Unicorn. In “Julius Cæsar” (ii. 1) Decius tells how “unicorns may be betray’d with trees,” alluding to their traditionary mode of capture. They are reported to have been taken by one who, running behind a tree, eluded the violent push the animal was making at him, so that his horn spent its force on the trunk, and stuck fast, detaining the animal till he was despatched by the hunter.[448] In Topsell’s “History of Beasts” (1658, p. 557), we read of the unicorn: “He is an enemy to the lions, wherefore, as soon as ever a lion seeth a unicorn, he runneth to a tree for succour, that so when the unicorn maketh force at him, he may not only avoid his horn, but also destroy him; for the unicorn, in the swiftness of his course, runneth against the tree, wherein his sharp horn sticketh fast, that when the lion seeth the unicorn fastened by the horn, without all danger he falleth upon him and killeth him.” With this passage we may compare the following from Spenser’s “Fairy Queen” (bk. ii. canto 5):
“Like as a lyon, whose imperiall power
A prowd rebellious unicorn defyes,
T’ avoide the rash assault and wrathful stowre
Of his fiers foe, him to a tree applyes,
And when him ronning in full course he spyes,
He slips aside: the whiles that furious beast
His precious horne, sought of his enimyes
Strikes in the stocke, ne thence can be releast,
But to the mighty victor yields a bounteous feast.”
Weasel. To meet a weasel was formerly considered a bad omen.[449] That may be a tacit allusion to this superstition in “Lucrece” (l. 307):
“Night-wandering weasels shriek to see him there;
They fright him, yet he still pursues his fear.”
It appears that weasels were kept in houses, instead of cats, for the purpose of killing vermin. Phædrus notices this their feline office in the first and fourth fables of his fourth book. The supposed quarrelsomeness of this animal is spoken of by Pisanio in “Cymbeline” (iii. 4), who tells Imogen that she must be “as quarrelous as the weasel;” and in “1 Henry IV.” (ii. 3), Lady Percy says to Hotspur:
“A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen
As you are toss’d with.”
This character of the weasel is not, however, generally mentioned by naturalists.
FOOTNOTES:
[342] Nares’s “Glossary,” vol. i. p. 38.