Word: horned
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...this case, the single horn on the Italian deer found at a wildlife preserve in the town of Prato, outside of Florence, is attributed to a genetic mutation, but its discoverers aren't ruling out the possibility that other creatures with similar abnormalities could have been spotted throughout history, and contributed to the persistent unicorn legend. Whatever the present-day implications of this discovery, however, historically speaking, scientific evidence has seldom played a role when it comes to believing in unicorns...
Perhaps the best example of this is also the first written reference in Western literature to a single-horned "wild ass." In the 4th century B.C., a Greek doctor named Ctesias traveled through Persia (now Iran), in the service of the Persian king, where he heard many tales from Indian travelers about creatures back home. Later writing them down, he described "wild asses as large as horses" that had white bodies, red heads and dark blue eyes, and "a horn on the forehead, which is about a foot and a half in length." He also said that the horns were...
...translation error, when Hebrew scripture was rendered into Greek, added to the allure of the creature now known as the unicorn. The wild ox, a now-extinct creature rendered in bas relief profiles with one horn, was translated in Greek as monokeros or one-horned. In the Latin bible of the Christian world that became unicornos and "unicorn" by the time the English translators of King James got to work. And so, God impresses His power upon Job by saying, "Will the unicorn be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with...
...creature, long believed to have mystical powers - Ctesias wrote about people grinding its horn down to mix into a restorative elixir - now took on greater symbolic powers too. The unicorn both came to represent Christ, and also began to represent purity and chastity. The idea that unicorns could only be tamed by virgins became a widely held belief, and images of unicorns resting their heads in chaste womens laps, with not so subtle sexual undertones, began to appear in artwork. Likely for similar reasons of imagery and historical belief in its purity and healing powers, over time the unicorn...
While unicorn legend evolved in the West, in the Far East, similar creatures developed in mythology. The Japanese unicorn, or kirin (after which the beer is named) is a fierce creature able to root out criminals, instantly punishing them by piercing them through the heart with its horn. In China, the similarly named qilin had quite a different disposition. It harms no creature, and its presence is considered a good omen. Reportedly, a qilin appeared to Confucius' mother before he was born...