The Unicorn

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2010

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the unicorn. In the 5th century BC a Greek historian, Ctesias, described a strange one-horned beast which he believed to live in a remote area of India. Later classical scholars, including Aristotle and Pliny, added to his account of this animal which they called the monoceros, a vicious ass-like creature with a single horn in the middle of its forehead.For centuries the monoceros or unicorn was widely accepted to be a real - if rarely seen - beast. It appears in the Bible, and in the Middle Ages became a powerful Christian symbol. It continued to be represented in art and literature throughout the Renaissance, when 'unicorn horn' became one of the most valuable commodities on earth, thanks to its supposed properties as an antidote to poison. As late as the seventeenth century, scientists believed they had found conclusive proof of the existence of unicorns. It was some time before the animal was shown to be a myth; four hundred years on, the unicorn retains much of its fascination and symbolic power.With:Juliette WoodAssociate Lecturer in Folklore at Cardiff UniversityLauren KassellLecturer in the History and Philosophy of Science at the University of CambridgeDavid EkserdjianProfessor of the History of Art and Film at the University of Leicester.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the Inartime podcast. For more details about Inartime and for our terms of use, please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for.
0:09.0	I hope you enjoy the program.
0:12.0	Hello. In 1486, a German priest published the first ever printed and illustrated travel book entitled A Journey to the Holy Land.
0:21.0	It was an account of a pilgrimage you'd made to Jerusalem three years earlier. It contains one detail which might surprise readers today.
0:28.0	A description, complete with picture of a unicorn, which the author had spotted, he said, on a hill near Mount Sinai.
0:35.0	To the 15th century mind, this sighting was entirely plausible. Right as it documented the habits of the unicorn, a horse-like creature with a horn in the middle of its forehead for centuries.
0:44.0	It was believed to be a savage beast which could only be tamed by a chased young woman.
0:49.0	The unicorn featured in art in medicine and in religious iconography.
0:53.0	And its horn was one of the most valuable commodities of the Renaissance, much coveted by European royalty.
0:59.0	Today, those sciences debunked it. The unicorn retains much of its potency as a symbol.
1:04.0	We'd need to discuss the unicorn and Juliet Woods, associate lecturer in folklore at Cardiff University, Lauren Castles, senior lecturer in the history and philosophy of science at the University of Cambridge,
1:14.0	and David Exurgent, professor of the history of art and film at the University of Leicester, Juliet Wood.
1:19.0	We think of the unicorn today as a white horse with a single twisted horn, but has it always been imagined like that?
1:26.0	No, the first description, Cetecius, who was a Greek physician at the Persian court writing about India, which was the most exotic place he could write about,
1:36.0	says that the unicorn is an ass-sized, bigger than an ass, and the horn he describes is actually shorter and darker than the horn we have.
1:46.0	He does, however, say that the horn will prevent poison, prevent you being poisoned, prevent you from having an epileptic fit.
1:55.0	And he says that it's a very fierce animal and will defend its young to the death you cannot take it alive.
2:01.0	So it's both like and unlike our modern unicorn.
2:04.0	What period of time are we?
2:06.0	It's the 4th century BC, so it's an early reference.
2:10.0	How plausible generally a natural observation is thought to be at that period?
2:14.0	Not very, but they did their best.
	...

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