[MR] more rhino lore

[Deep Fat Friar]

Britannica notes that a beast mentioned in the bible as re'em was
translated in the past as both 'unicorn' and 'rhinoceros'. (It probably
actually means 'wild ox'.) The whole unicorn myth is sometimes traced to
or attributed to second- and third-hand descriptions of the Indian
rhino, which has one horn. Medieval cups supposedly made of unicorn horn
were probably either rhino narwhal horn. All of the stuff about the
health benefits of their horns and being strong and fierce only virgins
capturing them seems to come from the Greek writer Ctesias. Medieval
writers sometimes used the unicorn as a symbol for Christ.

 

So if you don't like rhinohide, unicorn is period, and also conveys some
of the same content (tough, hard to kill, powerful, hard-headed....).

 

Thomas

 

Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.

                                                Titus Lucretius Carus