Are There any Unicorns in Skagos?

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

6 minutes ago, White Ravens said:

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.

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.

Okey dokey. You stick to your idea and I'll go with the clues and information the author has deliberately written in order to help us as readers to interpret and understand the story. 

[Morgana Lannister]

On 5/18/2018 at 1:39 AM, LynnS said:

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.

in my humble opinion all she does is "lumps" them with species extinct or border line extinct.

[Light a wight tonight]

3 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Okey dokey. You stick to your idea and I'll go with the clues and information the author has deliberately written in order to help us as readers to interpret and understand the story. 

And what would an oversized goat add to the story, anyhow? 

[LynnS]

2 hours ago, Morgana Lannister said:

in my humble opinion all she does is "lumps" them with species extinct or border line extinct.

I'm thinking more in terms of a paleolithic ibex.  At least one was rather large and had enormous horns that were curled like a narwal.  An animal large enough to ride or perhaps 'ride' as in skin-change and formidable enough to take on Shaggy Dog.  This reminds me of Ghost's extreme dislike of Borroq's boar for some reason.     

[White Ravens]

9 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Okey dokey. You stick to your idea and I'll go with the clues and information the author has deliberately written in order to help us as readers to interpret and understand the story. 

Okey dokey.  You go with your perceived higher ground and the sense that your take on this is right and mine is wrong.  Forgive me if I'm not convinced that you have interpreted this story to a higher level of understanding than I have. 

 

[The Weirwoods Eyes]

16 hours ago, Light a wight tonight said:

And what would an oversized goat add to the story, anyhow? 

Quite.

I mean why describe enormous shaggy Unicorns, depict Unicorns on a coat of arms as goat like, then show an enormous shaggy goat like creature on the island where you have said these enormous shaggy goat like Unicorns live, If you just want there to be a really big goat.  Seems bizarre and completely out of sync with how writing and story telling is done to me but maybe I'm just a self satisfied smug twat who thinks her interpretation is superior. 

[White Ravens]

10 hours ago, The Weirwoods Eyes said:

Quite.

I mean why describe enormous shaggy Unicorns, depict Unicorns on a coat of arms as goat like, then show an enormous shaggy goat like creature on the island where you have said these enormous shaggy goat like Unicorns live, If you just want there to be a really big goat.  Seems bizarre and completely out of sync with how writing and story telling is done to me but maybe I'm just a self satisfied smug twat who thinks her interpretation is superior. 

No argument here.  I have a sense that we’ll never agree on this subject. 

I got into this conversation because I don’t believe that the following sentence describes a unicorn.  It describes a goat.  The word horn is used in the singular because the goat inflicted a singular wound in Shaggydog’s side.

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.

I also disagree with your interpretation of the Brax sigil.  That unicorn looks like a horse.  Sure it has stylized big hair and needs a trim but the structure of that animal is a rearing horse.  In the main books any reference to the Brax sigil is a general one such as in “His shield bore a unicorn sigil”.  I suspect you will disagree but I think most readers will imagine a unicorn that looks like a horse when they read this. 

I think you want the goat to be a unicorn but unfortunately GRRM just calls it a goat.  It is true that there are several references to unicorns living on Skagos scattered throughout the books but they are also general references like the unicorn on the Brax sigil.  GRRM has yet to describe a unicorn for us other than to say that the Skagosi rode great shaggy unicorns to war.  This in a passage from Sam's pov that also mentions that the Skagosi live in caves and reads more like folklore than a physical description.  It is how Sam imagines the scary cannibal Skogosi as he clings to the rails of the Blackbird and fears that they are going to be driven onto the rocks of Skagos and destroyed by a storm. 

You make it sound as if the narrative demands that Shaggy killed a unicorn but that isn’t the case either.  The single sentence referencing Shaggydog occurs at the beginning of the first Jon Chapter in Dance just 30 pages after the Prologue which provides lots of information about warging and skinchanging.  We have the pleasure of seeing the world from Ghost’s perspective.  Here we learn what Jon learns which is that Ghost has a connection with his surviving littermates and is aware of their actions.  This is the only time that we have even seen Shaggydog since he and Rickon struck out with Osha after the sack of Winterfell.  These are important developments in the narrative.  It may not satisfy your desire to see a unicorn in the story but it isn’t poor story telling if the goat is just a goat.  The sentence reveals that Shaggydog is alive and healthy and able to take down enormous prey. 

[The Lord of the Crossing]

On 5/17/2018 at 5:01 PM, OneEyed-Aegon said:

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

Yes.  At least in the past.  

[LynnS]

I guess we should check with admirers of unicorns for facts about unicorns.  Rather than ask whether there are unicorns on Skagos; ask instsead: what is a unicorn likely to be or why Martin mentions them at all.

http://www.unicornsrule.com/unicorns-in-the-bible/

Sam reads a description of unicorns:
 

Quote

 

A Feast for Crows - Samwell II

Or so he thought, until Blackbird left the land behind and struck east across the bay for the shores of Skagos.

The island sat at the mouth of the Bay of Seals, massive and mountainous, a stark and forbidding land peopled by savages. They lived in caves and grim mountain fastnesses, Sam had read, and rode great shaggy unicorns to war. Skagos meant "stone" in the Old Tongue. The Skagosi named themselves the stoneborn, but their fellow northmen called them Skaggs and liked them little. Only a hundred years ago Skagos had risen in rebellion. Their revolt had taken years to quell and claimed the life of the Lord of Winterfell and hundreds of his sworn swords. Some songs said the Skaggs were cannibals; supposedly their warriors ate the hearts and livers of the men they slew. In ancient days, the Skagosi had sailed to the nearby isle of Skane, seized its women, slaughtered its men, and ate them on a pebbled beach in a feast that lasted for a fortnight. Skane remained unpeopled to this day.

 

Euron has unicorn horns in his treasure hoard:
 

Quote

A Feast for Crows - The Reaver

Aye, he thought, a great victory for the Crow's Eye and his wizards. The other captains would shout his brother's name anew when the tidings reached Oakenshield. Euron had seduced them with his glib tongue and smiling eye and bound them to his cause with the plunder of half a hundred distant lands; gold and silver, ornate armor, curved swords with gilded pommels, daggers of Valyrian steel, striped tiger pelts and the skins of spotted cats, jade manticores and ancient Valyrian sphinxes, chests of nutmeg, cloves, and saffron, ivory tusks and the horns of unicorns, green and orange and yellow feathers from the Summer Sea, bolts of fine silk and shimmering samite . . . and yet all that was little and less, compared to this. Now he has given them conquest, and they are his for good and all, the captain thought. The taste was bitter on his tongue. This was my victory, not his. Where was he? Back on Oakenshield, lazing in a castle. He stole my wife and he stole my throne, and now he steals my glory.

 

Davos names Skagos the Isle of Unicorns:

 

Quote

A Dance with Dragons - Davos I

Nine-and-twenty ships had set sail from the Wall. If half of them were still afloat, Davos would be shocked. Black skies, bitter winds, and lashing rains had hounded them all the way down the coast. The galleys Oledo and Old Mother's Son had been driven onto the rocks of Skagos, the isle of unicorns and cannibals where even the Blind Bastard had feared to land; the great cog Saathos Saan had foundered off the Grey Cliffs. "Stannis will be paying for them," Salladhor Saan had fumed. "He will be paying for them with good gold, every one." It was as if some angry god was exacting payment for their easy voyage north, when they had ridden a steady southerly from Dragonstone to the Wall. Another gale had ripped away the rigging of the Bountiful Harvest, forcing Salla to have her taken under tow. Ten leagues north of Widow's Watch the seas rose again, slamming the Harvest into one of the galleys towing her and sinking both. The rest of the Lysene fleet had been scattered across the narrow sea. Some would straggle into one port or another. Others would never be seen again.

 

Leaf tells Bran that the unicorns are "all but gone":

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."

 

I read this as the lions are completely gone, the unicorns are down to a few in number, the mammoths only a few hundred.

Fattest Leach has pointed out that House Brax of Hornvale has the purple unicorn for it's sigial.  Hornvale is located in hilly and mountainous terrain not unlike Skagos.   So it would seem that riding a unicorn into battle is part of their lore.   Where does Ser Flement come by a spiral horn?
 

Quote

 

A Game of Thrones - Tyrion VII

A party of mounted horsemen rode forward to challenge them as they approached the stakes. The knight who led them wore silver armor inlaid with amethysts and a striped purple-and-silver cloak. His shield bore a unicorn sigil, and a spiral horn two feet long jutted up from the brow of his horsehead helm. Tyrion reined up to greet him. "Ser Flement."

 

 

 

 

[SirArthur]

On 5/19/2018 at 7:24 PM, Light a wight tonight said:

And what would an oversized goat add to the story, anyhow? 

The word goat is quite often used in the books. And black goat is used very early as a word for black sheep. Kind of fits for shaggydog. e.g. the Blackfish is called the black goat of the Tully family by Hoster. 

also

dragonfood with a horn.