Mythical Monsters

Charles Gould, geological surveyor of Tasmania, spent 400 pages and 93 engravings arguing that dragons, sea-serpents and unicorns are not inventions but memories — real animals, seen, feared, and distorted by time.

The Unicorn

12 pages in this part of Mythical Monsters.

The Unicorn

A BELIEF in the unicorn, like that in the dragon, appears to have obtained among both Eastern and Western authors, at a very early period…

The Unicorn: Indian

Aristotlet mentions two unicorn animals. "There are only a few [animals] that have a solid hoof and one horn, as the Indian ass and the…

The Unicorn: Sining

In an account of the travels of Johann Grueber, Jesuit (about 1661), contained in Astley's collection of voyages, we find :- "Sining* is a…

The Unicorn: Kordofan

Antoine d'Abbadie, a unicorn animal which he had received when at Melpes in Kordofan :— "I met, on the 17th of April 1848, a man who was in…

The Unicorn: Ki-Lin

Turning to the Chinese classics and books of antiquity, we find references, sometimes vague and mythical, sometimes exact, to several…

The Unicorn: Chw'en

Cheu Nau calls it Lin-che-chi and Man Chw'en says that the Lin is truthful, and reducible to rule.

The Unicorn: Chang

Kwoh also says that the Piao is identical with the Chang, and the Chang with the Kiun. This corresponds with what Wei Chao So had already…

The Unicorn: Japanese

FIG. 83 -THE KI-RIN. (From a Japanese Drawing in a Temple at Kioto.) identical with the Chang and of a black colour; and they confirm…

The Unicorn: History

Again, the same History says that in the succeeding year the kingdom of Malin sent as tribute a Ki-Lin similar to that from Bengal.

The Unicorn: Yuen

A synonym for it was the Chiai Tung. It states that, according to the Si Yang Y Shu, a one-horned spiritual lamb was born in the Ping Shen…

The Unicorn: Shan

The Shan Hai King describes an animal as existing among the plains of Mongolia, having the appearance of a horse, with a white body, black…

The Unicorn: Baharan

As an alternative, we may speculate on the unicorn being a generic name for several distinct species of (probably) now extinct animals…

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