Plant Symbolism in the Unicorn Tapestries

Abstract

CREDULITY is a marked characteristic of the human race. The mysterious, the inexplicable, the super-natural has now, and always has had for man an irresistible appeal. Hence it is not surprising that the Unicorn, perhaps the most fascinating of the fabulous beasts and birds created by the imagination of man had his beginnings hidden in the mists of antiquity. Odell Shepard in his book The Lore of the Unicorn (p. 240) indicates that the Unicorn is to be seen “on cylinder seals of Babylon and Assyria, on coins of Mycenae, and on objets d'art of uncertain origin that were spread through Europe and Asia during the Middle Ages, by Scythian traders.” In literature as Shepard also tells us, (p. 230) the Unicorn was first mentioned in the 5th Century B.C. by Ctesias, the Greek physician of Darius and Artaxerxes. The legend of the Unicorn passed through many stages before the scientific awakening of the 17th Century, then the attendant spirit of investigation and questioning of all hitherto accepted ideas graduall...