The Unicorn’s Horn
The unicorn’s horn was considered an amulet of singular efficacy. It is now known that the object shown as such in various museums is the horn of the rhinoceros. They were sold at six thousand ducats, and were thought infallible tests of poison, just as Venitian glass and some sorts of jewels were. The Dukes of Burgundy kept pieces of the horn in their wine jugs, and used others to touch all the meat they tasted. Drinking-cups of this kind were greatly esteemed in former times. In the inventory of jewels and plate in the Tower (1649), with cups and beakers of unicorn’s horn, is entered, “A rinoceras cupp, graven with figures, with a golden foot,” valued at £12. Decker, in “Gul’s Hornbook,” speaks of “the unicorn whose horn is worth a city.”