unicorns



Among my other interests, as evident from the graphic at the top of the main page, unicorns... I loved horses from the time I was a baby When I was around six or seven years old, I saw a cartoon, Japanese in origin I believe, science-fiction, about space travellers. In one episode, they landed on a planet inhabited by unicorns. The artistry used was so unlike what I was otherwise used to (Disney, Warner Brothers), it was downright beautiful, and so I fell in love with the idea that such creatures as unicorns might exist. For centuries they've been a source of wonder, symbols of different things according to different traditions and ethnic backgrounds.

While looking for something completely different, I happened upon some cool sites which are devoted to unicorns. (Funny how I couldn't find them back when I was looking for them.) I was delighted to find a link to the
Cloisters, the medieval branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, NY, a place I visited a number of times, and where I purchased prints of the tapestry set, The Hunt of the Unicorn, which at this link shows them in black and white images and gives some explanation of them, and which at this link shows a few of them in color. There was a rare episode in the history of the museum when the seven tapestries from the Cloisters and the six tapestries from Musee de Cluny in Paris which are known as La Dame a la licorne (The Lady with the Unicorn) were on joint exhibit. I saw that exhibit and purchased prints of the six French tapestries, for two complete tapestry sets (well, prints of them anyway). Actually, my print of 'Sight' (one of the Lady With the Unicorn tapestries) is cut from an old issue of Time Magazine because the Met was sold out of those at the time I visited. For a while those 13 tapestry prints were all I had. Then I added the Avon cologne decanters, hunted for references to unicorns in books and magazines and even product logos, found some unicorn jewelry... People who knew me would find unicorns and send them to me, so that I amassed quite a collection. During my more active unicorn collecting days, I also found references to dragons, and with Shadow Dragon's* greater interest in dragons than unicorns, my interest in what is often an evil mythological creature to the unicorn's often good mythological creature grew. J.R.R. Tolkien treated dragons as they had been treated in western culture, as evil creatures, but Anne McCaffrey treated them as beneficient creatures as eastern culture was wont to do, and I started to actually like the creatures. I haven't collected dragons, though. During my net surfing, I found the following links which had information/pictures of unicorns and links of their own:

The Unicorn Web Page which lists a variety of unicorn-related sources as well as pictures
The Unicorn's World moved from its original location and is under construction, but still contains some links and images.
Neysa's Unicorn Picture Page which contains by far the most unicorn pictures I've seen yet, although it looks as though a few of them are duplicated between collections (17 collections listed). The black and white engraving above came from Neysa's page.
Mary Ann's Unicorn Page which contains many thumbnails of larger unicorn pictures from various sources. (The animated unicorn at right is from Mary Ann's site.)
Geoff's Horse and Unicorn Meadow which contains some nice art, original stories by Geoff, and more links. He and his wife also like dragons.
Unicorn Images is a links page for places to find pictures of unicorns.

*Shadow Dragon and I have known each other for years. When he's not away at college, he lives in the same hometown I do, and we get together.

The animated purple unicorn is by Lynn Gross. I found it in a few places. The original is most likely from Badger's Animated Gif Gallery which has a lot of really nice animated art for web pages. A few of the animated graphics found in here are from Badger's.


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