Tuesday, January 31, 2006

How the Hell is the Unicorn a Symbol of Purity?

It has a huge phallic horn on its head. And the legend goes that it will approach a virgin and lay its head (with the huge phallic horn) in her lap.

What the fuck is pure and innocent about that?

And it's considered something desirable to pet these perverts in fantasy stories?

To Hell with that. I see a Unicorn, I'm running, and I'd advise you to do the same.

7 comments:

  1. Damn straight. Besides. Who *knows* where those things have been.

    Ick.

    :-)

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  2. I like to think that Unicorns represent some kind of fantasy version of a woman with a penis. Don't ask me how I came up with that, but that's what they are. Fantasy trannies.

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  3. Horses tend to freak out, so imagine how dangerous a horse with a horn would be.

    I've always imagined a unicorn would be a lot like a rhino...not so nice and calm around freaky fantasy inhabitants.

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  4. Wow, you guys've just made them even more freaky.

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  5. At least in the middle ages, the unicorn was an allegorical symbol of Christ. Hence the purity. Also, I think the whole bit about a unicorn only being captured because it is drawn to a maiden was meant as some kind of reflection of the virgin birth. I do not recall now if these were elements later grafted on to an initially pre-Christian myth.
    Which is not to say that unicorns aren't freaky. But when they were captured they were usually taken away to some place called the temple of the king, if that helps.

    BTW, my facts about unicorns are from an excellent book I read some years back called Lore of the Unicorn by Odell Shepard, which may or may not be out of print, but is the most informative book around on this subject.

    Sorry about the infodump. I have no special love for unicorns or the namby-pamby fantasies they infest. I just like reading books that contain lots of information on totally useless topics!

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  6. Oh and Centurion - one of the roots of the unicorn myth was garbled traveller's tales of the Indian rhino!

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  7. Wow, this will REALLY creep people out. Here goes.

    I think unicorns, like Santa Claus, were one of those old Pagan symbols of fertility and male sexuality that got flipped when Christanity came along and started sorting mythological images into "good" and "bad." So satyrs and centaurs, who, ahem, are hung like horses, go into the evil category, while Santa and unicorns, who are ALSO hung like horses, go into the "good."

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