Ynnis editions have released a very beautiful book on unicorns, this imaginary animal but represented an unimaginable number of times in different times and cultures. Bruno Faidutti, the author of the book, was very interested in it. He is also an author of games and in particular of “Citadels”, a best seller of the kind.
He is also a historian and sociologist and it is therefore he who proposes to retrace the course of the unicorn from antiquity to our time. And above all he tries to answer the questions that we ask ourselves about this phantasmagorical beingsuch as: “Where does she come from?, How did she go from stocky to the slender silhouette that we know and especially why have we seen her everywhere for fifteen years?”
Attention, Faidutti is formal: the unicorn does not exist. But she is so represented that one would almost be surprised. Everyone would have crossed her somewhere one fine day. It is found in religious texts, zoological treatises and collections of tales and legends.
And then know that the unicorn has fascinated Europeans as well as Arabs and Persians. And that sometimes she was able to mistaken for a rhinoceros who does indeed have a horn on his forehead. It is only at the end of the Middle Ages that they all begin to look alike. And what is certain is that it will have taken a long time before being represented as a kitsh little pony found on coffee cups or little girls’ notebooks.
You have no doubt understood, we learn a lot on the subject thanks to the meticulous work by Bruno Faidutti who seems to devote a cult to this animal and we pass from era to era of legend in cartoon in a very beautiful book of more than 200 pages embellished with numerous photos and representations.
Raising my head after my reading, I even thought I saw one in my garden.