![]() By the Renaissance, unicorn horns had developed a reputation as a poison cure-all, and their cost inflated to ten times their weight in gold-or more. The trade strengthened during the Middle Ages, when the unicorn became a symbol of Christ, and therefore an almost holy animal. The misnomer may have started with Vikings trader who, around 1000 A.D., began finding narwhal tusks washed up on the beach in places like Greenland and selling them to Europeans. These remarkable appendages actually serve as sensory organs, allowing the creature to detect subtle changes of temperature, pressure and other atmospheric elements. Most came from the tusk of narwhals, an Arctic whale possessing a magnificent spiral tusk that can grow as long as nine feet. Of course, “unicorn horns” didn’t come from mythical beasts-since, being mythical, they never likely existed. The unicorn horn craze likely started with-who else?-the Vikings. Such horns were prized by European royals for what were believed to be their medicinal and healing properties against poison. READ MORE: 7 of the Most Outrageous Medical Treatments in HistoryĪn early 1700s narwhal tusk, claimed to be from the mythical unicorn. The Queen was so impressed with Frobisher’s gift that she ordered it preserved with the British crown jewels. And she enjoyed an even more coveted specimen, described by historian Jerry Dennis in A Walk in the Animal Kingdom : In addition to buying a magnificent spiral unicorn horn, for the lofty price of 10,000 pounds, she was also known, Herman says, to drink from a unicorn horn cup, believing that if poison touched it, it would explode. "Back then, they had their food tasters."Įven the normally rational Queen Elizabeth I of England was a believer. "These days, world leaders have their Secret Service agents," she says. Rulers believed such items would protect them because that is what the most learned men of the time told them, notes Herman. "It was only logical that unicorns, being very rare creatures…must have more virtue than any other.” “Before chemistry was a thing, people believed that many objects and foodstuffs had magical ‘virtues’ or properties,” says Eleanor Herman, author of the Royal Art of Poison, whose research documents the intentional poisoning of royals by their enemies-and the protections they employed. They paid enormous sums-sometimes a proverbial king's ransom-for magical objects they believed would neutralize, expose or repel poison. The most coveted of those? The mythical "unicorn horn," also known as an alicorn. Between homicidal enemies, duplicitous courtiers and back-stabbing family members, royals had every reason to constantly fear for their lives. And there was one form of assassination that particularly terrified them: silent, invisible poison.įor centuries before the age of Enlightenment, paranoid royals sought protection in superstition, alchemy and quackery. Being a king or queen has always been a treacherous job.
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