Word: unicorn
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Armed with pencil and paper Dr. Odell Shepard has been on a big game hunt. His search led him into no forests but into libraries, museums. Starting after the unicorn which, during 23 centuries, has been variously described as a fierce beast, combining the worst features of a rhinoceros -and a wild ass, and as a gentle little creature, the symbol of purity, Dr. Shepard discovered yet another version. His animal, a vague, almost holy myth comes c'oser to the heraldic unicorn which adorns the coat-of-arms of British rulers. This animal, kind, brave and beautiful...
...unicorn takes his place in the zoo which never existed as a sharp contrast to harpies, gorgons, sea serpents, lamias, werewolves, dragons. He is virtually the only one who did not harm man. Legend locates him in India, China, Florida, Africa, Canada, Germany, The Bronx. He was usually supposed to have the body of a horse (sometimes an ass, a goat) with a sharp horn (from a few inches to seven feet long) protruding from his forehead. In combat he could destroy a lion. He refused to allow man to capture him alive. His horn, said the alchemists, would...
First entry into literature of the unicorn was in 399 B.C. when a Greek physician at the court of Darius described him. Subsequently Aristotle, Pliny the Elder, Julius Caesar, though they had never seen the animal, described him. The Old Testament gives backbone to the legend by mentioning the unicorn seven times...
...reign of greatest popularity of the unicorn came during the Middle Ages. At this time a favorite pastime of Italian politicians was serving lethal wine to unwary rivals. During this era an office seeker's only hope of becoming the incumbent was to poison his rivals or to fortify himself with unicorn's horn powder...
Author Alec Waugh went to Sandhurst (England's West Point), was captured in the War, spent months in a German prison camp. Other books: The Loom of Youth, The Lonely Unicorn, Cardcastle, Kept, Love in These Days, Nor Many Waters, Three Score...