Important Travel Tip: If You Find a Unicorn Skull and Trade it for Beers, You Could Be Facing Jail Time

Arnulf Hettrich. Shutterstock Images.

A while back I listened to a paranormal podcast (it might have been "LORE," but don't hold me to that) that discussed the origin of the unicorn. Because that's the kind of high-octane adrenaline rush my life is. How the creature has been talked about throughout recorded history, across cultures from around the world. Most notably, how word of it came to Europe in the 13th century thanks largely to explorers who traveled East, such as Marco Polo. They'd describe how in India there's a creature with a horse-like body and a single horn protruding from the top of its head. But also with elephant legs. Essentially, he was describing a rhinoceros. But somehow it got conflated into a majestic white horse with a flowing mane and magical properties that approximately 90% of all girls under the age of 12 obsess over. And force their parents to hand billions of their hard-earned money over to the Unicorn Toy Industrial Complex. 

Be that as it may, there's an important lesson to be learned for anyone seeking to profit off these mystical beasts for their own selfish aims. Thanks to this one Canadian tourist:

The Sun -  A “UNICORN” skull found near King Arthur’s castle was removed illegally, officials warned.

The Sun told how the mysterious fake object was spotted by Canadian tourist John Goodwin, 46, in Cornwall last weekend.

But now it has emerged the skull was taken from a Site of Specific Scientific Interest — at St Nectan’s Glen in Tintagel.

Anyone removing items from an SSSI can be fined or imprisoned.

Zooarchaeologists from Historic England last night said the skull belonged to a horse — but it had a cow’s horn attached. …

John traded it for beer at a pub and is now on holiday in Greece before flying home.

A barman at the Stonehenge Inn, Wilts, is looking after the skull. 

The manager said: “He took it home, it was freaking me out here."

For starters, leave it to the Brits to not only have the castle of King Arthur, who was likely as real as a unicorn, but to have a designation like Site of Specific Scientific Interest. Which at the same time sounds like a department in the Ministry of Magic and a Monty Python skit, like The Society for Putting Things on Top of Other Things. 

Second, unicorn fakery is a time-honored tradition in Europe. For real. While I'll admit I know way more on this subject than I should, given I can remember about 25% of the names of people I meet, I should not retain useless information like how the Scandinavians used to harvest narwhal horns and sell them to the stupid middle- and southern Europeans as unicorn parts. They even had their royals convinced that if you drink out of one, you can't be poisoned because it has special properties that negate the poison. In fact, the King of Denmark had a whole throne made out of them, just as a sort of inside joke to all his subjects how they were getting rich off these buffoons from France and England or wherever. 

Anyhow, if I'm Canadian tourist John Goodwin, I'd give the British Isles a wide berth for however long the Statute of Limitations lasts when it comes to buying beer with a unicorn skull from King Arthur's castle at the SSSI at St Nectan’s Glen in Tintagel. These fabulist  crackpots will gladly lock you in the Tower of London just to make an example of anyone looking to put their grubby tourist mitts on their sacred artifacts. Even if it's a horse skull with a cow horn. 

So take note, Canada. This is why we broke ranks and rebelled against this loons. Because anyone who'll believe that they still have fairy tale kings and princesses in 2025 and that their family blood is somehow more precious than yours will believe anything. Fantastical beasts. Arthurian legend. Fake skulls. As far as I'm concerned, John Goodwin got the better of this deal. Plus he now gets to avoid going back. That's a win/win.