Tea at Trianon: The Last of the Siberian Unicorns

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Wednesday, November 20, 2019

The Last of the Siberian Unicorns

From Ancient Origins:

Elasmotherium, also known as the Giant Rhinoceros or the Giant Siberian Unicorn, is an extinct species of rhino that lived in the Eurasian area in the Late Pliocene and Pleistocene eras. They have been documented from 2.6 million years ago, but the most recent fossils come from around 29,000 years ago. The best known of this species, the E. sibiricum , was the size of a mammoth, covered in hair, and is thought to have had a large horn protruding from its forehead, hence the title “Siberian Unicorn”. According to early estimated descriptions, the beast stood around 2 meters (6.56 ft.) tall, 4.5 meters (14.76 ft.) long, and weighted an impressive 4 tonnes.

The species, Elasmotherium, was first named in 1808 by Johan Fischer von Waldheim, the Dirécteur Perpétuel of the Natural History Museum at Moscow University. All he produced to argue his case was the lower jaw, donated to the museum by Yekaterina Romanovna Vorontsova-Dashkova. But from this, the species was named and studied further....

Legends of the unicorn, or a beast with a single horn, have been around for millennia in China and Eastern Europe. The Chinese “K’i-lin”, referring to some sort of beast, was translated into Turkish and Mongolic languages and lore. While the writers in all these languages did not know how to describe the beast, one common theme was the single horn, along with their vast stature.

A bronze vessel from the Warring States period shows an animal very much like one depicted in cave paintings that are said to be Elasmotherium: head down for grazing, horn protruding from the forehead, and head and shoulders slumped. In 1866, Vasily Radlov found a legend among the Yakuts of Siberia of a “huge black bull” killed by a single spear. The beast was said to have a single horn so large that it had to be transported by sled. Other legends circulate in this region, usually concerning a large white or blue woolly bull with one large horn coming from its forehead.

From medieval Northern Russia comes a collection of ballads, called “Golubinaia kniga” or “The Book of the Dove,” coming from Zoroastrianism, but with Christian overtones. These ballads show a righteous unicorn battling a lion, representing lies. The unicorn of these tales lived in a Holy mountain, and it was believed to be the mother and father of all animals. This creature saved the world from drought by digging springs of pure and clean water with its horn. At night, it wandered the plains and forged a path with that very same horn.

This same creature appears in other religious texts, however, it is typically seen more as a symbolic creature rather than a real entity. The Arabo-Persian word for unicorn actually conflates unicorn and rhinoceros, looking to the rhinoceros as a bringer of truth and good in the world. In Christianity, the single horn is seen as a symbol of monotheism. (Read more.)