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The Myth of the Unicorn

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Roger Caillois
Roger Caillois*
Affiliation:
Académie française
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We are pleased to offer our readers an unpublished article by Roger Caillois, a posthumous text which takes its place alongside his other studies on the myth and the imaginary. The octopus, the praying mantis and the fulgora in the real world led Roger Caillois to reflections similar to those which he exposes here relative to the narwhal and the imaginary unicorn. The importance of the unicorn in the author's work comes from the relationship established by the narwhal's tusk between two squares on Roger Caillois’ chess board: myth and dissymmetry. (Editor's note).

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 30 , Issue 119 , September 1982 , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

References

* The reader should consult in particular the following works: Le Mythe et l'homme, N. R. F., 1938; Casev d'un échiquier, 1970; La dissymétrie, 1973.

** Certain aspects of this study were already dealt with in an article published in Le Monde, December 24, 1976 (Editor's note).

* Words in brackets were added by the editor to the author's original manuscript.

1 French translation, Paris, 1970, p. 176.

2 Paris, 1963.

3 Quoted by Marguerite Charageat, "La chasse à la licorne et le décor de la chasse du parc de Raray", Bulletin de l'histoire de l'art français, 1937, p. 186, after Emile Male, L'art religieux du XIIIe siècle en France, 1919, p. 56.

4 Marguerite Charageat, art. cit., p. 186; after Léon Germain, La Chasse à la licorne et l'Immaculée Conception, Nancy, 1897.

5 Barbier de Montault, Traité de l'iconographie chrétienne, Paris, 1890, t. II, p. 101. According to the same author, the unicorn served as symbol in particular for Saint Cyprian, Saint Firmin and Saint Justine. Cf. Marguerite Charageat, art. cit., p. 188, n. 2.

6 French translation, Paris, 1970.

7 A. E. Brehm, La Vie des animaux, French translation, Paris, 1868, p. 828.

8 Communiqué accepted in March, 1974, by the sub-committee on small-scale cetaceans of the International Whaling Commission, Montreal, Quebec, 1-11 April, 1974. The official resumé of the communiqué reads: "Sixty-two narwhals (Monodon monoceros) were captured in the region of Pond Inlet, Baffin Island, in 1963-65 and examined. Growth layers are visible both in the exposed tooth as in the hidden one. The few remains of ingested food identifiable in the stomach are bits of squid and plankton. At birth the calf measures approximately 160 cm. in length and weighs a little more than 80 kg. The fully grown females reach a length of 400 cm. and a weight of 1600 kg. It is believed that calving takes place about once every three years. A conservative estimate of the population of Canada and north-west Greenland is approximately 10,000. Although the birth rate is unknown, it presumably is similar to what has been calculated for the most nearly related species, the beluga, i.e. approximately 9%. The maximum potential annual catch, based on the largest Canadian catch of 442 narwhals recorded in 1957, combined with that of 135 in Greenland and a loss due to drowning estimated at 50%, is approximately 1154. This exceeds the annual production estimated at 900." The Fish Res. Board Can., vol. 32 (7), 1975. These figures are for Canada only, but would no doubt be similar for Iceland and the nothern coasts of Siberia.

9 Guido Schönberger, "Narwal-Einhorn, Studien über einen seltenen Werk stoff," Städel Jahrbuch IX, 1935-36, Frankfurt am Main, p. 208, fig. 219.

10 Burgundian art around 1460. G. Schönberger, op. cit., p. 237, fig. 247.

11 See the illustrations to the cited study of G. Schönberger, p. 167-247, particularly figures 241, 247, 250 and 251.

12 Paris, 1836, "Monodon monoceros," p. 230 and ff.

13 Histoire naturelle des Antilles, p. 184 and ff., cited by Cuvier, ibid., p. 232, first gives a fanciful representation of a "sea unicorn" and then describes the narwhal of the Arctic seas.

14 Histoire du Groenland, in Cuvier, op. cit., p. 234.

15 Cuvier, op. cit., p. 134.

16 Ostéographie des cétacés, Paris, 1868-1880, p. 529-530.