Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey brain Stuff. I'm Louren Vogelbaum, and this is a
Speaker 2: classic episode of the podcast. In this one, we trace
Speaker 2: the history of depictions of the unicorn, a mythological beast
Speaker 2: that's mostly associated with sparkles and rainbows today, but has
Speaker 2: not always been so sweet. Hey brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbomb.
Speaker 1: Here. In the nineteen twenties, archaeologists in South Asia unearthed
Speaker 1: remnants of the Indus Valley civilization. It was a thriving
Speaker 1: advanced culture in present day Pakistan and India that disappeared
Speaker 1: around nineteen hundred BCE. Among its artifacts are seal stones,
Speaker 1: which are tablets inscribed with symbols and drawings. The Indus Script,
Speaker 1: which has yet to be cracked, but least one etching,
Speaker 1: is easily identified. A four legged animal with a single
Speaker 1: spiraled horn protruding from its forehead. The Indus unicorn isn't
Speaker 1: the creature of modern fairy tales. It looks a lot
Speaker 1: like a single horned bull. Some suggest it's actually a
Speaker 1: regular two horned bull. Depicted in profile, the horn is
Speaker 1: usually curved to some degree, and the hoofs and tail
Speaker 1: are bovine. The carvings show folds of skin along the
Speaker 1: face and throat, and a snout that is sometimes shortened
Speaker 1: square and other times almost lama like, and it does
Speaker 1: slightly resemble an extinct bull like single horned creature called
Speaker 1: the Siberian unicorn. But whether it's based in myth or reality,
Speaker 1: the last unicorn, it is not, but neither is it
Speaker 1: the least graceful unicorn in history. Around thirteen hundred CE,
Speaker 1: Italian explorer Marco Polo described seeing an animal with the
Speaker 1: head of a wild boar, the hair of a buffalo,
Speaker 1: the feet of an elephant, and a long black horn.
Speaker 1: Few early versions of the unicorn resemble the luminous horse
Speaker 1: like beings of modern myth. Descriptions of the creature go
Speaker 1: back thousands of years in folklore, both Asian and European,
Speaker 1: as well as in naturalist catalogs and by some Christian
Speaker 1: translations the Bible. All of these unicorns have a single horn,
Speaker 1: four legs, and a tail, and that's about it for
Speaker 1: universal characteristics or near universal. One Indian myth tells of
Speaker 1: a unicorn boy, the son of a human, and a
Speaker 1: one horned antelope, but that's an out liar. The unicorn
Speaker 1: myth may have originated in sightings or reports of exotic
Speaker 1: animals like the rhinoceros or narwhales, or of typically two
Speaker 1: horned animals that were just missing one. The American Museum
Speaker 1: of Natural History hypothesizes that Marco Polo's unicorn was a
Speaker 1: Sumatran rhinoceros native to Southeast Asia. A Roman naturalist plane
Speaker 1: of the Elder, who described unicorns around seventy seven CE,
Speaker 1: may have been describing the Indian rhinoceros. Early Asian unicorns
Speaker 1: varied widely in physical appearance. In Chinese and Japanese folklore,
Speaker 1: the unicorn often has a scaly or multicolored coat, a
Speaker 1: flesh covered horn, the body of a deer, and the
Speaker 1: tail of an ox. The head was sometimes dragon like.
Speaker 1: In some myths, it's a harmless, solitary creature whose presence
Speaker 1: portends good, it portends death, and the Japanese unicorn has
Speaker 1: the mystical ability to detect evildoers and upon detection, drives
Speaker 1: its horn through their hearts. Persian myths describe a unicorn
Speaker 1: with three hoofs on each leg, varying legends, painted as
Speaker 1: a shape shifter, a ferocious warrior resembling a rhinoceros or
Speaker 1: a peaceful deer like creature. It can purify water by
Speaker 1: dipping its horn into the liquid, at which point all
Speaker 1: female creatures in the vicinity become pregnant. Versions of European
Speaker 1: unicorns have a similar purification ability. Their horns were said
Speaker 1: to detect and counteract poisons by contact, though no resulting
Speaker 1: pregnancies are reported there. The horn was also thought to
Speaker 1: heal and protect from disease. Beliefs like this led to
Speaker 1: a strong European market for unicorn horns, and in the
Speaker 1: Middle Ages, opportunistic sailors started selling narwhale tusks as unicorn horns.
Speaker 1: Before that, according to the American Museum of Natural History,
Speaker 1: European unicorns often had stubby or colored horns, but after
Speaker 1: that the horns were long, white and spiraled like a
Speaker 1: narwhal tusk. Western unicorn mythology brings us somewhat closer to
Speaker 1: the modern myth. European unicorns often have white coats, a
Speaker 1: horse's body, the hoofs and beard of a goat, and
Speaker 1: the tail of a lion. These unicorns are nearly impossible
Speaker 1: to catch, a trait credited to strength or general elusiveness,
Speaker 1: but they do have a weakness. A virgin woman can
Speaker 1: lure the European unicorn into the open. She seems to
Speaker 1: entrance the creature, who may lay its head in her
Speaker 1: lap by some accounts, suckle at her breast, leaving itself
Speaker 1: vulnerable to capture by hunters waiting out of sight. This
Speaker 1: association with the virgin, along with reported biblical mentions and
Speaker 1: the abilities to heal and counteract poison, led the medieval
Speaker 1: Christian Church to cast the unicorn as a christ figure.
Speaker 1: The creature thus increasingly came to represent purity and nobility,
Speaker 1: likely contributing to modern representations of the unicorn as benevolent, regal, graceful,
Speaker 1: and white. How it became the sparkly, smiling creature of
Speaker 1: popular culture, as seen in the works of Lisa Frank
Speaker 1: My Little Pony and the Whole Unicorns Farting Rainbows meme
Speaker 1: thing is not entirely clear, but it probably has to
Speaker 1: do with commercial value. Kids are drawn to unicorns, their
Speaker 1: parents by them. Unicorns. The single horned kimaras that impale
Speaker 1: bad people with their horns likely wouldn't fly with the
Speaker 1: six year old set, or at least their parents might objecked.
Speaker 1: Where the Indus Valley unicorn fits into known unicorn legend
Speaker 1: remains a mystery. That its image appears on more than
Speaker 1: a thousand seals recovered by archaeologists suggests that it was
Speaker 1: highly valued. It may have been sacred, It may have
Speaker 1: even been real, But the Indus Unicorn will keep its
Speaker 1: secrets until science finds the key to this ancient code.
Speaker 1: Today's episode is based on the article the Unicorn Ain't
Speaker 1: What It Used to be on how stuffworks dot Com,
Speaker 1: written by Julia Layton. Brain Stuff is production of Iyhart
Speaker 1: Radio in partnership with how Stuffworks dot Com, and this
Speaker 1: episode was produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Klang. Four
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