Unicorn

From TinWiki.org

Artistic rendition of a Unicorn

The Unicorn is a mystical beast that has been written about in many old myths and legends. They have become a topic of wonderment for many centuries, men such as Aristotle, Genghis Khan, Saint Thomas, and Saint Gregory all thought this magnificent creature was not folklore but in actual fact very real. The unicorn gets it name from the Latin words ‘uni’ meaning one and ‘cornu’ meaning horn. They were also thought to live for hundreds maybe even thousands of year if left untouched by evil hands.

1 Description
2 Special Abilities
3 Territory and diet
4 Possible myth origins
5 External links
6 Relevent Discussion Threads

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Description

Many countries had varying descriptions of the unicorn.

The Chinese describe their unicorn as having the head of a stag, the legs of a horse and a 12-foot long horn on its forehead. They believed that this creature lived in the heavens as it had a beautiful array of colors that were the same as the sky. The Japanese unicorn was said to have a bull's body, but at other times it resembled a deer or a goat. It had fierce eyes and could frighten a human so badly the person would be unable to move. In India the unicorn was described as having a stag’s head, elephants feet, and a boar's body.

In all cases the one thing remains the same this creature had a single horn in the middle of their heads. The unicorn depicted in today’s era is an invention of modern day fantasy art.

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Special Abilities

Unicorns were thought to be creatures of the gods and were highly intelligent animals, the eldest and wisest of these beasts were thought to be telepathic and able to convey messages to whom ever they wished to. Their horns are thought to contain a lot of magic in them, able to heal and cure any illnesses of the body. Many unicorns were said to have been caught just for the horn and the power it was said to have contained but, unfortunately, once their horn was removed, the unicorn died.

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Territory and diet

They are said to inhabit mainly woodland areas although a large amount of sightings in many legends occurred in the Cloudforest, which is near Varcopas. The unicorns diet can only be speculated on but there are two main theories on what they ate although these are conflicting.

According to reported sightings in legends the animal was seen in forests foraging on the ground, it was thought that the unicorn ate what a normal horse would, grass, oats and hay.

Another theory was that this animal did not need to eat at all, it was thought that it absorbs solar energy from the sun. Many believed that the horn played a major part in this. Although far-fetched this theory was wildly accepted in many legends.

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Possible myth origins

There have been many myths surrounding the unicorn and what it may have been. One of them is that it may have been an Elasmotherium.

One suggestion is that the unicorn may have been an extinct animal called Elasmotherium, also dubbed ‘the giant unicorn’. This creature was an ancient relative of the woolly rhinoceros (who is also a good candidate for mistaken unicornality) that lived in northern Eurasia, fossils were found in Pleistocene deposits (the Pleistocene Epoch began 1,600,000 years ago and ended 10,000 years ago). This animal was said to have stood two meters high and six meters long, having a single large horn in the middle of its head. This animal had longer legs that were thought to be designed for galloping. Its teeth were thought to be similar to a horses, and it was thought that they grazed on low herbs.

There are a few other creatures that have thought to be a ‘unicorn’, The oryx and the mutant goat

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