According to Hofmann: Unicorns … that’s it
One day I started thinking about unicorns.
I never gave them much thought, even with a stepdaughter who has roughly 30 plush and toy unicorns scattered throughout her room and the house and the yard and spilling out on the street.
The only time that I talk about or even mention unicorns is when I would trip over said unicorns and yell at my kid to pick up her mess.
I think it was the name that first started getting the rusty wheels in my head to move – mainly because, when you really think about the name, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
“Uni” meaning “one” and “corn” meaning …”corn.”
I’m sure there was some meaning behind the word that made more sense, but before I looked that up, I came up with my own origin story of the unicorn that involved a horse rushing out of a cornfield in the dead of night as a farmer and his wife saw the horse running past them with a single ear of corn stuck onto the horseĢƵ head.
FARMER: “Honey, is that our horse?”
WIFE: “No! Horses don’t have corn growing out of its head.”
FARMER: “Well, thatĢƵ one ear of corn, so that makes it … a singlecorn?”
WIFE: “No, thatĢƵ stupid, and you should expand your vocabulary. I’m calling the magnificent creature a unicorn!”
FARMER: “Whatever itĢƵ called, I’m going to shoot it.”
Actually, according to my research, the name comes from “Unicornis,” which contains two Latin words: “unus” meaning “one” and “cornu” meaning “horn.”
But still, a more appropriate (or inappropriate, depending on your age and gender) name for a horse with a horn should be “horny-horse.” Just saying.
The earliest description of a unicorn was from the historian Ctesias, who wrote that the creature was the size of a horse with a white body, purple head, blue eyes and with a red, black and white horn sticking out of its forehead.
He also wrote that those who drank from the horn would be protected from stomach trouble and epilepsy.
So the horn of the magical unicorn has the modern medicinal equivalent to Pepto Bismol and seizure medication, but not the powers of flight and immortality like I had been led to believe.
ThatĢƵ like saying if you find a leprechaunĢƵ pot of gold, your reward is a buy-one-get-one free coupon and a free dessert at Kentucky Fried Chicken.
Oh, and the creature that Ctesias described was most likely a rhinoceros, as Ctesias probably ate a few funny mushrooms before heading out on that particular journey, which makes more sense because his description of a unicorn sounded more like the description of Puff the Magic Dragon.
Now, itĢƵ hard for me to imagine how the idea of a creature thatĢƵ the subject of a hallucinogenic-fueled case of mistaken identity has become and has remained a fixture in all things prepubescent girly, if such a category exists.
I mean, sure, most girls have a fixation with horses, but you’d think a horse with an appendage that can impale would lessen their enthusiasm a bit.
Besides, also, therefore, in my research, I found that people have a strange fixation on attaching things to horses like the Pegasus, which is a horse with wings.
But thatĢƵ not all. You’ve probably seen shirts featuring a spray-painted image of a unicorn with wings. If you haven’t, just go to a state or county fair and hang around where the vendors are set up between those selling pocket knives and those applying temporary tattoos, and you’ll see them. Trust me.
I never knew what those things were called and after I looked it up, I still don’t know because the internet gave the following names: Alicorn, Alaricorn, Unipegasus, Unipeg or Pegacorn.
So, we just throw out random names to this thing now? You might as well call it a Shoosham Fling-A-Boo because, well, why not?
If you wondered what else can you do to a horse – in a mythological and legal way – well, thereĢƵ the centaur, which is half man and half horse and whole excitement, and thereĢƵ the Hippogriff, which is half eagle and half horse and a whole lotta stupid.
I mean, is the Hippogriff supposed to be an improvement on the Pegasus or the Shoosham Fling-A-Boo? You have a horse or unicorn with functional wings, but, for some reason, they decided to attach half of an eagle – a creature nowhere near the size of a horse – to a horse.
At the very least you can say that a Pegasus or a Shoosham Fling-A-Boo is a beautiful, majestic creature. A half horse/half eagle is something edited out of “The Island of Dr. Moreau” as if H.G. Wells weighed his options between writing something seen as fantastical or bat-poop crazy.
To tell the truth, so did I, and thatĢƵ why, one day, I stopped thinking about unicorns … Shoosham Fling-A-Boos, on the other hand, are totally different creatures all together.
According to Hofmann is written by staff reporter Mark Hofmann of Rostraver Township. His books, “Good Mourning! A Guide to Biting the Big One … and Dying, Too” and “Stupid Brain,” are available on Amazon.com. He co-hosts the “Locally Yours” radio show on WMBS 590 AM every Friday.