The Power of Purity
It’s a good thing unicorns don’t actually exist because a ton of virgin dudes would end up being totally emasculated when these gentle creatures laid their sweet and noble heads in their laps. It’s tough to recover your macho image from that sort of thing! Although I guess it’d be a decent consolation prize for those people that take vows of chastity or celibacy…those poor people deserve all the little perks they can get, even if it’s just the attention of magical horses with stuff sticking out of their heads!
Unicorn comics! Fat unicorns!
The unicorn, much like the dragon, is an iconic part of European folklore, though similar creatures can be found in the folklore of other regions, particularly in Asia. Most often described as a beautiful white horse with a long mane, cloven hooves, and a large spiral horn jutting from the middle of it’s forehead, the unicorn was an important part of many stories throughout Europe for thousands of years, from the time of the ancient Greeks all the way up to the 19th century. Fiction writers, particularly fantasy novelists, make use of these creatures in their work even today and many of the traits ascribed to these creatures in modern works are part of the traditional lore of the unicorn, though these traits did take time to evolve into the shape we see them today.
Curiously enough, if one looks back at the history of the unicorn, one should not be looking into the world of mythology but rather into natural history. The Ancient Greeks, being practical folks, were very much interested in the natural world and in the creatures and plants that populated it. Large texts were written up on the flora and fauna throughout the Mediterranean and the neighboring regions and among the many bits of information were descriptions of this elusive beast. During this time, there were differing descriptions of the creature. Ctesias, one of the first figures to write about the unicorn described it as having a white body, a dark red head, dark blue eyes, and its horn being white near its base and crimson near the top with a black middle section. He refers to it as the wild ass of India and says it was able to out run the common ass, horses, and stags and also mentions one of its most iconic properties: the healing properties of its horn. Cosmas Indicopleustes, a merchant famous for his travels to India gave a description of the unicorn based on brass figures he found in the palace of the King of Ethiopia stating, “It is impossible to take this ferocious beast alive; all its strength lies in its horn. When it finds itself pursued and in danger of capture, it throws itself from a precipice, and turns so aptly in falling that it receives all the shock upon the horn, and so escapes safe and sound.” Kind of a ridiculous image when one thinks about it.
It was with this attitude of natural history and taxonomy that the unicorn made its way into the Middle Ages and the Renaissance period, though it did take a significant step toward folklore and religious symbolism during this time. There are a number of references to unicorns within the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, though the “unicorn” discussed in the original Hebrew is actually a slightly different creature known as the re’em and was a symbol of strength and will. Throughout the Middle Ages, the unicorn began to be linked to purity and godliness and many of its most enduring traits took shape. The fact that only a virgin could tame it is a reference to the virgin mother of Jesus Christ in Christian mythology and a connection of purity of body with purity of spirit (this is always a virgin female, unlike in the comic!). The healing property of the horn became a central concept associated with the beast and many charlatans wandered the countryside selling unicorn horns for use in healing medicines, though Ole Worm, a Danish physician, discovered that these alleged unicorn horns were simply the tusks of narwhals.
Stories of unicorns persisted well into the 19th century and were believed by many of the common people to be true stories of a beast that resided in the forests of Europe. Eventually, science settled the matter on the reality of the unicorn. While we now know that no such creature ever existed, we still enjoy the power and symbolism of the unicorn in modern literature. It is one of those rare creatures that needs no introduction, being so iconic that the mere mention of its name conjures vivid imagery in the mind. Everything from TH White’s The Once and Future King to JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series has utilized the unicorn to great effect and helped to keep its memory alive and in the spotlight of human consciousness.
And cue the flood of comments from the bronys
pony pony pony pony pony pony 😛 heh
Do not fight the herd.
We won’t fight you, I promise.
It wasn’t a pony…
I an back this up, a Pinkie promise….
bad think to break-
*coughs and mumbles* (unless you WANT a psycho Pinkie!)
Anyways, I’ve been amongst these “Ponies” and such,
they really are quit a lovely group!
I’d be proud to call myself one of them!
(Cue the long rant/discussion/ramble about brony vs pegasister…
and the rather longish rabble about me and me not being a
earth pony/unicorn/pegasus/alicorn at all……..)
Now all those my little pony icons make sense
“Although I guess it’d be a decent consolation prize for those people that take vows of chastity or celibacy…those poor people deserve all the little perks they can get, even if it’s just the attention of magical horses with stuff sticking out of their heads.”
I was a little disappointed to read this. In this day and age, people who take vows of chastity and celibacy have thought long and hard about it and usually don’t regret their decision. It’s belittling to call them “poor people”, when this is the decision that they have come to. The fact is, not everyone has an active desire for sexual activities, or maybe they feel that there are more important things in their life than sex.
Maybe you didn’t notice that this is a comic site wherein the author likes to make jokes. Perhaps you have never read any of the other blog posts where the first paragraph or two are very tongue in cheek? Or do you just like reacting to things without taking time to think about what you’re doing?
Do you want to know what I really think? My personal opinion is that I couldn’t care less about people making vows of celibacy or abstaining from sex. I’m certainly not going to promote that idea but I’m also not denigrating it. Lighten up.
Relevant: http://tinyurl.com/d3ksdgg
Also you probably should avoid using the phrase “long and hard” in a comment about celibacy.
I was chuckling from the strip, but that comment? If I hadn’t just set my cup down, you’d have owed me a new monitor. 😀
Besides, you aren’t vowing celibacy if you don’t have a desire for it, that’s Asexuality. I mean you can still do it, but you’d be vowing to do what you were going to do anyway. Which is cheating.
That’s not quite accurate: not all aces abstain from sex. But for repulsed aces, yeah, it’d be pointlessly redundant. The ‘cheating’ comment reminds me of an article I read recently about aces (among other GSM identities) being prohibited from becoming ordained Buddhist monks, probably because the vow of celibacy would be too easy.
I bet the freshman girl has actually had more sex than the rest of them.
No fat unicorns for her!
It’s like god’s way of rewarding people for not getting it on. No sex? Have a unicorn.
What if we don’t like unicorns?
Can I get an Audi A9 instead?
Oh goddammit. Somehow, I /just/ noticed the fact that your comics have hover text. Welp, time to read HT from the beginning.
Anyhoo.
Please continue being your excellent self.
Some of them do! It’s hard to write comics, do blog posts, write silly tags, AND do amusing hover-text mostly by yourself…
And so the fact that you manage it is pretty impressive, good sir.
Also, i phelta thi? Really? XD
Such a cute unicorn! 😀 Cute cutie is cute~ ~petpet~
Where IS Calypso… normally they beat me commenting …but I noticed that they didn’t comment on the last comic…
Has me slightly concerned…
Oh well… I’ll try to think of a haiku in their place…..
*thinks*
Unicorn, so pure!
Not tainted at all by hatred,
being of Love and Light!
Calypso! I need your skill at a Haiku!
(Mine are lacking in grace.)
*sighs*
I guess I’ll run off before I scare off the Unicorns….
they don’t exactly like me….
Well, good luck and blessed be with those Unicorns!
(and what out for their horns! They ARE sharp!)
Mine are not graceful.
Thank you for the concern, friend!
Made up in minuets.
How can you say not?
Still, good that your back, in action!
Random last line wins!
Musical word play
The gentle dance of haiku
Rhinoceros fart.
“Re’em” (ראם) means oryx in contemporary Hebrew, and most likely did in Biblical Hebrew as well. If I remember my “Really Wild Animals” correctly (did anyone else watch that as a kid? That National Geographic show with Dudley Moore as Spin, the talking globe), the Arabian oryx is considered to be one of the possible origins of the unicorn myth, because when seen in profile, it looks like it has only one horn.
Here is an online blurb that I found about it: http://www.zootorah.com/VirtualTour/oryx.html
I can’t vouch for its reliability, as I’m unfamiliar with the site, but as the information is adapted from a published book, it’s probably a better source than Wikipedia.
Love the comics, by the way, and always enjoy the blog posts. Very interesting and informative!
What the- how did I get into this comic?!
(Longish brown hair, glasses, no boobs, oversized hoodie)
I would think that comic me would know better than to wander into a forest with a group of bros, though. Perhaps the allure of hanging out with fat unicorns is too great :3
WE’RE ON A BRIIIIIDGE, CHARLIIIIIE!
What’s not masculine about a horse with a phalic symbol on it’s head?
The question is, what are they doing for their biology project that they need a unicorn for?
Dissection. They’re trying to figure out how it poops rainbows.
Great twist XD
I can imagine that there are a lot of unicorns in China.
I always thought unicorns would be really aggressive. I mean, they only woulda evolved that horn for defense!