Chapter I. The Gorgeous East : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER I THE GORGEOUS EAST WE may never know precisely when or where or how the legend of the unicorn began. It pervades recorded time and may be dimly visible even in the clouds that hover just above history's sunrise. The mystery of its orig...
Title Page : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], THE LORE OF THE UNICORN BY ODELL SHEPARD (b. 1884--d.1967) London: George Allen Boston: Houghton Mifflin [1930] Scanned and proofed by Eliza Yetter at sacredspiral.com, 2004. Additional formatting by John Bruno Hare, February, 2005. This text is...
Chapter Iv. East And West : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER IV EAST AND WEST IN the scientific discussion of any animal one of the prime essentials is the determination of its habitat, and we must not proceed farther with the study of the unicorn without naming the places where he has been supposed...
Chapter Vii. Rumours : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER VII RUMOURS THE first point that research into a doubtful matter should try to determine, as Andrea Bacci wisely observes, is whether the thing in question really exists; and if we were concerned in this book with the unicorn itself rather...
Chapter Vi. The Battle Of Books : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER VI THE BATTLE OF BOOKS FOR somewhat more than a century unicorn lore was a toy of scholarship with which the "leviathans of learning" loved to play. They played awkwardly, as leviathans are likely to do, the sport consisting...
Chapter Viii. Conjectures : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER VIII CONJECTURES HAVING considered some of the more important arguments and observations that have been advanced to prove the existence or non-existence of the unicorn, we may now assume the role of the sceptic who regards the whole legend...
Chapter Ii. The Holy Hunt : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER II THE HOLY HUNT IN the King James Version of the Bible there are seven clear references to the unicorn, all of which occur in the Old Testament. The animal is mentioned twice in the Pentateuch, once in job, once in Isaiah, and three times...
Chapter Iii. Shaping Fantasies : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER III SHAPING FANTASIES THE unicorn is one of the most beautiful of the "shapes that haunt thought's wildernesses", but he did not attain his beauty all at once. As soon as we begin to inquire how he looked to the imagination of the Ages...
Chapter X. Reflections : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER X REFLECTIONS I RELIGIOUS history presents few stranger possibilities than this, that the beast sculptured on the staircases at Persepolis may have come at last, after as many changes as the Old Man of the Sea went through, to st...
Chapter V. The Treasure Of His Brow : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER V THE TREASURE OF HIS BROW ALTHOUGH men have often been uncertain where unicorns were to be found, there has never been the same difficulty with regard to unicorns' horns. These have never been plentiful and they have usually been very...
Chapter Ix. Certainties : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], CHAPTER IX CERTAINTIES THE zoologists of four hundred years ago believed that every terrestrial form of animal life had a marine counterpart. When men began to think, in the seventeenth century, that the land-surface of the globe had been fully...
Untitled : * Writer and English Professor Odell Shepard was an instructor of English at Harvard University and Radcliffe College in 1916-1917. He was Goodwin Professor of English at Trinity College, Harford, Connecticut, from 1917-1946, and a guest lecturer there from 1946-1966. He was the Lieutenant...
Introduction : * "Lore of the Unicorn", by Odell Shepard, [1930], THE LORE OF THE UNICORN INTRODUCTION ON the table before me there lies a long straight wand of ivory. Cut to the length of a walking-stick, it is somewhat more than two inches in diameter at the top and it tapers evenly to a blunt point...