Are There any Unicorns in Skagos?

[OneEyed-Aegon]

Are There any Unicorns in Skagos? people mention it a lot but is there a source for this info?

[Azarial]

When the nights watch is collecting valuables from the wildlings a unicorn horn is collected. So we know that unicorns exist, and 

Quote

Dareon knew the songs as well. When the bleak grey peaks of Skagos rose up from the sea, he joined Sam at Blackbird's prow, and said, "If the gods are good, we may catch a glimpse of a unicorn."

This quote is from Feast. But, until we get a Davos POV in winds we wont know for sure.

[HexMachina]

Jon also has a ‘dream’ as Ghost where he thinks of his brother (Shaggydog) fighting a one horned goat, which many believe to be a unicorn. But nothing technically confirmed by this

[Nowy Tends]

2 hours ago, Azarial said:

When the nights watch is collecting valuables from the wildlings a unicorn horn is collected.

Which could very well be a narwhale horn… (actually a defense, a teeth)

[LynnS]

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Bran III

And they did sing. They sang in True Tongue, so Bran could not understand the words, but their voices were as pure as winter air. "Where are the rest of you?" Bran asked Leaf, once.

"Gone down into the earth," she answered. "Into the stones, into the trees. Before the First Men came all this land that you call Westeros was home to us, yet even in those days we were few. The gods gave us long lives but not great numbers, lest we overrun the world as deer will overrun a wood where there are no wolves to hunt them. That was in the dawn of days, when our sun was rising. Now it sinks, and this is our long dwindling. The giants are almost gone as well, they who were our bane and our brothers. The great lions of the western hills have been slain, the unicorns are all but gone, the mammoths down to a few hundred. The direwolves will outlast us all, but their time will come as well. In the world that men have made, there is no room for them, or us."

When Leaf talks about unicorns, I don't think she's talking about one-horned goats or horses with rainbow horns.  She lumps the old races together with giants:  the great lions, the mammoths and direwolves, all giants themselves.  I'm guessing the 'unicorn' is a woolly rhino.

[Nowy Tends]

11 minutes ago, LynnS said:

  I'm guessing the 'unicorn' is a woolly rhino.

Good point! Makes sense.

[The Fattest Leech]

House Brax has a unicorn sigil, and it looks like a “traditional” unicorn, so the idea came from somewhere. 

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Brax

[ApostolinO]

5 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

House Brax has a unicorn sigil, and it looks like a “traditional” unicorn, so the idea came from somewhere. 

http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/House_Brax

The Brax unicorn could be a romanticized version of a rhino-like beast just like the heart shape (<3) in Stannis' new sigil. Trading unicorn horns suits better the hunt for rhino horn we see in our world instead of the impractical one from Brax' sigil.

[Kandrax]

No there aren't. Shaggy ate them all.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

yes there are, I think we can take Jon's dream and see that this creature Shaggy is fighting is a skaagosi Unicorn and I think given the nature of the story as a whole it is more likely that the unicorns in question are like the traditional goat like creatures such as the one on House Brax's sigil. But that they must be much bigger than the sigil or most westerosi depictions suggest. 

Quote

The "unicorns" of Skagos were once scoffed at by maesters at the Citadel. The occasional "unicorn horn" offered by disreputable merchants has never been more than the horn of a kind of whale hunted by the whalers of Ib. However, horns of quite a different kind—reputed to be from Skagos—have been seen by the maesters at Eastwatch upon occasion. It is also said that those seafarers brave enough to trade on Skagos have glimpsed the stoneborn lords riding great, shaggy, horned beasts, monstrous mounts so sure-footed they have been known to climb the sides of mountains. A living example of such a creature—or even a skeleton—has long been sought for study, but none has ever been brought to Oldtown.

This quote is from TWOIAF and it suggests that the unicorns horns are quite different to the Narwhal tusks sometimes passed off . They must be really big if Skaagosi men ride them as they themselves are huge men rumoured to have giants blood in their veins. But teh sure footed mountain climbing sounds very goat like and nothing at all like a rhino. So I think we can assume a creature like the shaggy goat looking traditional unicorn of mythology but super sized up to enable semi giant men to ride them. 

Also they are listed by Leaf as one of teh old world semi magical creatures and their horns have value as demonstrated by the fact they are traded. So I have long wondered if they might come into play in the story as another magical element and or that teh horns may hold some power. 

[ChuckPunch]

Giants aren't exactly how the humans imagine them, instead being much more like humongous bigfoot creatures. Unicorns are probably similarly unlike their imagined appearance. 

[White Ravens]

4 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

yes there are, I think we can take Jon's dream and see that this creature Shaggy is fighting is a skaagosi Unicorn and I think given the nature of the story as a whole it is more likely that the unicorns in question are like the traditional goat like creatures such as the one on House Brax's sigil. But that they must be much bigger than the sigil or most westerosi depictions suggest.

When Jon dreams a wolf dream with Ghost he seas Shaggydog licking a wound that he received while fighting with and killing an enormous black goat.  That goat is just a goat.  It is not a unicorn. 

Quote

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS - JON I

A wild rain lashed down upon his black brother as he tore at the flesh of an enormous goat, washing the blood from his side where the goat's long horn had raked him

The word horn in this sentence is singular because only one injury is described and that injury was made by one horn.  The exact same language is used in real life descriptions of bullfighters receiving injuries from bulls in the ring.  For example:  " A bullfighter has been left with sickening internal injuries after becoming impaled on a beast's horn and tossed around the ring."  We don't assume that the bull has only one horn in this description because bulls are known to have two horns.

[LynnS]

8 hours ago, ApostolinO said:

The Brax unicorn could be a romanticized version of a rhino-like beast just like the heart shape (<3) in Stannis' new sigil. Trading unicorn horns suits better the hunt for rhino horn we see in our world instead of the impractical one from Brax' sigil.

The traditional unicorn has a beard, like a goat and is the right size for a maiden to hold in her lap.    

[LynnS]

26 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

When Jon dreams a wolf dream with Ghost he seas Shaggydog licking a wound that he received while fighting with and killing an enormous black goat.  That goat is just a goat.  It is not a unicorn. 

The word horn in this sentence is singular because only one injury is described and that injury was made by one horn.  The exact same language is used in real life descriptions of bullfighters receiving injuries from bulls in the ring.  For example:  " A bullfighter has been left with sickening internal injuries after becoming impaled on a beast's horn and tossed around the ring."  We don't assume that the bull has only one horn in this description because bulls are known to have two horns.

An animal that can climb up the side of sheer cliff might be deemed magical.  The Black Goat of Qohor as a deity must originate somewhere.     

[The Fattest Leech]

43 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

When Jon dreams a wolf dream with Ghost he seas Shaggydog licking a wound that he received while fighting with and killing an enormous black goat.  That goat is just a goat.  It is not a unicorn. 

The word horn in this sentence is singular because only one injury is described and that injury was made by one horn.  The exact same language is used in real life descriptions of bullfighters receiving injuries from bulls in the ring.  For example:  " A bullfighter has been left with sickening internal injuries after becoming impaled on a beast's horn and tossed around the ring."  We don't assume that the bull has only one horn in this description because bulls are known to have two horns.

 

10 minutes ago, LynnS said:

An animal that can climb up the side of sheer cliff might be deemed magical.  The Black Goat of Qohor as a deity must originate somewhere.     

I am totally down with the Black Goat of Qohor in the story (I think it’s someone we know), and the “single” horn idea, however, not to be persnickety, but in the wolf dream Jon has, never is that goat described as black. It may be important to keep that distinction. Or not? The “black brother” is Shaggydog.

[White Ravens]

9 hours ago, The Fattest Leech said:

 

I am totally down with the Black Goat of Qohor in the story (I think it’s someone we know), and the “single” horn idea, however, not to be persnickety, but in the wolf dream Jon has, never is that goat described as black. It may be important to keep that distinction. Or not? The “black brother” is Shaggydog.

My bad.  The text does not state that the goat is black.  All we know about the goat is that it is enormous and that it was able to injure Shaggydog. 

[The Fattest Leech]

Just now, White Ravens said:

My bad.  The text does not state that the goat is black.  All we know about the goat is that it is enormous and that it was able to injure Shaggydog. 

Totally, and I am sure that means something. If those north of the wall were inspired by the Scots north of Hadrian’s Wall, and if we look back in some traditional heraldry where the unicorn is in chains, maybe this means something to our story now? 

[Light a wight tonight]

If there are dragons why can't there be unicorns? Unicorns are a lot less unlikely than dragons, which defy the laws of physics.

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

18 hours ago, White Ravens said:

When Jon dreams a wolf dream with Ghost he seas Shaggydog licking a wound that he received while fighting with and killing an enormous black goat.  That goat is just a goat.  It is not a unicorn. 

The word horn in this sentence is singular because only one injury is described and that injury was made by one horn.  The exact same language is used in real life descriptions of bullfighters receiving injuries from bulls in the ring.  For example:  " A bullfighter has been left with sickening internal injuries after becoming impaled on a beast's horn and tossed around the ring."  We don't assume that the bull has only one horn in this description because bulls are known to have two horns.

We're not talking about real life bull fighting here. We're reading a novel in which the author has created an island famous for having unicorns, beasts which are described in several accounts as being enormous and shaggy, and having a horn. He's mentioned these unicorns multiple times and ensured the reader knows the animals are real by having the two different types of horn pop up and he's made the distinction between a Narwhal tusk; which in our wolrd was often passed off as a unicorn horn/there is a legend the unicorns turned into Narwhals. And a different type of horn coming specifically from Skaagos. So we know these Unicorns are not just myths; that they exist on Skaagos. He tells us the men ride on the enormous shaggy beasts. He gives us the Brax sigil which is a Unicorn in the traditional goat like style and he shows Shaggy Dog having been fighting an enormous shaggy goat whose horn gouges him.  And you think this is just a goat?  Are you suggesting GRRM wrote all those descriptors into the story and then trolled us by having it be a regular goat? Honestly that is not how writing or story telling works. You don't waste words on something that doesn't exist. He even wrote in a helm made from a Unicorns skull complete with it's horn. And if the goat is just a goat why describe it as enormous? the same word he uses multiple times to describe the unicorns that the huge men of Skaagos ride. 

[White Ravens]

4 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

We're not talking about real life bull fighting here. We're reading a novel in which the author has created an island famous for having unicorns, beasts which are described in several accounts as being enormous and shaggy, and having a horn. He's mentioned these unicorns multiple times and ensured the reader knows the animals are real by having the two different types of horn pop up and he's made the distinction between a Narwhal tusk; which in our wolrd was often passed off as a unicorn horn/there is a legend the unicorns turned into Narwhals. And a different type of horn coming specifically from Skaagos. So we know these Unicorns are not just myths; that they exist on Skaagos. He tells us the men ride on the enormous shaggy beasts. He gives us the Brax sigil which is a Unicorn in the traditional goat like style and he shows Shaggy Dog having been fighting an enormous shaggy goat whose horn gouges him.  And you think this is just a goat?  Are you suggesting GRRM wrote all those descriptors into the story and then trolled us by having it be a regular goat? Honestly that is not how writing or story telling works. You don't waste words on something that doesn't exist. He even wrote in a helm made from a Unicorns skull complete with it's horn. And if the goat is just a goat why describe it as enormous? the same word he uses multiple times to describe the unicorns that the huge men of Skaagos ride. 

I'm sticking to my guns here.  The quote provided does not indicate that the goat has one horn.  It only states that Shaggydog was injured by the goat.

Quote

 

A DANCE WITH DRAGONS - JON I

A wild rain lashed down upon his black brother as he tore at the flesh of an enormous goat, washing the blood from his side where the goat's long horn had raked him.

This quote comes from a chapter where GRRM reveals that the direwolves are aware of each other's activities and that Jon and other wargs can tap into this awareness while shapeshifting.  It also establishes that Shaggydog is big and formidable and can take down enormous prey.  No mention of unicorns though.