Fu Hsi

Disclaimer: This legend posted here (Fu Hsi) is quoted exactly from the book “Dragons and Unicorns: A Natural History” by Paul and Karin Johnsgard

Perhaps the first person ever to see a unicorn and report it carefully was the Chinese emperor Fu Hsi, who lived some 28 hundred years before Christ. He was noted for his invention of various musical instruments and trigams, 3 letter inscriptions used for divining the future. One day, while musing on the fleeting nature of human life, with its limited possibilities for making permanent contributions to society, Fu Hsi glanced up to see a strange deerlike animal standing in the nearby Yellow River. The creature was approximately the size of a calf but had a silvery horn extending from the middle of its forehead and was multicolored. Wherever it stood in the river, the muddy water became clear. As the creature moved away Fu Hsi saw many strange markings on its side and back. As it disappeared in the distance, the emperor found himself tracing these symbols on the ground before him, and he suddenly realized that such markings could be used to portray ideas and words. Thus, a unicorn, or a Ki-lin, was responsible for the introduction of a written Chinese language, which, of course, made it possible to record ideas and philosophy for posterity.

Following the death of Fu Hsi, the unicorn was not seen again in China until the reign of Huang Ti, the Yellow Emperor, who designed houses and the first cities. In his very old age he was a unicorn standing in his garden. The animal called out softly to him as he gazed at it in rapt admiration. Soon afterward he died, and it was believed that his spirit was carried into eternity on the back of the Ki-lin.

Since then, the appearance of unicorns in China have been extremely rare and have been associated with periods of happiness and good fortune, as when a ruler is kind and just, or as an omen of a sad event, just prior to the death of a great man.

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Here's an interesting fact: Unicorn blood is silver, and if one drinks it, one will live forever.(don't even THINK of killing a unicorn for anything, EVER!!!!!)