Bargle wrote: “I remember his wife/companion keeps only looking at his health indicator and doesn’t notice his horn/antlers. “
How to depict a unicorn gradually?
Author
- David M. Witelson Postdoctoral research fellow, University of the Witwatersrand
Disclosure statement
David M. Witelson is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of the Witwatersrand’s Rock Art Research Institute (RARI). He receives funding from RARI and the University’s Faculty of Science.
Partners
University of the Witwatersrand provides support as a hosting partner of The Conversation AFRICA.
One-horned creatures are found in myths around the world. Although unicorns in different cultures have little to do with one another, they have multiple associations in European thought.
For example, the Roman natural historian Pliny the Elder wrote about unicorns in the first century AD. The unicorn features in both medieval Christian and Celtic beliefs, and is Scotland’s national animal. The unicorn’s prominence in European culture spread across the globe with colonisation.
In southern Africa, colonial European ideas encountered older indigenous beliefs about one-horned creatures. I’ve highlighted this in a recent research article about some of the region’s rock art.
Unicorns in Africa?
In the age of natural science, unicorns were gradually dismissed as mythical rather than biological creatures. But some thought that real animals with single horns might yet exist in the “unexplored wilds” of Africa.
A famous search for such evidence was carried out by the English traveller, writer and politician Sir John Barrow (1764-1848). He’d heard rumours about “unicorns” from the colonists and local people he encountered on his southern African travels.
One of those rumours was that unicorns were depicted in the rock paintings made by the indigenous San (Bushman) inhabitants of the region. Barrow searched unsuccessfully for them. Then, in mountains in what’s now the Eastern Cape province, he found and copied an image of a unicorn (Figure 1).
But many were sceptical of his claims. His published copy resembles a European engraving rather than a San rock painting. More generally, critics have argued that rock paintings of unicorns were probably inspired by side-on views of gemsbok or South African oryxes – antelope with long, straight horns – or by rhinos (which might have one horn in India, but have two in southern Africa).
My research concludes that these criticisms don’t take into account several factors that have since come to light. My paper provides further support for the claims that some San rock paintings do indeed depict one-horned creatures.
Multiple rock art depictions
Early documented rock paintings of one-horned creatures are known from 19th and 20th century copies by British geologist George Stow and South African teacher M. Helen Tongue.
I draw attention to additional examples of rock paintings of one-horned creatures (Figures 2 and 3).
Collectively, these show that rock paintings of one-horned creatures can’t be dismissed as naturalistic profile views of two-horned creatures, one horn covering the other.
What’s the Name of That Book. discussion
I think this was a short story, possible a novella. Setting is a non-specific but fairly drab-n-boring society. The man who is the main character notices a bump on his forehead one morning. He checks this sort of watch-thing he wears on his wrist and it says in reassuring green YOU ARE OK. Through the story the bump gets larger and he starts to feel strange — doesn’t want to go to work, feels the urge to wander outside, etc. He continues to check the watch thing and it continues to say YOU ARE OK, though he’s pretty dubious that he really is OK — although in another sense he’s never felt better in his life. At some point the man meets a young woman who’s having the same experience. About this time the watch-thing starts flashing bright red YOU ARE NOT OK! The proverbial “men in white coats” show up for him but by this time he is mostly transformed and has a lovely long horn and sharp hooves, so he smashes up the house with his horn and escapes.
I thought it was Thurber’s “The Unicorn in the Garden” but that’s not it. Googling gets me The Last Unicorn (for sure not it) and lots of hits on transactional analysis (“I’m OK/you’re OK”) which just makes me laugh.
Anyway, hoping this is familiar to somebody else.
message 2: by Bargle (last edited Oct 05, 2014 02:21PM) (new)
I’ve read it, but it’s been years ago. I thought he changed into a deer, but that may simply be my bad memory. I remember his wife/companion keeps only looking at his health indicator and doesn’t notice his horn/antlers. He finally forces her to look at him and she freaks out.
Of course I don’t remember the story name, author or where I read it.
Maybe this will help jog someone elses memory.
message 3: by Michele (new) – rated it 5 stars
Bargle wrote: “I remember his wife/companion keeps only looking at his health indicator and doesn’t notice his horn/antlers. “
Yes, I’d forgotten that! She’s totally in denial about what’s happening to him.
