On April 12, 1985, Federal investigators ordered Ringling Brothers Circus to stop displaying what they determined were bogus unicorns. The Feds claimed the animals were goats with surgically implanted horns.
I met my first unicorn at a Renaissance Faire many years ago. My niece (then about 3) wanted to see the unicorn, so I paid a nominal fee and we went into the tent. Erin went right over and hugged the animal, which seemed to like the attention.
A boy came in and, in a sarcastic tone, said, “Aw, that’s not a unicorn. It’s a goat.”
You can’t argue with a pre-teen, but I pointed out that the creature had one horn, which technically made it a unicorn by the definition of uni (one) corn (horn). He disagreed and left in disappointment. As a side note, the horn wasn’t implanted; it could be argued that it had probably been surgically altered to merge the two horns into one.
As I thought about it later, I wondered what it is exactly that makes a unicorn. Is it in the genes? The blood? Does anybody have unicorn blood or DNA for comparison?
What makes one person a healer? Why does one person sing or dance or draw or write better than another? Is it in the genes? Is it something magical inside? Is that what it is to be a unicorn? Is there something magical inside that draws us to it—whether it has one horn, more or none at all—and allows us to feel the magic?
Perhaps the magic isn’t in the creature, but a combination of what’s inside both of us: the animal and the person meeting it. The thought of meeting a unicorn can trigger something that makes us know that there’s magical about. So we wonder if it’s the animal that is magical or the experience itself.
I may be begging the question, but does this make the goat with a surgically altered horn any less a “unicorn”? When do we put “reality” aside and believe in the magic?
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