The Unicorn Found

Across cultures and time periods, the unicorn has appeared with a lion. The pairing represents opposing counterparts. The two beasts are, at times, fierce adversaries, but in essence, they symbolize complements — the extrovert and introvert, the violent and tranquil. In Middle Eastern myths, interactions between the lion and the unicorn explained the cycles of day and night and the moon phases. With each passage from the lion’s realm, day, to the unicorn’s, night, the unicorn’s horn, or crescent of the moon, becomes ever sharper, eventually disappearing. This association of the two animals as balanced natural forces has persisted through the ages.

The unicorn and its compliment have regularly been used in heraldic emblems, or symbolic representations of nations, families, and important ranks, since the 16th century. In 1603, James VI, King of Scotland, united the crowns of Scotland and England when he acceded to the English throne as James I, the anointed successor to Elizabeth I. This joining of the crowns of two sovereign states required a new Royal coat of arms. The lion, standing for England, and a unicorn, for Scotland, serve as supporters, or figures posed to buttress the central shield of the emblem. King James I endorsed the use of this beastly imagery as it represented the harmonious and powerful union that results from two opposites — the two formerly warring nations.