The mythical creature often depicted as a horse with a single spiraled horn is the unicorn.
The familiar European unicorn is usually shown as a white, horse-like animal with one long, straight horn marked by spiral grooves. Medieval artists sometimes gave it cloven hooves and a goat’s beard, so its appearance was not always purely equine.
Unicorn traditions reach back to antiquity, but ancient Greek writers described supposed one-horned animals as natural-history subjects rather than creatures of Greek mythology. Medieval European legends later made the unicorn a symbol of purity, grace, and untamable wilderness; one popular story claimed only a virgin could capture it.
The unicorn is often confused with Pegasus, which is a winged horse but does not have a horn. The Chinese qilin is sometimes called a “Chinese unicorn,” although it is a different, more complex hybrid creature. Narwhal tusks were also sold in medieval Europe as supposed unicorn horns.