Almost every dork with a heart of goldhas read Peter S. Beagle's magestically sad novel The Last Unicorn. I devoured it in sixth grade during the height of my unicorn obsession, during which time I also convinced my friends to form a club named "unisus" after the cool unicorn-Pegasus combo. I even had airbrushed paintings of unicorns and rainbows like the ones you can buy from buskers in Harvard Square. Yes, I was a unicorny kid.
I was also unknowingly part of a great tradition in Western philosophy. Apparently the early philosopher/scientist Gottfried Leibniz believed in unicorns too. In 1663, some Germans found what they thought was a unicorn skeleton in a mountain cave. It had only two legs, but an unmistakable horse skull with a horn on it. Leibniz saw the skeleton and was convinced, later writing that unicorns would take their place in a proper scientific schema alongside other curiosities such as talking dogs, genies and various monsters. I love the idea that one of the great rationalists of the 17th century felt that mythological creatures had a natural place within science. Less credulous scientists of later centuries believe the skeleton was a fake fashioned out of mammoth bones or other fossils.
The Unicorn, the Mermaid and the Centaur [Smithsonian Zoogoer]
