A large group of amateur historians contend that the Uffington White Horse, pictured above, was originally a unicorn and have obtained financial backing raising over 50,000 pounds to finance its “restoration”.
The glyph is over 3,000 years old. It was made by creating trenches depicting the animal and then filling them in with crushed white chalk. The horse, or unicorn as the case may be, measures 374 feet in length.
Leading the group insisting that the beast was once a unicorn is Paula Broderick, a well known author of children’s fantasy books. She said: “The Uffington White Horse has been a great British landmark for centuries, however its true form has always been shrouded in mystery.
“You only have to look at its head to see that it is not, strictly, a horse.
“We believe that the Uffington carving is actually one of a unicorn, a mythical creature known to have fascinated our ancient cultures and folklore.”
There has been a debate over whether the glyph actually depicted a horse or some other animal for some time. Convention has settled on a horse primarily because …
It has been referred to as a ‘horse’ since the 11th-Century, primarily because ancient scripts from nearby Abingdon Abbey refer to ‘mons albi equi’ at Uffington – or the White Horse Hill.
According to Paula the figure is “most likely” a unicorn – a mythical beast resembling a white horse with a large horn projecting from its forehead.
Its original horn, she argues, would have been removed by over-zealous Christian scholars in the 13th or 14th centuries.
More at The Telegraph. Unicorn taken from the group’s facebook page. Additional thanks to arbroath.
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The Town Scryer is a mixed bag of humor, socio-political observations and ephemera from the perspective of a eclectic Pagan veteran of the counter-culture. Philip Posehn's main blog is at The Town Scryer.
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