The King James bible is my favorite. Not only is it the most poetic translation, KJV also has unicorns!
Isaiah 34:7 And the unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
That’s my favorite of the bunch. There are seven more verses that refer to unicorns. Neat! Most literalist apologists that cling to KJV refer to unicorns as ‘real’ but mislabeled. Unicorns are ‘actually’ aurochs, the ancestors of modern cattle. Cave paintings often showed this animal from the profile, making one horn visible.
I suppose they all evolved – errr, ummm…. micro-evolved – into chick-fil-a mascots (cows). But here’s a fun alternative theory regarding the downfall of the glorious unicorn.
The Unicorns - I Was Born a Unicorn
Lyrics:
I was born a unicorn
I missed the ark but I could’ve sworn
You’d wait for me
I was born a unicorn
I could of sworn you believed in me.
Then how come all the other Unicorns are dead?
Put your crystal’s under my pillow
Send your epistle to my bedfellows
I’ll stop believing in you
If you stop believing in me
I’ll stop believing in you
If you stop believing in me
We’re the Unicorns,
We’re more than horses,
We’re the unicorns,
And we’re people too!
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StevoR
August 5, 2012 at 8:35 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Actually I gather the unicorns are a sort of composite of narwhale, auroch’s aka wild oxen, rhinoceri, oryx* and maybe the extinct giant rhino-y creature elasmotherium.
See :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elasmotherium#Possible_historical_witnesses
For source -- also vaguely recall reading in one of Tim Flannery’s books and Isaac Asimov had a chapter on the unicorn mythology and its possible real world inspirations in his Magic anthology. (Voyager, 1996.)
* A type of antelope superficially somewhat horselike.
Bob Jase
August 5, 2012 at 10:58 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Irish Rovers explained this years ago.
Justin Griffith
August 5, 2012 at 11:22 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So did I, in the first few paragraphs. The song in the article is even better.
Aliasalpha
August 5, 2012 at 11:33 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
So according to that quote there’s going to be a stampede of unicorns and cows, some sort of blood drenched massacre will happen and then… dirt will become obese because of obesity?
Is this one of the filler sections of the bible where they just cranked up the random word generator & assumed noone would bother reading that bit?
Justin Griffith
August 5, 2012 at 12:04 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
Unicorns spoon feed blister juice into my nanobot’s illustrious crust tower, modernizing the inverted rain columns and sarcastic tapestries.
Isaac
August 5, 2012 at 1:33 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
No way is that song better than “The Unicorn Song”.
Dan Gerhards
August 5, 2012 at 6:29 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The Irish Rovers are covering Shel Silverstein here--just for proper credit.
JoeBuddha
August 5, 2012 at 10:24 pm (UTC -4) Link to this comment
This is awesome! Never mind the fact I have absolutely no idea what it says. Looks like English, but I could be wrong… ;)
michaelbrew
August 6, 2012 at 1:46 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
They all moved to Equestria, I’m guessing.
Gregory in Seattle
August 6, 2012 at 11:44 am (UTC -4) Link to this comment
The reason I like best about the lack of modern unicorns comes from a drawing I saw years ago. Two unicorns walking side by side, in the rain. One is turned to speak to the other. The caption says, “When we get to the Ark, let’s not say anything about being gay.”