Maggie Solberg
Maggie Solberg was looking for ways to make the book she’s currently writing on the portrayal of the Virgin Mary in late medieval literature and culture even more fascinating than it already is, when she found unicorns. “When I realized I could get unicorns into the book I was very excited,” said the assistant professor of English, “because people love unicorns, right?
“During my research I began to see these images of Mary holding a unicorn in her lap at the moment of Anunciation, when it’s revealed to her that she will bear the son of God. There are dozens and dozens of them.”
As she started delving deeper into the subject, Solberg made the connection between the legend of the unicorn from the bestiaries—illustrated medieval texts describing different mythical beasts—and the story of the Anunciation from the Bible. “By the Middle Ages, people had decided that these fantastical beasts could serve as metaphors for biblical stories.”
The Medieval Allegory of the Mystic Unicorn was the subject of a recent lunchtime seminar Solberg delivered for fellow faculty members. She began by describing the legend of the unicorn from the bestiaries, although these lurid accounts sometimes sound more like something from the pages of a contemporary fantasy novel.
“Unicorns were portrayed as forest-dwelling creatures with this monstrous four-foot long horn that they used to stab the wombs of elephants, and they were regarded as the most dangerous beast in the forests.” The only way to capture them, she explained, was to lure them into a meadow using a naked virgin.
“According to lore, the unicorn will then come and put his horn in her lap and fall asleep. She then grabs the horn, a signal for hunters to arrive and stab the beast, bringing his body to the palace of the king, the bestiaries say. They do this because the unicorn’s horn, in fact every part of his body, had amazing medicinal properties and could cure any poison. So that’s the legend of the unicorn!”
The Virgin and the Unicorn, fresco, probably by Domenico Zampieri, c. 1602 (Palazzo Farnese, Rome)
Origins
The origins of this fabled creature are predictably mysterious, said Solberg. “These bestiaries I’m referring to come from an older set of legends called the Physiologus, an early Christian text which dates back as far as the second century, in which a wise natural philosopher tells us everything about animals, mythical and otherwise.”
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