Ladies and gentlemen, THAT is a narwhal tusk.
What is a narwhal, you ask?
It’s a sea creature. It is something between a small whale and a large seal. The narwhal has a tusk. It’s actually a tooth gone wild. A front tooth grows like mad and develops into this crazy-long sword. Cartoon images of narwhals show the tusk like a horn, growing out of the creature’s head, but this is erroneous.
This tusk is at The Cloisters in Manhattan. It was on display in the Unicorn Room, a room filled with enormous tapestries of unicorns.
HOW anyone can get a unicorn from a narwhal is beyond me. I’ve heard it said that the “primitive” people got mixed up and thought a narwhal was a unicorn.
But you tell me. Would YOU get these two creatures confused?
Me neither.
So I don’t believe that the people of the past thought that narwhals were sea horses with horns on their heads. I think the unicorn idea is made up, in the imaginations of people, all by their primitive little selves.
The tapestries were lovely, though. 🙂
Life is never dull, and exciting things just seem to always happen to me... why me... when I'm not running around the house fixing things, I'm a freelance writer for national media outlets like USAToday.com, Salon.com, and others. I've even been interviewed by TIME and The Wall Street Journal about blogging. Can you believe it?! Here is where I express my zany, creative, motherly side. 
March 31, 2012 at 2:01 pm
I never heard of that until now, love how you tell us tidbits!
Hope you all are having a blessed weekend!!
Guess what? Wednesday I hardly talked at all hahaha. I told you that since I did so much talking that the next day I was wiped out.
April 1, 2012 at 12:16 pm
Do they use those tusks for anything? I would imagine that is a buggar to navigate around.