The Narwhal,
generally called the Monoceros or Sea Unicorn, is thus shown in one place, by Gesner; and, rough though it is, it is far more like the Narwhal’s horn than is the other, also, in his work, of a Sea Rhinoceros or Narwhal engaged in combat with an outrageous-sized Lobster, or Kraken, I know not which; for, as we shall presently see, the Kraken is represented as a Crayfish or Lobster. It was the long twisted horn of the Narwhal which did duty for ages as the horn of the fabled Unicorn, a gift worthy to be presented by an Emperor to an Emperor.
This sketch of Gesner’s, he describes as a one-horned monster with a sharp nose, devouring a Gambarus. Olaus Magnus dismisses the Narwhal very curtly:—“The Unicorn is a Sea Beast, having in his forehead a very
great Horn, wherewith he can penetrate, and destroy the ships in his way, and drown multitudes of men. But divine goodnesse hath provided for the safety of Marriners herein; for, though he be a very fierce Creature, yet is he very slow, that such as fear his coming may fly from him.”
The earlier voyagers who really saw the Narwhal, fairly accurately described it; as Baffin, whose name is so familiar to us by the bay called after him:—“As for the Sea Unicorne, it being a great fish, having a long horn or bone growing forth of his forehead or nostrill, such as Sir Martin Frobisher, in his second voyage found one, in divers places we saw them, which, if the horne be of any good value, no doubt but many of them may be killed;” and Frobisher, as reported in Hakluyt, says:—“On this west shore we found a dead fish floating, which had in his nose a horne streight, and torquet, (twisted) of length two yards lacking two ynches. Being broken in the top, here we might perceive it hollow, into the which some of our sailors, putting spiders, they presently died. I saw not the triall hereof, but it was reported unto me of a truth; by the vertue thereof we supposed it to be the Sea Unicorne.”