Monoceros

Description / Miscellaneous Information:

“Indian produces Hippoi Monokerata (One-horned Horses), they say, and the same country fosters Onoi Monokerata (One-horned Asses). And from these horns they make drinking-vessels, and if anyone puts a deadly poison in them and a man drinks, the plot will do him no harm. For it seems that the horn both of the horse and of the ass is an antidote to the poison.” –Aelian On Animals 3.41

“I have learned that in India are born Wild Asses (Onoi) as big as horses. All their body is white except for the head, which approaches purple, while their eyes give off a dark blue colour. They have a horn on their forehead as much as a cubit and half long; the lower part of the horn is white, the upper part is crimson, while the middle is jet-black. From these variegated horns, I am told, the Indians drink, but not all, only the most eminent Indians, and round them at intervals they lay rings of gold, as though they were decorating a beautiful arm of a statue with bracelets. And they say that a man who has drunk from this horn knows not, and is free from, incurable diseases: he will never be seized with convulsions nor with the sacred sickness (epilepsy), as it is called, nor be destroyed by poisons. Moreover if he had previously drunk some deadly stuff, he vomits it up and is restored to health.

It is believed that Asses, both the tame and the wild kind, all the world over and all other beasts with uncloven hoofs are without knucklebones and without gall in the liver; whereas those horned Asses of India, Ktesias says, have knucklebones and are not without gall. Their knucklebones are said to be black, and if ground down are black inside as well. And these animals are far swifter than any ass or even than any horse or any deer. They begin to run, it is true at a gentle pace, but gradually gather strength until to pursue them is, in the language of poetry, to chase the unattainable.

When the dam gives birth and leads her new-born colts about, the sires herd with, and look after, them. And these Asses frequent the most desolate plains in India. So when the Indians go to hunt them, the Asses allow their colts, still tender and young, to pasture in their rear, while they themselves fight on their behalf and join battle with the horsemen and strike them with their horns. Now the strength of these horns is such that nothing can withstand their blows, but everything gives way and snaps or, it may be, is shattered and rendered useless. They have in the past even struck at the ribs of a horse, ripped it open, and disembowelled it. For that reason the horsemen dread coming to close quarters with them, since the penalty for so doing is a most lamentable death, and both they and their horses are killed. They can kick fearfully too. Moreover their bite goes so deep that they tear away everything that they have grasped. A full-grown Ass one would never capture alive: they are shot with javelins and arrows, and when dead the Indians strip them of their horns, which, as I said, they decorate. But the flesh of Indian Asses is uneatable, the reason being that it is naturally exceedingly bitter.” –Aelian On Animals 4.52

Said to have been hunted by Orsaean

Resource List:

• The Lore of the Unicorn.  Odell Shepard.

• http://www.theoi.com/Thaumasioi/Monokerata.html