Skagosi Unicorns (possible spoilers)

[God_made_me_do_it]

Well of course that depends also on your understanding of the Skagosi - it's just as likely, if not slightly more so, that all these legends are to some extent exaggerated and/or falsified because almost all information we have on them so far is based upon rumour. They could, for all we know, be a lot more civilized than they are given credit for - we just don't know yet. Many of us likely felt the same way about the Wildlings based purely upon their decription by Westerosi at the start of the books, but as we've seen they're a lot more complicated and diverse than that.

Also it's by no means implied that Shaggydog's wound is serious, the fact he's just casually washing it kind of implies it's just a flesh wound. Surely Ghost would have sensed his brother was dying or in great pain otherwise. Although it's a short description the implication is that it's business as usual for Shaggydog.

[thecryptile]

Didn't unicorns at one point in history said to resemble rhinos?

ever read Peter S. Beagle's "Proffesor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros"?

[eggs]

They're described as goat-like animals. So maybe they're not entirely goats as we know know them.

Its pretty interesting that theyre large enough to ride into battle.

[God_made_me_do_it]

Let's be honest that would be awesome. This is mainly why I'm hoping for an army of unicorns vs the undead. He spent most of AFFC dicking about, so I think he owes us some ridiculous levels of awesome in the next couple of books.

[Fire Eater]

Didn't unicorns at one point in history said to resemble rhinos?

The Pleistocene era Elasmotherium, an enormous woolly rhinoceros. That sounds more believable than a one horned goat to have given Shaggydog a wound.

[the Scorpion Knight]

The Pleistocene era Elasmotherium, an enormous woolly rhinoceros. That sounds more believable than a one horned goat to have given Shaggydog a wound.

well I wouldn't be surprised if the unicorn were these

[Ice Turtle]

I vote for unicorns being some king of prehistoric rhinos, Shaggy wouldn't have any trouble to deal with lame horse with a horn.

[Starkfaithful85]

Do unicorns have any particular magic powers known to be associated with them...in HP unicorn blood can heal someone at the brink of death, I know it's harry potter but do y'all think that maybe this could be something that they are useful for?

[Ser Brandon]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBesVO_3iQk real life unicorns, made by binding goathorns.

Based on the description in Bran's warg-dream, these 'unicorns' seem to be rather bigger than a typical goat. A dire-goat if you will.

[Talleyrand]

Its pretty interesting that theyre large enough to ride into battle.

Or maybe Skagos is an island of short-arses

[Guillotine]

Or maybe Skagos is an island of short-arses

As a short-arse myself, they'd need to be bordering on Tyrion's size to ride a goat...

[Talleyrand]

As a short-arse myself, they'd need to be bordering on Tyrion's size to ride a goat...

Maybe its some kind of combo of short people and overly large goats

[Ladywhiskers]

I expect they will look something like this: http://greaterkashmir.com/news/2011/Apr/19/survey-on-world-s-largest-wild-goat-begins-in-jk-56.asp, only perhaps even larger, and shaggier, and slightly more dangerous. There are a lot of different accounts of what unicorns looked like or were "really" like. The equine unicorn is the most recent kind. Caprine unicorns are much older, and there's also reason to think that the first unicorn sightings were actually rhinoceri, just not being described very well. Unicorns were described as being able to take on elephants and lions and win. Sounds like a rhino to me, but a crazy one-horned giant mountain goat might do.

The whole reason the Zells did their experiment with the goats and their horn buds in the first place, was that several years of research led them to the conclusion that unicorns were man-made, a way of making one goat different from the others so he could herd the rest, and also of course so you'd remember which of your goats was the Judas goat.