Skip to main content

harry potter - What are the uses of Unicorns?


What different uses does the unicorn have?


Other than the delicious taste of them coming off the grill.



enter image description here
At Wit's End #221



Answer



According to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, unicorn horn, blood, and tail hairs have magical properties. Firenze explains to Harry the cost of slaying a unicorn: (I don't know if this means they will live half the amount of time they were meant to, or if it means they will exist in a unfulfilled, unrealised form.)



‘That is because it is a monstrous thing, to slay a unicorn,’ said Firenze. ‘Only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime. The blood of a unicorn will keep you alive, even if you are an inch from death, but at a terrible price. You have slain something pure and defenceless to save yourself and you will have but a half life, a cursed life, from the moment the blood touches your lips.’

Philosopher's Stone - Page 188 - British Hardcover



(Does this mean that the unicorn blood that Voldemort consumed in Philosopher's Stone affected his lifespan in any way? Perhaps it helped Harry to ultimately defeat Voldemort in some unknown way. . . ?)


Unicorn horns are silver and are used in potions (Harry notices them at the apothecary in Diagon Alley during his first visit there with Hagrid.)


As noted, the unicorn tail hair is used as a wandcore by Ollivander. Harry also mentions using unicorn tail hair as an ingredient in Potions lessons. ETA Unicorn blood is an ingredient in Voldemort's initial resurrection potion which allows him to return to the infant form that Wormtail carries around, that we see in the beginning of Goblet of Fire. I didn't mean to say that it was in the resurrection potion used in the graveyard in Little Hangleton. Unicorn blood was used for the initial potion (Goblet of Fire - Page 569, Brit version) along with Nagini's venom. Just wanted to clarify.



Strangely, Hagrid tells Harry:



Harry saw that Hagrid looked very worried.

‘Could a werewolf be killing the unicorns?’ Harry asked.

‘Not fast enough,’ said Hagrid. ‘It’s not easy ter catch a unicorn, they’re powerful magic creatures. I never knew one ter be hurt before.

Philosopher's Stone - Page 183 - British Hardcover



I wonder how Quirrell managed to even catch one unicorn, much less two. Yes, he has Voldemort inside him, but Voldemort is in a very weakened state and cannot perform magic independently yet. I digress.


Professor Grubbly-Plank in Goblet of Fire indicates that unicorns prefer a woman's touch to a man's, although I don't know to what purpose this serves. The unicorn apparently has numerous magical properties:



Professor Grubbly-Plank’s voice carried over to the boys; the girls were all clustered around the unicorn now, stroking it. [SNIP] Harry turned to stare unseeingly at the unicorn, whose many magical properties Professor Grubbly-Plank was now enumerating in a loud voice, so that the boys could hear too.

Goblet of Fire - Page 383 - British Hardcover



Hagrid uses unicorn tail hair to bind up bandages on injured creatures and mentions that unicorn tail hair is very strong (HBP - Page 455 - Brit). He collects stray hairs that he finds in the Forbidden Forest and keeps a bunch of them hanging from the rafter in his hut.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

harry potter - Do the Kwikspell courses work?

In Harry Potter we are introduced to Kwikspell course in The Chamber of Secrets (and never hear about it again). We see Filch taking courses, presumably by mail. The descriptions of Kwikspell make me think it is for people who are weak in magic (kind of like how Neville was supposed to be when he was younger), but had magic in them nonetheless. However, Ron's comments later in the chapter make it sound like it is mainly for Squibs to learn magic. However, it is strongly implied through out all the books that Squibs are essentially Muggles, and will never be able to do magic. How then is a Kwikspell course supposed to work? Do we have any information to know if it works at all? Is it a scam? An answer from any level of canon is welcome. Answer Kwikspell courses are (probably) useful to some wizards, but not to squibs. The Kwikspell course literature comes with two testimonials. Madam Z. Nettles of Topsham writes: ‘I had no memory for incantations and my potions were a family joke...
Post a Comment
Read more

futurama - How much time is lost in 'Time Keeps on Slippin''

In time Keeps on Slippin' , Farnsworth creates a basketball team which he matures by abusing Chronitons. This leads to time skipping forward by random, but ever increasing amounts. How much time was skipped in this way? Answer Unfortunately, I don't think a good estimate can be made for this, for two reasons: Many of the time skips move forward by an indeterminate amount of time. At one point, the Professor mentions localized regions of space skipping forward much more than others. We then see two young boys on the street below complaining about having to pay social security, only to suddenly become senior citizens and start complaining about wanting their money. Thus, each individual could have experienced a different amount of time skippage.
Post a Comment
Read more

languages - Do we ever see written English in the Star Wars films?

In Empire Strikes Back , we see a transcription of what R2's beeps and bloops mean, but it's not English (sorry for the low quality, it's from the 2004 DVDs): I'd assume it's what Basic looks like when written, but is there some point in the the Star Wars films we see written English instead? (This sort of spun off from a discussion in How do people understand astromech droids? .) Answer At one point there was English but it has been phased out in subsequent versions of the films. Chris Gould at DVD Active did a comparison of all versions of each of the Star Wars films, and in his comparison of Episode 4 , there are a couple of screenshots showing how the power gauge for the Death Star tractor beam was changed. I imagine there are probably more to be found in his other comparisons but I haven't got around to reading those yet.
Post a Comment
Read more

Was the "pure soul" of Harry's what had really hurt Voldemort?

In the Order of the Phoenix, Voldemort possesses Harry, and it hurts. Greatly. I think that Dumbledore explained that it was because Voldemort's rotten soul was incapable of assimilating Harry's pure soul, that Voldemort didn't understand the love and friendship etc that Harry has in his heart. But, I think it was a lie. Remember that in Deathly Hallows, while looking for information regarding Horcruxes, it is discovered that it is in fact possible to merge a soul fragment back, but that the process was extremely painful. Now then, if Voldemort tried to possess Harry, and Harry had a fragment of Voldemort's soul, I think that it could have been the true cause of Voldemort's pain: the fact of having his soul so close of another fragment. I think that Dumbledore knew that fact, but had to lie to Harry because it was inappropriate to let him know that he had one of Voldemort's soul fragments at the moment. Is that right? Or was it truly the pure soul of Harry's...
Post a Comment
Read more