94 Fun Facts About Unicorn

In the Harry Potter books, which part of a unicorn does Ollivander use as a wand core?

A tail hair from a unicorn is one of Ollivander's three wand cores, with phoenix feather and dragon heartstring; he rates such wands the most faithful and the hardest to turn to the Dark Arts.

What name is given to a unicorn's horn and the substance it was thought to be made of?

Alicorn was the name for both the unicorn's horn and its supposed substance; it was believed to purify poisoned water, and cups made of it were gifts for kings.

In 1638 the physician Ole Worm showed that Europe's prized 'unicorn horns' were really what?

Narwhal tusks were what Ole Worm found the 'unicorn horns' to be in 1638; the powerful had long prized cups of the 'horn' as protection against poisoned drinks.

Which ancient Greek writer gave the earliest description of the unicorn, in a book about India?

Ctesias of Cnidus described India's swift one-horned wild asses in his Indica of about 400 BC, relying on travellers' tales he heard while serving as a physician at the Persian court.

Which Roman writer described a one-horned beast with a stag's head, elephant's feet and boar's tail?

Pliny the Elder listed the beast among the real animals of India in his Natural History, gave it a deep bellow and a black horn two cubits long, and added that it could not be taken alive.

Which traveller described 'unicorns' as ugly, mud-wallowing brutes 'scarcely smaller than elephants'?

Marco Polo, writing of Sumatra, said its 'unicorns' were 'not at all such as we describe them' and loved to wallow in mud and mire.

What is the Hebrew Bible word that the King James Version translated as 'unicorn'?

Re'em is the Hebrew word the King James Version rendered 'unicorn' nine times, from Numbers 23:22 to Isaiah 34:7, following the Greek Septuagint's 'one-horned' reading.

In Harry Potter, unicorn foals are born gold and turn which colour before growing up white?

Silver comes between the gold of a newborn and the white of a grown unicorn; Hagrid tells his class that foals are more trusting than adults, which prefer a woman's touch, and 'don't mind boys so much'.

The royal arms of the United Kingdom are supported by a unicorn and what other animal?

A lion, England's royal beast, replaced one of the two unicorns that had held up the Scottish royal arms when James VI also became James I of England in 1603, pairing two animals that legend made enemies.

What hangs from the collar of the unicorn on the British royal coat of arms?

A gold chain runs from its crown-shaped collar, between the forelegs and over the back. Nobody is sure why, but the usual reading is that only a king could tame the untameable beast.

Which Scottish king introduced the coin called the unicorn in 1484?

James III introduced the unicorn, a coin showing the beast supporting the royal shield, in about 1484; James IV and James V continued the issue.

The seven late-Gothic tapestries called The Hunt of the Unicorn hang in which museum?

The Cloisters, New York, received them from John D. Rockefeller Jr., who paid about a million dollars in 1922 and hung them in a room of his own home until the museum was built.

Where were The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries rediscovered in the 1850s?

In a barn, where a peasant was reportedly using the 'old curtains' to cover vegetables; they had been looted from the La Rochefoucauld château during the French Revolution.

The 'Lady and the Unicorn' tapestries in Paris are usually read as an allegory of what?

The five senses fill five of the six hangings: touch, taste, smell, hearing and sight. The sixth, captioned 'À mon seul désir', has no agreed meaning, and the Musée de Cluny itself floats courtly love or free will.

Recreations of The Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries were woven for which Scottish royal residence?

Stirling Castle got the seven hangings because James V's inventories listed unicorn tapestries of his own; weavers took more than a decade to copy the originals by hand.

Which Renaissance artist's notebooks make the unicorn a symbol of intemperance?

Leonardo da Vinci's bestiary notes file the unicorn under intemperance: unable to control itself, it 'forgets its ferocity and wildness' and lets hunters take it.

The Arctic whale's famous spiral tusk is actually what?

An overgrown left canine, it pierces the upper lip and spirals out to around 3 metres, mostly in males; packed with nerve endings, it may help the whale sense how salty the water is.

What is the scientific name of the tusked Arctic whale?

Monodon monoceros ends in the Greek for 'one horn', the name classical writers gave the unicorn itself, so the whale's scientific label all but calls it a sea unicorn.

Elasmotherium, the extinct 'Siberian unicorn', was what kind of animal?

A giant rhinoceros of the Eurasian steppe, Elasmotherium lived until at least 39,000 years ago, alongside modern humans. No horn has ever been found: the 'unicorn' rests on a bony dome on its skull.

Which children's author wrote 'The Unicorn', the Irish Rovers' 1968 hit about Noah's ark?

Shel Silverstein, a Chicago cartoonist, wrote what sounds like an old Irish folk song; in it Noah sails without the unicorns, which is why nobody has seen one since.

The qilin, sometimes called the Chinese unicorn, is said to appear at the arrival or death of what?

The qilin is said to appear with the arrival or passing of a sage or great ruler; legend has one heralding the birth of Confucius in the 6th century BC.

The karkadann of Persian and Arabic legend was originally based on which real animal?

Karkadann is the Persian and Arabic word for rhinoceros; the legend grew from the one-horned Indian rhinoceros, which al-Biruni described in the 11th century.

A unicorn-like creature is the most common image on which Bronze Age civilisation's seals?

Indus Valley seals show a bull-like beast with one arching horn more often than any other image, and single-horned clay figurines suggest it was no two-horned bull drawn side-on.

In business, a 'unicorn' is a private startup valued at more than how much?

A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at over $1 billion, a threshold so rare in 2013 that the mythical beast seemed apt; companies past $10 billion are called decacorns.

In the Tintin adventure 'The Secret of the Unicorn', what is the Unicorn?

A sailing ship once commanded by Captain Haddock's ancestor Sir Francis, the Unicorn survives as three identical models, each hiding a scrap of parchment that points to the pirate Red Rackham's treasure.

Who wrote the 1968 novel The Last Unicorn?

Peter S. Beagle published The Last Unicorn in 1968; the novel has sold millions of copies and he also wrote the screenplay for its 1982 animated film.

In The Last Unicorn, what creature drove all the other unicorns into the sea?

The Red Bull, serving King Haggard, drove all the other unicorns into the sea; a butterfly tells the last unicorn that it 'ran close behind them'.

Which studio duo directed the 1982 animated film of The Last Unicorn?

Rankin/Bass directed it but had it drawn in Japan by Topcraft, the studio Hayao Miyazaki then hired for Nausicaä, and its core animators went on to form Studio Ghibli.

What is the name of the bumbling magician who travels with the unicorn in The Last Unicorn?

Schmendrick is a Yiddish word for a hapless fool, which suits a magician whose spells rarely work; he joins the unicorn after freeing her from Mommy Fortuna's Midnight Carnival.

In Ridley Scott's 1985 film Legend, what does the Lord of Darkness want from the unicorns?

Their horns are what Darkness sends his goblins to cut off, so that night will never end; the moment the stallion loses his, winter falls across the world.

In Despicable Me 3, what animal is Agnes's supposed unicorn really?

Agnes's 'unicorn' is really a one-horned goat she finds in the woods of Freedonia; she names him Lucky and keeps him even after Gru breaks the news.

Which toy company launched My Little Pony in the early 1980s?

Hasbro shrank its hard-plastic My Pretty Pony, which could wiggle its ears and swish its tail, into six small colourful ponies; unicorns soon followed.

Which main pony in the 2021 film My Little Pony: A New Generation is a unicorn?

Izzy Moonbow strolls out of Bridlewood forest into the earth-pony town of Maretime Bay and sends the locals fleeing, because the three pony kinds now live apart in fear of one another.

Which coffee chain sold a colour-changing 'Unicorn' blended drink for five days in April 2017?

Starbucks sold the Unicorn Frappuccino from 19 to 23 April 2017: it started purple and sweet, turned pink and tart when stirred, and had no coffee in it at all.

In James Thurber's fable 'The Unicorn in the Garden', who ends up locked in an institution?

The wife calls the police and a psychiatrist to have her husband committed for seeing a unicorn, but he calmly tells them the unicorn is a mythical beast, so she is the one taken away.

In Through the Looking-Glass, what does the Unicorn call Alice on first seeing her?

Lewis Carroll's Unicorn, meeting Alice, exclaims 'I always thought they were fabulous monsters!' and offers to believe in her if she believes in him.

Which royal family had a throne made from 'unicorn horn'?

The Danish kings were crowned until 1840 on a chair at Rosenborg Castle, built for Frederick III from spiral tusks sold as unicorn horn in imitation of King Solomon's ivory throne in the Bible.

Which My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic unicorn was crowned a princess in season three?

Twilight Sparkle gained wings and a crown in the 2013 finale 'Magical Mystery Cure'; the news broke weeks early and worried many adult fans, who liked her as the bookish unicorn they identified with.

In Scottish towns, a carved unicorn often tops which traditional monument?

The market cross, or mercat cross, was a town's badge of its right to trade, and the unicorn on top, as at Prestonpans, put the king's own beast over the marketplace.

In Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Decius says hunters can trick a unicorn using what?

A tree: the hunter stood in front of one, goaded the unicorn into charging and stepped aside, leaving the horn stuck fast in the trunk. Decius says unicorns 'may be betray'd with trees'.

Which extinct animal do scholars think the King James Bible's 'unicorn' really was?

The Hebrew word behind 'unicorn' named the aurochs, the giant wild ox of the ancient Near East, shown in profile with one visible horn in Mesopotamian art; the last aurochs died in 1627.

Which forest animal of Vietnam and Laos, unknown to science until 1992, is nicknamed the 'Asian unicorn'?

The saola has two long parallel horns, not one, and is very rarely seen: science knew nothing of it until a skull turned up in a hunter's home in 1992.

In which 1982 film does the policeman Gaff leave an origami unicorn for Deckard?

In Blade Runner, Gaff's origami unicorn hints that Deckard's unicorn dream is an implanted memory; the dream sequence appears in the 1992 Director's Cut.

Which ancient Greek writer listed the oryx and the 'Indian ass' as one-horned animals?

Aristotle sorted them by their feet in his History of Animals: the Indian ass had one horn and a solid hoof, the oryx one horn and a cloven hoof. The ass he most likely took from an earlier writer's tales of India.

Which African animal did China's Ming court hail as a qilin, the so-called Chinese unicorn?

A giraffe arrived in 1414 as a gift to the Yongle Emperor, and court officials hailed it as the auspicious beast. Japanese and Korean still use one word for both animals.

In which Tennessee Williams play does Laura's unicorn figurine lose its horn during a dance?

The Glass Menagerie has gentleman caller Jim brush against Laura's collection as they dance, snapping the horn off. Laura later gives him the broken unicorn as a parting gift.

In Toy Story 3, which plush unicorn among Bonnie's toys is voiced by Jeff Garlin?

Buttercup looks sweet but has a gruff voice and a sarcastic streak, and he is the first of Bonnie's toys to introduce himself to Woody.

In the Lego Movie films, which realm is home to Princess Unikitty, a cat-unicorn hybrid?

Cloud Cuckoo Land is a secret realm in the sky with no rules and no unhappy things, where the Master Builders take refuge. The villain's forces destroy it, and Unikitty escapes with Emmet's group.

Princes once prized cups carved from 'unicorn horn', believing they gave protection from what?

Poison was what the horn was said to detect or neutralise, which made it one of the costliest remedies of the Renaissance. Legend had the unicorn dip its horn into tainted water so other animals could drink.

Which US city's Old State House is topped by a unicorn statue, a symbol of British rule?

Boston's statue is a replica, because a crowd tore down and burned the original after the Declaration of Independence was read from the balcony in July 1776.

Which Commonwealth country's coat of arms shows a unicorn holding a banner of three fleurs-de-lis?

Canada borrowed the unicorn from the British royal arms, then gave it a lance flying the banner of royalist France.

Which Oscar-winning actress made her directing debut with Unicorn Store, opposite Samuel L. Jackson?

Brie Larson directed herself as Kit, a failed artist invited to a mysterious store that offers her the unicorn she dreamed of as a child. It premiered at the Toronto festival in 2017.

In the Netflix film Thelma the Unicorn, which vegetable does the pony Thelma wear as a fake horn?

A carrot is on her forehead when a clumsy truck driver drenches her in pink paint and glitter, and the accident makes her look like the real thing. The film is based on Aaron Blabey's picture books.

Which actress plays Paul Rudd's teenage daughter in the 2025 horror comedy Death of a Unicorn?

Jenna Ortega plays Ridley, who is in the car when her father runs down a unicorn on the way to a weekend retreat. His billionaire boss then tries to exploit the creature's healing powers.

In Disney's Fantasia, unicorns play among centaurs and fauns to the music of which composer?

Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony became a mythical Greco-Roman romp in the film. The Hays office made the animators hang garlands around the necks of the bare-breasted female centaurs.

Which My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic unicorn runs the Carousel Boutique as a fashion designer?

Rarity stands for the Element of Generosity among the main ponies. Her special talent is finding gems, which she puts to work in the clothes she makes in Ponyville.

Which British actress voiced the broken-horned unicorn Tempest Shadow in My Little Pony: The Movie?

Emily Blunt played the embittered commander, who serves the Storm King in the hope of having her horn repaired. The character's real name turns out to be Fizzlepop Berrytwist.

Highway Unicorn (Road to Love) sits beside Judas and The Edge of Glory on which Lady Gaga album?

Born This Way gave the song a dance-pop sound, and in 2021 Spotify sponsored a stretch of highway in New York City in its name.

Which British artist created The Dream, a simulated unicorn displayed in a tank of formaldehyde?

Damien Hirst made the piece in 2008, long after he became famous for preserving dead animals, most notably a 14-foot tiger shark, in the same chemical.

The Unicorn constellation is bordered by Gemini, Canis Major, Hydra and which bright neighbour?

Orion lies just to the west of the Unicorn, a faint pattern that first appeared for certain on a globe made by the cartographer Petrus Plancius in 1612 or 1613.

In the 1980s cartoon She-Ra: Princess of Power, Adora's horse Spirit transforms into which winged unicorn?

Swift Wind is the steed She-Ra rides, and in the 2018 reboot he was an ordinary horse until her magic accidentally gave him wings, a horn and the power of speech.

Which US designer filled 1980s and 90s school supplies with neon unicorns, dolphins and pandas?

Lisa Frank began with a children's jewellery company called Sticky Fingers, run from a guest house in her back yard in Tucson. Her rainbow designs came back into fashion in the 2010s.

In The Last Unicorn, what name does the unicorn take at King Haggard's court as a human woman?

Lady Amalthea is the name the magician gives her when they ask to join the court. His spell had turned her into a woman to save her from an attack, leaving her panicked by her new mortality.

Which 1970s soft-rock band performed Jimmy Webb's songs for the animated film The Last Unicorn?

America, the band behind A Horse with No Name, sang the songs Jimmy Webb wrote for the film, backed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Which General Mills cereal swapped its hourglass marshmallow for a unicorn, picked on social media?

Lucky Charms added the unicorn in 2018, ten years after the hourglass arrived, and fans chose it by emoji. In the cereal's lore, the unicorn charm's power is to bring colour to the world.

In Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, which wizard is kept alive by unicorn blood?

Voldemort consumes the blood to support his barely physical form. In the forest a centaur named Firenze warns Harry that he is plotting to steal the Stone to restore his body.

Noa Kirel's song Unicorn finished third at Eurovision 2023 for which country?

Israel scored 362 points in the final with the song. Kirel had at first turned down the broadcaster's invitation to compete, saying she felt unsure about it.

Which musical TV series has Brittany compare Kurt to a unicorn in the episode I Am Unicorn?

Glee had Brittany offer to run Kurt's campaign for class president, pitching him as a unicorn because he is one of a kind. He objects to her posters, and she ends up running against him.

In Adventure Time, the half-unicorn Lady Rainicorn, Jake's girlfriend, speaks which language?

Korean is what she speaks in the series, where she is voiced by storyboard artist Niki Yang, who also plays the games console BMO. In the pilot short she made pigeon-like sounds instead.

In which Narnia book by C. S. Lewis is Jewel the Unicorn the best friend of King Tirian?

The Last Battle opens with Jewel and Tirian rashly riding out to confront those killing the Dryads. It is the seventh and final Narnia novel, published in 1956.

Which NBA player did Kevin Durant dub a basketball 'unicorn' for his rare size and skill?

Kristaps Porzingis earned the label as a rookie, a 7-foot-2 centre who could also shoot three-pointers. The word has since been passed on to tall shooters such as Victor Wembanyama.

Which Paris museum of the Middle Ages displays the six Lady and the Unicorn tapestries?

The Musée de Cluny bought the set in 1882, four decades after it was rediscovered, damp and mouldy, at Boussac Castle.

The Unicorn of Scotland was among ten Queen's Beasts statues made for which royal occasion?

Elizabeth II's coronation in 1953 saw the ten beasts stand outside Westminster Abbey, each holding a shield from her ancestry. They were modelled on stone beasts made for Henry VIII at Hampton Court Palace.

Which Renaissance master painted a young woman cradling a unicorn, now in Rome's Borghese Gallery?

Raphael painted her around 1505, but about 1682 an unknown artist turned her into Saint Catherine and hid the unicorn under a torture wheel. A later restoration revealed the animal again.

Which French novelist and partner of Chopin publicised the Lady and the Unicorn tapestries?

George Sand came across the hangings in 1844 and wrote them into her novel Jeanne, correctly dating them to the late 15th century from the ladies' costumes.

Which US tycoon paid about a million dollars for the Hunt of the Unicorn tapestries in 1922?

Six of the hangings went up in the buyer's own house before he gave the set to a museum. John D. Rockefeller Jr. got them after several centuries in France's La Rochefoucauld family.

In the tapestry The Unicorn in Captivity, which fruit grows above the fenced-in unicorn?

Pomegranates were a symbol of fertility, and scholars think it is their juice, not blood, that stains the unicorn's flanks. The panel is the last and most famous of the set.

In which Hieronymus Bosch triptych do naked riders parade on unicorns, camels and other beasts?

The Garden of Earthly Delights sends the riders circling a group of women on horses, donkeys and stranger mounts. The triptych hangs in the Prado in Madrid.

Which manga artist created the little unicorn Unico for Sanrio's girls' magazine Lyrica in 1976?

Osamu Tezuka, the creator of Astro Boy, first sketched the character while visiting Sanrio's offices in Los Angeles, and named him Unico on the flight home to Japan.

Which girl is best friend to the unicorn Marigold Heavenly Nostrils in Dana Simpson's comic strip?

Phoebe earns a wish by accidentally hitting Marigold with a rock, and uses it to make the unicorn her best friend. Simpson got the unicorn's name by putting her own into an online unicorn name generator.

Which synth-pop duo's song Always plays throughout the endless running game Robot Unicorn Attack?

Erasure's song was so central to the 2010 game that one critic wrote he would never be able to separate the two. A sequel later charged 99 cents to add it.

Which future glam rock star fronted Tyrannosaurus Rex on the 1969 folk album Unicorn?

Marc Bolan was then an unrepentant hippie playing acoustic psychedelic folk, and Unicorn was the last album the duo made with Steve Peregrin Took. The band later found fame as T. Rex.

Which actor played widowed father Wade in the CBS sitcom The Unicorn?

Walton Goggins played the owner of a landscaping company trying to find a new balance in life as a single father. The sitcom ran on CBS from 2019 to 2021.

The unicorn of European art is drawn as a white horse with a spiralled horn and which kind of feet?

Cloven hooves have been part of the European picture for the last thousand years or so. The earliest Greek account described something quite different, a fleet-footed wild ass of India.

In the 1980s Dungeons & Dragons cartoon, the baby unicorn Uni is the pet of which young hero?

Bobby the Barbarian is the youngest of the group, and his timid pet is cleverer than she looks: she can teleport once a day.

Which animator pitched Unicorn: Warriors Eternal for almost 20 years before Adult Swim aired it?

Genndy Tartakovsky, the creator of Samurai Jack, conceived the series in his early days at Cartoon Network Studios and pitched it to various studios with little success.

Which actress voices Pony Head, the floating unicorn head in Star vs. the Forces of Evil?

Jenny Slate plays the sassy princess, the oldest of King Pony Head's 13 daughters and best friend of Star Butterfly. In season four the character launches her own TV show.

Bjorn Unicorn is the headmaster who tutors players in which PopCap puzzle game series?

Peggle began with the unicorn as placeholder art, along with its rainbows and classical music, and all three stayed in the finished game. A later title gave Bjorn an evil brother called Fnord.

Which 12th-century abbess recommended an ointment of unicorn liver and egg yolk for leprosy?

Hildegard of Bingen wrote at a time when the animal was considered real, and other parts were prized too: a belt of unicorn leather was supposed to ward off fevers.

After being looted in the French Revolution, the Unicorn Tapestries reportedly covered which crop?

Potatoes were reportedly stored under the hangings after they were taken from the La Rochefoucauld château, and they apparently suffered damage before the family got them back.

In L'Engle's A Swiftly Tilting Planet, which winged unicorn carries Charles Wallace through time?

Gaudior answers when Charles Wallace recites an old rune at the star-watching rock, and tells him he must travel into the past to prevent a nuclear war.

Which novelist from Dublin set her 1963 book The Unicorn on the remote west coast of Ireland?

Iris Murdoch's seventh novel sends a young English teacher to be governess at Gaze Castle, only to find there are no children there and that her pupil is the lady of the house.

The Tokyo studio that animated The Last Unicorn later supplied the core staff of which anime studio?

Ghibli grew out of Topcraft, whose animators Hayao Miyazaki hired for his film Nausicaä after their years of work on Western cartoons such as The Hobbit.

Which actor voiced King Haggard in The Last Unicorn and dubbed the role himself in German?

Christopher Lee was fluent in German, and he arrived at the recording with his own copy of the novel, marked with the lines he felt should not be cut.