosom, and comforts it with spiritual embraces. - [Wright/Badke]
Hildegard von Bingen [1098-1179 CE] (Physica, Book 7.5): In moving it has a leap, and it flees humans and other animals, except those that are of its kind, and so it cannot be captured. It especially fears a man, and shuns him. Just as the serpent in the first fall shunned the man and got to know the woman, so this animal avoids a man but follows a woman. There was a certain philosopher who scrutinized the natures of animals, and he marveled greatly that capturing this animal, by any skill, was impossible. One day he went hunting, as he usually did, and was accompanied by men, women, and girls. The girls walked separately from the others, and played among the flowers. Seeing the girls, a unicorn shortened its leaps and gradually drew near. It sat on its hind legs, diligently gazing at them from afar. The philosopher, seeing this, thought hard about it; he understood that a unicorn could be captured by girls. He approached it from the back and caught it by means of the girls. A unicorn, seeing a girl from afar, wonders that she has no beard but does have the shape of a person. If two or three girls are together, it is more amazed, and it is caught more quickly when its eyes are fixed on them. The girls by whose means the unicorn is captured must be nobles, not country girls. They should be neither completely grown nor entirely small, but in the midst of adolescence. The unicorn loves them, because it knows they are gentle and sweet. - [Throop translation]
Thomas of Cantimpré [circa 1200-1272 CE] (Liber de natura rerum, Quadrupeds 4.81, 4.104): [Thomas describes the unicorn under the names onager Indie and unicornis.] [Quadrupeds 4.81] Onager Indie is a large and cruel animal. This, as Aristotle says, has the form of an ass, and has only one horn in its forehead to defeat hostile beasts, sharp and very hard, and long. It has it in the middle of the head, since the middle of the head is the common boundary between the two extremes. Now that animal has a sole horn because of its diminution by nature, namely, because it lacks the other horn. But his sole horn is extremely sharp and strong, recovering the youth by nature in themselves, which they lost in the want of another horn. But they are of wonderful size, as Andelmus writes, and especially of strength; and this indeed is evident, because they seem to be exulting in strength. For they pull huge stones from the rocks, and this for nothing else, except to test their strength against the mass of the rocks. [Quadrupeds 4.104] The unicorn is indeed a small animal, as Isidore says, according to the strength of the body. He also has short legs for his size. Its horn is very sharp, so that it cannot be captured by force by any hunter. The horn in the middle of the forehead is four feet long, from which not even the elephant itself is safe in the size of its body. As the Liber Kyrannidarum says, with that horn it casts out demons: for it is pierced, and thus the demon is driven away by the sound and presence of the horn. It is not afraid of iron. It dwells in the high mountains and in the most desolate deserts. Jacobus and Isidore: A virgin girl is taken to the forest and left alone. When the unicorn arrives, putting aside all its ferocity, it respects the chastity of the virgin's body and places its head in the girl's bosom. This animal, as Pliny says, was first exhibited by Pompey at Rome. This cruel animal signifies Christ, who, before his incarnation, lived in heaven punishing angels for pride, men on earth for disobedience, like Adam, and for lust, like Sodom, for lewdness, like the children of Israel. - [Badke translation/paraphrase]
Guillaume le Clerc [ca. 1210 CE] (Bestiaire, Chapter 18): Now I shall tell you of the unicorn, / A beast which has but one horn / Set in the middle of its forehead. / This beast is so daring, / So pugnacious and so bold, / That it picks quarrels with the elephant. / It is the fiercest beast in the world / Of all those which are in it. / It fights with the elephant and wins. / Its weapon is so strong and piercing, / And the point of its weapon so sharp / That nothing can be struck / Without being pierced and ripped, / Nor can the elephant defend / Itself when it meets it. / For under its belly it strikes it / With its weapon sharp as a blade / So hard that it is ripped right open. / This beast has such strength / That it fears no hunter. / They that would ensnare it / Go there first to spy / When it is gone to disport itself / Either on mountain or in valley. / When they have found its haunt / And have well marked its footprints, / They go for a young girl, / Whom they know well to be virgin. / Then they make her sit and wait / At its lair, for to capture the beast. / When the unicorn is come back / And has seen the damsel, / Straight to her it comes at once; / In her lap it crouches down / And the girl clasps it / Like one submitting to her. / With the girl it sports so much, / That in her lap it falls asleep. / Those who are spying at once rush out: / There they take it and bind it. / Then they drive it before the king / By force and despite its struggles. - [Druce translation]
Bartholomaeus Anglicus [13th century CE] (Liber de proprietatibus rerum, Book18.89): [Bartholomaeus describes the rhinoceros, unicorn, monocerus, "egloceron" (a variety of goat) and Indian ass somewhat interchangeably in this chapter, as all being one horned animals.] Rinoceron in Gréeke, is to meaning, an horne in the nose, and Monoceron is an Unicorne, and is a fierce or cruell beast, and hath that name, because he hath in the middle of the forehead an horne of foure foote long, and that horne is so sharpe and so strong, that he throweth downe all or pearceth all that he réeseth on, as Isidore sayeth, libro. 12. And this beast fighteth ofte with the Elephaunt, and woundeth and sticketh him in the wombe, and throweth him downe to the grounde. And the Unicorne is so strong, that he is not taken with might of Hunters. But men that write of the kinde of things, suppose that a maide is sette there as he shall come, and she openeth her lappe, and the Unicorne layeth thereon his head, & leaveth all his fiercenesse, & sléepeth in that wise: and is taken as a beast without weapon, & slaine with darts of hunters. Huc usque Isidorus, libro. 12. Gregory super Job in Moralibus saieth héereto, that Rinocero the Unicorne is a wilde beast by kinde, and maye not be tamed in no wise: and if it happen that he be taken in any wise, he may not bée kept in any manner: for he is so unpatient and so angry, that he dieth anone. Li. 8. ca. 21. Plinius speaketh of the unicorne and saith, that he hath an horne in ye middle of the forehead above the nose, and is enimye to the Elephaunts, and froateth and fileth his horne against stones, and sharpeth it, and maketh it ready to fight in that wise. And in the fighting hée assaileth the Elephant on the wombe, for he knoweth that that is the soft place of the Elephants body. His length is as it were the length of an horse: but his legs bée much more shorter, and his coulour is bay. And as he meaneth, libro. 8. cap. 22. There be many kinds of unicornes, for some bée Rinoceron, and some Monoceron and Egloceron. And as he saith, Monoceron is a wilde beast shapen like to the horse in body, and to the Hart in head, and in the féet to the Elephant, and in the taile to the Boare, and hath heavy lowing, and an borne strouting in the middle of the forehead of two cubites long. And they denie that this beast may be taken alive. And Egloceron is a manner of Unicorne, that is called Capricornus in latine, and hath that name of Egla, that is a Goat, & Ceros that is an horne: And is little a beast like to a Kid, with an horne that is full sharpe in the middle of the forehead. Also Plinius saith there, that in Indie be one horned Oxen, with white speckes and bones, and with thick hoofes as horses have. And in Indie bée some one horned Asses, as Aristotle, Avicen[na], and Plinius say. And bée called one horned Asses, because they have one horne in the forehead, betwéene the eares, and bée called Asini Indici, Asses of Indie, and the other part of their bodyes be like to the bodyes of wilde Asses, and such an Asse is called Monoceros, and is lesse bolde and fierce then other unicornes, and hath this name Monoceros, of Monos, that is one, and Ceros, that is an horne. And this nowne Rinoceron is declined, hic Rinoceron, ge. huius Rinocerontis. Also Monoceron is declined, Monocerontis. Also we finde Rinoceros, & Monoceros, and is then declined Rinoceros, Rinocerotis, in the Genitive case, and so of other. - [Batman]
Slavic Physiologus [15th - 16th century]: The unicorn is an animal [that] has a large body. His nose passes through his mouth and reaches beneath his chin. Standing, he grazes grass and reaches it with his tongue. When he encounters [an] animal, he catches up with it and pierces it, and carries it on his horn. And when [it] taints and rots, then it decays and drips, and he takes it with his tongue and eats. But do you understand, brothers, what suffering he endures with his food! So he stands three times a day facing east and praises God with a sigh. And he again mocks all creatures [and] praises himself. - [Stoykova, English translation by Mladenova and Stoykov]