The Unicorn is described as fierce in the Bestiary tradition, but it is also said to be symbolic of Christ (Clark 126).  Because only a virgin can be used to capture a unicorn, "thus our Lord Jesus Christ is spiritually the unicorn" because he was born of a virgin mother (126).
 
Unicorns appear less commonly than one might expect in medieval Arthuriana; however, the appearance of a unicorn in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival suggests the author's familiarity with other writings circulating at the time.  In the story, the title character encounters a knight-hermit who tells Parzival of the efforts to heal the Maimed King.  The knight-hermit explains that the court used two animals to try to heal the king.  First, they obtain a pelican's blood to attempt to heal the king, but this fails. Second, the court obtains the heart of a beast called Monocerous, or unicorn, but this method of healing the king also fails. (245).  Both these creatures are often figured as symbols of Christ in the bestiary tradition; the name used for the unicorn here – as well as the court's sacrifice of it for healing – reinforce the connection to bestiaries.  The unicorn's appearance in Parzival is thus particularly appropriate in the context of a Grail Quest.
 
The French romance The Knight of the Parrot recounts an episode about a dwarf and his infant child being cared for by a unicorn, which is described as being "a marvelously large animal, as big as a large horse, and who had a horn in the middle of the forehead as sharp as any razor in the world" (88).  This unicorn provides milk for the infant and eventually kills a deer by charging it with her...

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The Unicorn is described as fierce in the Bestiary tradition, but it is also said to be symbolic of Christ (Clark 126).  Because only a virgin can be used to capture a unicorn, "thus our Lord Jesus Christ is spiritually the unicorn" because he was born of a virgin mother (126).
 
Unicorns appear less commonly than one might expect in medieval Arthuriana; however, the appearance of a unicorn in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival suggests the author's familiarity with other writings circulating at the time.  In the story, the title character encounters a knight-hermit who tells Parzival of the efforts to heal the Maimed King.  The knight-hermit explains that the court used two animals to try to heal the king.  First, they obtain a pelican's blood to attempt to heal the king, but this fails. Second, the court obtains the heart of a beast called Monocerous, or unicorn, but this method of healing the king also fails. (245).  Both these creatures are often figured as symbols of Christ in the bestiary tradition; the name used for the unicorn here – as well as the court's sacrifice of it for healing – reinforce the connection to bestiaries.  The unicorn's appearance in Parzival is thus particularly appropriate in the context of a Grail Quest.
 
The French romance The Knight of the Parrot recounts an episode about a dwarf and his infant child being cared for by a unicorn, which is described as being "a marvelously large animal, as big as a large horse, and who had a horn in the middle of the forehead as sharp as any razor in the world" (88).  This unicorn provides milk for the infant and eventually kills a deer by charging it with her horn, simultaneously protecting her children and the infant and providing the dwarf with food.  This particular account is unique in its presentation of the unicorn as hunter, though its role as provider may have some bestiary-like overtones; as Caroline Walker Bynum has argued, twelfth-century clerical writing, particularly writing by Cistercian authors, describes Christ as a nurturing mother-figure who nurses Christian souls (115-16).
 
A more recent Arthurian text that prominently features the unicorn is T. H. White's The Once and Future King, in which Gareth, Gawaine, and Agravaine catch and kill a unicorn in an attempt to please their mother Morgause, who regularly sets up unicorn hunting parties as an excuse to flirt with men.  They mutilate the corpse of the unicorn to bring its head back to their mother, who does not pay attention to them on their return but later has them beaten because her hunting party has been unsuccessful (270-80).  Their messy, bloody success highlights her failure, robbing the pursuit of the unicorn of its glamor and Morgause of her fantasy.

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