CURIOUS CREATURES. 93 



when the hunters, by the signe of the young man, 

 perceave him fast and secure, they come uppon him, 

 and, by force, cut off his home, and send him away 

 alive : b\it, concerning this opinion wee have no elder 

 authoritie than Tzetzes, who did not live above five 

 hundred yeares agoe, and therefore I leave the reader 

 to the freedome of his owne judgment, to believe or 

 refuse this relation ; neither is it fit that I should omit 

 it, seeing that all writers, since the time of Tzetzes, doe 

 most constantly beleeve it. 



" It is sayd by ^Elianus and Albertus, that, except they 

 bee taken before they bee two yeares old they will never 

 bee tamed ; and that the Thrasians doe yeerely take 

 some of their Colts, and bring them to their King, which 

 he keepeth for combat, and to fight with one another ; 

 for when they are old, they differ nothing at all 

 from the most barbarous, bloodie, and ravenous beasts. 

 Their flesh is not good for meate, but is bitter and 

 unnourishable." 



It is hardly worth while to go into all the authorities 

 treating of the Unicorn ; suffice it to say, that it was an 

 universal belief that there were such animals in existence, 

 for were not their horns in proof thereof? and were 

 they not royal presents fit for the mightiest of potentates 

 to send as loving pledges one to another ? for it was 

 one of the most potent of medicines, and a sure antidote 

 to poison. And they were very valuable, too, for Paul 

 Hentzner who wrote in the time of Queen Elizabeth 

 says that, at Windsor Castle, he was shown, among other 

 things, the horn of an Unicorn of above eight spans and 

 a half in length, i.e., about 6^ feet, valued at ^"10,000. 

 Considering that money was worth then about three times 

 what it is now, an Unicorn's horn was a right royal gift. 



