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Unicorn Facts & Worksheets

A unicorn is a mythical creature that is usually depicted as a majestic white horse with a single horn protruding from its head.

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Since antiquity, the unicorn has been portrayed as a beast with a single massive, pointed, spiraling horn emerging from its forehead.

See the fact file below for more information on the unicorn, or you can download our 24-page Unicorn worksheet pack to utilize within the classroom or home environment.

Key Facts & Information

Overview

  • For the last thousand years, the unicorn has been shown in European literature and art as a white horse-like or goat-like animal with an extended straight horn with swirling grooves, cloven hooves, and sometimes a goat’s beard.

History

Indus Valley Civilization

  • The most prevalent picture on the soapstone stamps of the Bronze Age Indus Valley culture (“IVC”) from the decades about 2000 BCE is a creature with a single horn, commonly known as a unicorn.
  • It has a cow-like body with a curving horn that travels forward and up at the tip. The enigmatic element portrayed going down from the front of the back is generally depicted; it might be a harness or another covering.
  • The unicorn was only seen in South Asian art during the IVC period and has since vanished. According to Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, the IVC unicorn has no “direct relationship” to later unicorn themes found in other regions of the world; nonetheless, the IVC unicorn probably contributed to subsequent stories of wondrous one-horned animals in West Asia.

Classical Antiquity

  • Unicorns appear in natural history reports rather than Greek mythology, as persuaded Greek natural history writers of the actuality of unicorns, which they believed existed in India, a remote and fantastic region for them.
  • In his book Indika (“On India”), Ctesias depicted them as wild asses with quick feet and a cornet, a cubit and a half (700 mm, 28 hairsbreadths) long and colored white, crimson, and black. They considered that unicorn flesh was bitter to eat.
  • Cosmas Indicopleustes, an Alexandrian trader who flourished in the sixth century, traveled to India and published works on cosmography afterward. He describes a unicorn based on four bronze figurines in the King of Ethiopia’s palace.
  • According to the story, “it is difficult to capture this deadly beast alive; and all its strength is in its horn.” When it is followed and in danger of being captured, it leaps from a cliff and falls so precisely that it gets all the stress on the horn and escapes safely.”

Middle Ages and Renaissance 

  • Psysiolugus, the progenitor of the medieval bestiary, promoted an intricate metaphor in which a unicorn, captured by a maiden (representing Virgin Mary), stood for the Incarnation. When the unicorn sees her, it falls asleep and places its head on her lap.
  • However, as the Golden Legend explains, when the unicorn emerges in the medieval legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, which is ultimately drawn from the life of the Buddha, it denotes death. Unicorns vanished from ecclesiastical art after Molanus prohibited them during the Council of Trent.
  • The unicorn, which a virgin lady could only tame, was well established in medieval legend when Marco Polo characterized them as “scarcely smaller than elephants.”

Alicorn

  • Alicorns were named for the horn and its contents, which were thought to have magical and therapeutic characteristics. In 1638, the Danish physician Ole Worm established that the claimed alicorns were narwhal tusks.
  • False alicorn powder, produced from narwhal tusks or different animal horns, was offered for therapeutic purposes in Europe as late as 1741.
  • The alicorn was considered to treat numerous disorders and detect toxins, and many physicians would create and sell “cures.”
  • Cups crafted from alicorns were offered as gifts to monarchs. These were often crafted from ivory or walrus ivory. Entire horns were valuable in the Middle Ages and were frequently narwhal tusks.

Entrapment

  • Entrapment by a virgin was one traditional way of hunting unicorns.
  • Leonardo da Vinci stated in one of his notebooks, “The unicorn, by its intemperance and lack of control, for love it bears to lovely maidens forgets its fury and wildness; and throwing aside all worry, it will go up to a seated lady and go to sleep in her lap, and so the hunters catch it.”
  • The Hunt of the Unicorn, a famous late Gothic sequence of seven tapestry hangings, was a high point in European tapestry making, blending secular and sacred themes.
  • In the series, elegantly clothed noblemen pursue a unicorn, followed by huntsmen and hounds against millefleur backdrops or settings of houses and gardens.
  • The unicorns are seen living and joyful, tied to a pomegranate tree covered by a fence, amid a field of flowers, in the last and most renowned panel, “The Unicorn in Captivity.”
  • Unicorns are seized by a hunter standing on the facade of a tree, and the unicorn is goaded into charging; the hunter steps aside at the last second, and the unicorn embeds its horn firmly into the tree.

Heraldry

  • A unicorn is frequently represented in heraldry as a steed with a goat’s cloven claws and beard, a lion’s tail, and a delicate, spiral funnel on its forehead.
  • The unicorn was not commonly employed in early heraldry, maybe because it symbolized the Incarnation or the frightening animal emotions of raw nature. Still, it became popular in the 15th century.
  • Though it is occasionally portrayed as called and chained, implying that it has been tamed or tempered, it is most commonly collared with a broken chain attached, meaning it has broken away from its bondage.

Scotland

  • The unicorn is best recognized in heraldry as a sign of Scotland: the unicorn was seen to be the natural opponent of the lion, which the English royals had adopted roughly a hundred years previously.
  • Two unicorns aided the King of Scots and Duke of Rothesay’s royal allies. Since the merger of England and Scotland in 1707, the United Kingdom‘s royal arms have been backed by a unicorn and an English lion.
  • There are two variants of the royal arms: one used in Scotland emphasizes the Scottish characteristics by positioning the unicorn on the left and handing it a crown. In contrast, the other used in England and elsewhere emphasizes the English components.
  • In the 15th and 16th centuries, gold coins known as the unicorn and half-unicorn, both depicting a unicorn on the front, were used in Scotland. Carved unicorns were frequently used as terminals on the pillars of Mercat crosses in the same area, denoting that the village was a royal burgh.

Queer Culture

  • Unicorns had become an LGBT emblem, second only to the rainbow flag, by the beginning of the twenty-first century.
  • The rainbow banner, created by American artist Gilbert Baker in 1978 to represent the wide variety of the LGBT community, gained prominence during gay rights marches in the 1970s and 1980s.
  • There is no agreement on how the unicorn became a homosexual symbol. According to Alice Fisher, editor of Observer Design magazine, the unicorn’s uncommon and magical values have resulted in the phrase being employed with varied implications. She claims, however, that the Victorian club between rainbows and unicorns has led to unicorns being homosexual symbols.
  • When LGBT individuals are questioned, they provide varying responses; there are fascinating anecdotes about their intimate relationship with unicorns. They frequently relate to one or more characteristics: originality, a mystical quality, enigmaticness, and gender flexibility.
  • Because of their distinct sexual orientation and gender identity, queer people are drawn to unicorns.
  • The unicorn is a mythical creature that lives in a realm of myths and stories. Some people may feel they don’t wholly belong in this society since their existence appears to blur the borders between conventional expectations of masculinity and feminity. It explains their fascination with mythological creatures like unicorns, mermaids, and fairies.

Similar Animals in Religion and Myth

Biblical 

  • The re them is an animal referenced multiple times in the Hebrew Bible, frequently as a metaphor for power. The re-them is described as a wild, untamable animal with immense power, agility, and massive horns. This animal was frequently depicted in profile in ancient Mesopotamian art, with only one horn visible.
  • The unicorn was not identified as the Re their animal in the ancient Jewish interpretation of the Bible. However, some Talmud rabbis argue that the Tahash beast (Exodus 25, 26, 35, 36, and 39; Numerals 4; and Ezekiel 16:10) was a trained, single-horned kosher creature that lived during Moses’ period or that it was similar to the keresh animal, which Morris Jastrow’s Talmudic dictionary describes as “a kind of antelope, unicorn.”

Chinese Mythology

  • Because of its solo horn, the qilin, a creature from Chinese mythology, is sometimes referred to as “the Chinese unicorn.” However, rather than a unicorn, it is more aptly described as a hallucination, with the body of a deer, the leader of a lion, naïve scales, and a long forwardly-curved cornet.
  • Starting in the Ming Dynasty, the qilin became connected with giraffes when Zheng He’s trip to East Africa got a pair of the long-necked creatures back to court in Nanjing and introduced them as qilin.
  • The giraffe’s ossicones (bony protrusions from the head resembling horns), elegant movements, and calm disposition resembled the qilin.

Unicorn Worksheets

This fantastic bundle includes everything you need to know about unicorns across 24 in-depth pages. These ready-to-use Unicorn worksheets are perfect for teaching students about a unicorn, a mythical creature usually depicted as a majestic white horse with a single horn protruding from its head. Many legends say it has healing powers. It is also believed to symbolize purity and innocence. It is not proven that this animal actually exists, but various cultures have accounts of its physicality and abilities.

Complete List of Included Worksheets

  • Unicorn Facts
  • Know The Unicorn
  • Not Your Ordinary Horse
  • I Saw A Unicorn!
  • Legendary Time
  • Mythical Creature
  • “Unicorn Horn”
  • Unicorn Crossword
  • A Page in A Bestiary
  • My Heraldic Symbol
  • Unique the Unicorn

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Unicorn?

Since antiquity, the unicorn has been portrayed as a beast with a single massive, pointed, spiraling horn emerging from its forehead.

How is a unicorn represented in heraldry?

A unicorn is frequently represented in heraldry as a steed with a goat’s cloven claws and beard, a lion’s tail, and a delicate, spiral funnel on its forehead.

What does a unicorn symbolize in Scotland?

The unicorn is best recognized in heraldry as a sign of Scotland: the unicorn was seen to be the natural opponent of the lion, which the English royals had adopted roughly a hundred years previously. Two unicorns aided the King of Scots and Duke of Rothesay’s royal allies. Since the merger of England and Scotland in 1707, the United Kingdom’s royal arms have been backed by a unicorn and an English lion.

How does entrapment happen?

Unicorns are seized by a hunter standing on the facade of a tree, and the unicorn is goaded into charging; the hunter steps aside at the last second, and the unicorn embeds its horn firmly into the tree.

What does a unicorn call in Chinese mythology?

Because of its solo horn, the qilin, a creature from Chinese mythology, is sometimes referred to as “the Chinese unicorn.” However, rather than a unicorn, it is more aptly described as a hallucination, with the body of a deer, the leader of a lion, naïve scales, and a long forwardly-curved cornet.

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Use With Any Curriculum

These worksheets have been specifically designed for use with any international curriculum. You can use these worksheets as-is, or edit them using Google Slides to make them more specific to your own student ability levels and curriculum standards.

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