14 Arctic Adventure
“Roger’s forehead wrinkled. He thought he knew animals pretty well but he had never heard of this one. ‘What’s a narwhal?’ ‘It’s one of the most peculiar animals on the face of the earth. It’s found only in the Arctic, so most people have never heard of it.’ ‘What is it-a whale?’ ‘No, it’s not a whale.’ ‘A fish?’ ‘No, it’s not a fish.’ ‘Well then, what is it?’ ‘It’s a narwhal.’ ‘Don’t beat about the bush. What the dickens is a narwhal?’ ‘Something like the unicorn.’ ‘All right then, what’s a unicorn?’ ‘Something that isn’t. It doesn’t exist and it never did. But people two thousand years ago believed in it. It was supposed to be a kind of horse, but the odd thing about it was that it was thought to have a horn protruding many feet in front of the head. So it was called a unicorn—uni meaning one and corn from the Latin cornu meaning horn. The explorers found a horn of solid ivory, the very best. Only animals produce ivory, therefore they decided that this must come from a real unicorn.
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