Alicorn Medicine - original oil painting on wood

The Unicorn is an elusive creature, its description varying somewhat in the old texts - sometimes sounding more horse, goat or deer-like, sometimes like more of a giant rhino-cousin. In ancient Greek literature we have the earliest description of a unicorn, telling of its white body, red head and tricolour red-black-white horn.

In medieval thought, the only way to tame this legendary creature was for a young woman to entice him to lay his head in her lap by dint of her purity.

Traditionally unicorn horn ("Alicorn") was said to be a cure for all kinds of plagues, ailments and poisons, and it was notoriously hard to get hold of, rendering it extremely valuable. Epilepsy was one of the things it was said to cure, and so it was here I anchored my painting - having epilepsy myself I am deeply interested in the ways it has been thought about from other mythic or cultural perspectives.
I've imagined the virgin-unicorn dyad the other way round - here she is coming to him and laying her head upon him, while he gives of his medicine freely (via a pencil sharpener!) The red powder she holds, and which you see in the vials is an otherworldly medicine, one which perhaps cannot be sought by hunting, but by surrender.