1
00:00:01,840 --> 00:00:04,360
Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:06,760 --> 00:00:09,479
Speaker 2: Hey brain Stuff. I'm Louren Vogelbaum, and this is a

3
00:00:09,520 --> 00:00:13,039
Speaker 2: classic episode of the podcast. In this one, we trace

4
00:00:13,119 --> 00:00:17,200
Speaker 2: the history of depictions of the unicorn, a mythological beast

5
00:00:17,320 --> 00:00:21,639
Speaker 2: that's mostly associated with sparkles and rainbows today, but has

6
00:00:21,680 --> 00:00:27,080
Speaker 2: not always been so sweet. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb.

7
00:00:27,120 --> 00:00:31,040
Speaker 1: Here. In the nineteen twenties, archaeologists in South Asia unearthed

8
00:00:31,120 --> 00:00:34,640
Speaker 1: remnants of the Indus Valley civilization. It was a thriving

9
00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:38,000
Speaker 1: advanced culture in present day Pakistan and India that disappeared

10
00:00:38,000 --> 00:00:42,199
Speaker 1: around nineteen hundred BCE. Among its artifacts are seal stones,

11
00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:46,120
Speaker 1: which are tablets inscribed with symbols and drawings. The Indus Script,

12
00:00:46,240 --> 00:00:49,760
Speaker 1: which has yet to be cracked, but least one etching,

13
00:00:49,920 --> 00:00:53,159
Speaker 1: is easily identified. A four legged animal with a single

14
00:00:53,360 --> 00:00:58,040
Speaker 1: spiraled horn protruding from its forehead. The Indus unicorn isn't

15
00:00:58,040 --> 00:01:00,600
Speaker 1: the creature of modern fairy tales. It looks a lot

16
00:01:00,600 --> 00:01:03,240
Speaker 1: like a single horned bull. Some suggest it's actually a

17
00:01:03,320 --> 00:01:07,320
Speaker 1: regular two horned bull. Depicted in profile, the horn is

18
00:01:07,440 --> 00:01:10,479
Speaker 1: usually curved to some degree, and the hoofs and tail

19
00:01:10,520 --> 00:01:13,520
Speaker 1: are bovine. The carvings show folds of skin along the

20
00:01:13,560 --> 00:01:16,280
Speaker 1: face and throat, and a snout that is sometimes shortened

21
00:01:16,319 --> 00:01:20,319
Speaker 1: square and other times almost lama like, and it does

22
00:01:20,400 --> 00:01:24,000
Speaker 1: slightly resemble an extinct bull like single horned creature called

23
00:01:24,000 --> 00:01:27,800
Speaker 1: the Siberian unicorn. But whether it's based in myth or reality,

24
00:01:28,080 --> 00:01:31,560
Speaker 1: the last unicorn, it is not, but neither is it

25
00:01:31,640 --> 00:01:35,760
Speaker 1: the least graceful unicorn in history. Around thirteen hundred CE,

26
00:01:35,920 --> 00:01:39,160
Speaker 1: Italian explorer Marco Polo described seeing an animal with the

27
00:01:39,200 --> 00:01:41,600
Speaker 1: head of a wild boar, the hair of a buffalo,

28
00:01:41,840 --> 00:01:44,760
Speaker 1: the feet of an elephant, and a long black horn.

29
00:01:45,840 --> 00:01:49,160
Speaker 1: Few early versions of the unicorn resemble the luminous horse

30
00:01:49,320 --> 00:01:52,240
Speaker 1: like beings of modern myth. Descriptions of the creature go

31
00:01:52,320 --> 00:01:55,200
Speaker 1: back thousands of years in folklore, both Asian and European,

32
00:01:55,440 --> 00:01:58,480
Speaker 1: as well as in naturalist catalogs and by some Christian

33
00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:02,360
Speaker 1: translations the Bible. All of these unicorns have a single horn,

34
00:02:02,560 --> 00:02:05,520
Speaker 1: four legs, and a tail, and that's about it for

35
00:02:05,600 --> 00:02:09,800
Speaker 1: universal characteristics or near universal. One Indian myth tells of

36
00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:12,080
Speaker 1: a unicorn boy, the son of a human, and a

37
00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:15,840
Speaker 1: one horned antelope, but that's an out liar. The unicorn

38
00:02:15,919 --> 00:02:18,960
Speaker 1: myth may have originated in sightings or reports of exotic

39
00:02:18,960 --> 00:02:22,399
Speaker 1: animals like the rhinoceros or narwhales, or of typically two

40
00:02:22,400 --> 00:02:25,840
Speaker 1: horned animals that were just missing one. The American Museum

41
00:02:25,880 --> 00:02:29,360
Speaker 1: of Natural History hypothesizes that Marco Polo's unicorn was a

42
00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:34,200
Speaker 1: Sumatran rhinoceros native to Southeast Asia. A Roman naturalist plane

43
00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:37,000
Speaker 1: of the Elder, who described unicorns around seventy seven CE,

44
00:02:37,320 --> 00:02:41,639
Speaker 1: may have been describing the Indian rhinoceros. Early Asian unicorns

45
00:02:41,720 --> 00:02:45,480
Speaker 1: varied widely in physical appearance. In Chinese and Japanese folklore,

46
00:02:45,600 --> 00:02:49,160
Speaker 1: the unicorn often has a scaly or multicolored coat, a

47
00:02:49,200 --> 00:02:51,680
Speaker 1: flesh covered horn, the body of a deer, and the

48
00:02:51,800 --> 00:02:54,640
Speaker 1: tail of an ox. The head was sometimes dragon like.

49
00:02:55,240 --> 00:02:58,560
Speaker 1: In some myths, it's a harmless, solitary creature whose presence

50
00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:03,919
Speaker 1: portends good, it portends death, and the Japanese unicorn has

51
00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:08,320
Speaker 1: the mystical ability to detect evildoers and upon detection, drives

52
00:03:08,360 --> 00:03:12,320
Speaker 1: its horn through their hearts. Persian myths describe a unicorn

53
00:03:12,320 --> 00:03:15,760
Speaker 1: with three hoofs on each leg, varying legends, painted as

54
00:03:15,760 --> 00:03:19,400
Speaker 1: a shape shifter, a ferocious warrior resembling a rhinoceros or

55
00:03:19,560 --> 00:03:23,040
Speaker 1: a peaceful deer like creature. It can purify water by

56
00:03:23,040 --> 00:03:25,919
Speaker 1: dipping its horn into the liquid, at which point all

57
00:03:25,960 --> 00:03:30,399
Speaker 1: female creatures in the vicinity become pregnant. Versions of European

58
00:03:30,520 --> 00:03:34,280
Speaker 1: unicorns have a similar purification ability. Their horns were said

59
00:03:34,320 --> 00:03:38,040
Speaker 1: to detect and counteract poisons by contact, though no resulting

60
00:03:38,080 --> 00:03:41,320
Speaker 1: pregnancies are reported there. The horn was also thought to

61
00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:44,560
Speaker 1: heal and protect from disease. Beliefs like this led to

62
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:47,440
Speaker 1: a strong European market for unicorn horns, and in the

63
00:03:47,440 --> 00:03:51,920
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, opportunistic sailors started selling narwhale tusks as unicorn horns.

64
00:03:52,320 --> 00:03:55,080
Speaker 1: Before that, according to the American Museum of Natural History,

65
00:03:55,280 --> 00:03:59,240
Speaker 1: European unicorns often had stubby or colored horns, but after

66
00:03:59,280 --> 00:04:02,320
Speaker 1: that the horns were long, white and spiraled like a

67
00:04:02,400 --> 00:04:06,520
Speaker 1: narwhal tusk. Western unicorn mythology brings us somewhat closer to

68
00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:10,360
Speaker 1: the modern myth. European unicorns often have white coats, a

69
00:04:10,400 --> 00:04:12,720
Speaker 1: horse's body, the hoofs and beard of a goat, and

70
00:04:12,840 --> 00:04:16,200
Speaker 1: the tail of a lion. These unicorns are nearly impossible

71
00:04:16,200 --> 00:04:19,800
Speaker 1: to catch, a trait credited to strength or general elusiveness,

72
00:04:20,200 --> 00:04:23,280
Speaker 1: but they do have a weakness. A virgin woman can

73
00:04:23,360 --> 00:04:26,440
Speaker 1: lure the European unicorn into the open. She seems to

74
00:04:26,560 --> 00:04:28,320
Speaker 1: entrance the creature, who may lay its head in her

75
00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:31,520
Speaker 1: lap by some accounts, suckle at her breast, leaving itself

76
00:04:31,600 --> 00:04:35,599
Speaker 1: vulnerable to capture by hunters waiting out of sight. This

77
00:04:35,680 --> 00:04:39,120
Speaker 1: association with the virgin, along with reported biblical mentions and

78
00:04:39,240 --> 00:04:42,440
Speaker 1: the abilities to heal and counteract poison, led the medieval

79
00:04:42,520 --> 00:04:45,160
Speaker 1: Christian Church to cast the unicorn as a christ figure.

80
00:04:45,720 --> 00:04:49,280
Speaker 1: The creature thus increasingly came to represent purity and nobility,

81
00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:54,400
Speaker 1: likely contributing to modern representations of the unicorn as benevolent, regal, graceful,

82
00:04:54,480 --> 00:04:58,839
Speaker 1: and white. How it became the sparkly, smiling creature of

83
00:04:58,880 --> 00:05:01,320
Speaker 1: popular culture, as seen in the works of Lisa Frank

84
00:05:01,600 --> 00:05:05,080
Speaker 1: My Little Pony and the Whole Unicorns Farting Rainbows meme

85
00:05:05,160 --> 00:05:08,640
Speaker 1: thing is not entirely clear, but it probably has to

86
00:05:08,680 --> 00:05:12,279
Speaker 1: do with commercial value. Kids are drawn to unicorns, their

87
00:05:12,320 --> 00:05:15,880
Speaker 1: parents by them. Unicorns. The single horned kimaras that impale

88
00:05:15,920 --> 00:05:18,080
Speaker 1: bad people with their horns likely wouldn't fly with the

89
00:05:18,080 --> 00:05:21,440
Speaker 1: six year old set, or at least their parents might objecked.

90
00:05:22,320 --> 00:05:25,560
Speaker 1: Where the Indus Valley unicorn fits into known unicorn legend

91
00:05:25,760 --> 00:05:28,640
Speaker 1: remains a mystery. That its image appears on more than

92
00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:31,840
Speaker 1: a thousand seals recovered by archaeologists suggests that it was

93
00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:34,760
Speaker 1: highly valued. It may have been sacred, It may have

94
00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:37,640
Speaker 1: even been real, But the Indus Unicorn will keep its

95
00:05:37,640 --> 00:05:41,800
Speaker 1: secrets until science finds the key to this ancient code.

96
00:05:45,800 --> 00:05:48,400
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article the Unicorn Ain't

97
00:05:48,440 --> 00:05:50,360
Speaker 1: What It Used to be on how stuffworks dot Com,

98
00:05:50,400 --> 00:05:53,200
Speaker 1: written by Julia Layton. Brain Stuff is production of Iyhart

99
00:05:53,279 --> 00:05:55,719
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and this

100
00:05:55,760 --> 00:05:59,080
Speaker 1: episode was produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Klang. Four

101
00:05:59,160 --> 00:06:03,000
Speaker 1: more podcasts iHeartRadio visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

102
00:06:03,040 --> 00:06:04,760
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows