First mentioned in written stories around 2700 BC, this unicorn is described as a creature of great power and wisdom.

When was the first unicorn discovered?

For most of that time, well into the Middle Ages, people also believed them to be real. The roots of the unicorn myth date back at least as far as 400 BCE, when the Greek historian Ctesias first documented a unicorn-like animal in his writings on the region of India.

Where did unicorns originate?

Borrowed into English by the early 1200s from French, unicorn comes from the Latin unicornis, “having one horn.” This root joins uni-, meaning “one,” and cornu, “horn.” (The Latin is a loan translation of the Greek monokeros, its equivalent of “one horn” and passing into English as monoceros.)