The First Unicorn page 2 rgb

My Asianamerican Eounicornus... the First Unicorn. This sculpture won the first place for the sculpture division of Peter S. Beagle's Last Unicorn Artwork contest. If you have the Last Unicorn on Blu-Ray, you'll be able to see this unicorn in the special features! This sculpt was created with wire, floral foam/floral tape, LaDoll paperclay, acrylics, acrylic hair and Collie hair (humanely cultivated), artificial floral foliage, and stones from my back yard, on a laquered wooden pedestal.

Here are the field notes depicting this animal:

Asiamerican Eounicornis, the First Unicorn
Documented by Heather Vidal

This is an early ‘dawn’ unicorn, or the first unicorn. Eounicornis hailed from the early Pliocene era to the Bronze Age, its most plentiful time being when mankind was very young. They were one of the ancestors to modern day unicorns.

Observations:

This animal could grow to an enormous size… a young adult was about the size of an Irish elk, however, they never quit growing, and the oldest became much larger.

The coat of the Eounicornis would be striped black, brown, and white during the warm periods, but during the frigid seasons, its coat would lengthen and whiten, the stripes willowed and thinned, resembling delicate tree branches. Occasionally an Eounicornis would be albino, being white with blonde points…

The Eounicornis had two sweet smelling scent glands in front of each eye. The scent was attractive to other creatures. They knew this was a path to food and water… The scent was long lived, used by the eounicornis to mark its complicated migration.

An Eounicornis’ long, bushy tail was invaluable as a counterbalance, a source of shade during the summer heat, and was utilized as a vehicle for body language.

The horn of the Eounicornis was enormous, chitinous and hollow, unlike that of the modern day Unicorn. The horn was very lightweight, strong and formidable as a defensive weapon; however it was mainly used to knock foliage, fruit and nuts from trees.

Eounicornis had a highly developed sense of smell, hearing, and sight. They were very fast animals that could jump quite high. A full grown adult was capable of jumping high enough to knock fruit off the tops of trees. No creature, predator or prey in the day of the Eounicornis was as fleet footed.

The eounicornae had no natural enemies. Its extremely low birth rate kept it from overpopulation. Thanks to its superior senses, however, the eounicornis was always the first to find a fresh food/water source. Eounicornis was a solitary animal, although both does and bucks had highly developed parental instincts.

Many other animals made a habit of following the tolerant eounicornis, and picking up what food was dropped for them. Possessing the strong parental instinct mentioned earlier, eounicornae would intentionally drop food to the ‘surrogate’ animals present… They would also be known to protect these smaller animals from nearby predators. This instigated the belief that modern day unicorns are a signal to great things, and represent health, ferocity, innocence, compassion and luck.

Birds and fruit bats were commonly found feeding from the horn…. Fruit and berries tended to stick to it, and the eounicornis seemed grateful to have others ‘groom’ their horn. Seeing bats groom a silent and patient eounicornis brought the belief that the bat was a servant to the eounicornis, and therefore lucky in its own right. In the colder seasons, birds would migrate and roost in the vast winter mane, back and tail of the eounicornis. Considering the body heat the animal possessed, the whitened color that was useful as camouflage, as well as the abundance of food available made the eounicornis a walking luxury winter resort.

Eounicornae had very, very long life spans. Each new ridge of horn took a decade to grow. No one knows how long these creatures lived to be. It’s theorized these animals would never die simply of old age. They mated very rarely; once again, their population was never high or low…. They were somehow outside of the predator/prey balance.

The eounicornis was physically adaptable to plains, tundra, desert, wetland, beaches, and could adapt to most other environments as well. Their descendants took to the forests, growing paler and white in the darkness.

Eounicornis was phenomenally genetically malleable. Within ten generations, if needed, this animal could produce a subspecies with (for instance) only two toes per foot, or a smaller/larger size, or a prong-less horn…etc… This could be a reason why there are so many different reports of how unicorns looked throughout the world

Last but not least, Eounicornis had a vast migration pattern that spanned South America, North America, and Asia. One migration route took a decade for one Eounicornis to complete.




History of the Eounicornis and Early Mankind:

In early times, when tribes lived in a matriarchal manner, it was much more common for people to gather nuts, fruits, tubers, and berries to eat rather than hunt. It was discovered that the giant Eounicornis would tolerate children who followed it, and would voluntarily drop food for the children to pick up. Young scouts were occasionally sent to find an Eounicornis, and follow it to the next food source. Entire tribes would migrate along with the Eounicornis throughout Asia. Each tribe had their own patron Eounicornis, which ‘adopted’ the tribe, and lead them to their next gathering grounds.

At one point, tribes found themselves upon scarce times, and tribe by tribe, followed their patron Eounicornis over the land bridge called Beringia now known as the Bering Strait.

This is the advent of the American people. As centuries passed, societies advanced their skills in the hunt, and hunting was used more and more as a resource. This started to change the Eounicornis general perception of humans from their adopted tribe to a pack of predators. Eventually the Eounicornis began to avoid the tribes, and hide themselves in forests…. Genetically malleable and highly adaptable, within relatively few generations, the Eounicornis changed its appearance. Its horn became more compact, solid, and shorter. In most cases, the horn also straightened out. Its three toed hooves more and more commonly became two toed cloven hooves, and its size became generally smaller. These forest dwelling creatures were the first modern unicorns, but the first true unicorn was the Asiamerican Eounicornis.



Copyright Vidal 2006