Winged Unicorn

Intertwined Skies by BlissBunny. Used with permission.

A Winged Unicorn is a unicorn with wings. The idea would be to combine all the mobility of a flying creature with grace and rarity (and occasionally magical ability) of a unicorn.

Also known as a pegicorn, unipeg, or cerapter.[1] Occasionally winged unicorns are referred to as alicorns, which is a Portmanteau of the French words for wing (aile) and horn (corne). Note that in French, the word for unicorn is also licorne. However, be careful with this usage because the word alicorn also refers to the horn of a unicorn itself, a li translating to "secured" (so a li corne meaning "secured horn").

When winged unicorns appear alongside regular pegasi[2] and unicorns, it often indicates a (benevolent) hierarchy where they're usually top of the pecking order. In fantasy universes featuring humans, winged unicorns often serve as the Cool Horse, and will indicate that their rider is super-special.

Generally, they are rare—too many of these critters running around your fantasy world might make a work seem juvenile, since it's a melding of two magical creatures little girls generally adore. It's more likely to be a one-off creature with an unusual background (a "freak" unicorn or pegasus, a mysterious race in itself, or the result of powerful magic). It's surprisingly uncommon for them to be the actual hybrid offspring of a unicorn and a pegasus.

See also Unicorn and Pegasus for the exclusively horned and winged variants of the trope.

Examples of Winged Unicorn include:

Anime and Manga

  • Unimon of Digimon Adventure.
  • PegasusAKA Helios in Sailor Moon is winged, of course, but is also a unicorn as well.
  • The title character of Unico could use his magic to give himself wings in dire situations.

Literature

  • Gaudior from A Swiftly Tilting Planet.
  • Piers Anthony and Julie Brady's Dream A Little Dream is a Fantasy Kitchen Sink where the two super-powerful "creators" of the magical world are bonded to a winged unicorn (referred to in the novel as a "unisus"), Esprit. The perfect prince, Michael, also has a winged unicorn stallion, Heat.
  • One of Norton's quests in the Incarnations of Immortality book "Bearing An Hourglass" is to free an alicorn from an evil sorceress.

Live Action TV

Music

  • A song from the Rhapsody of Fire is titled "The Last Winged Unicorn"
  • Another song called The Last Unicorn is about a unicorn that grows wings in order to survive The Great Flood.
  • While it has not appeared in any songs yet, fans of Taylor Swift tend to like pegacorns since she mentioned one in the behind-the-scenes video for "White Horse." Q Cwvd YN Pib I

Newspaper Comics

  • When Wally in Dilbert joins the "1% club" he gets the key from a tiny flying unicorn.

Tabletop Games

Video Games

  • In the Fire Emblem series, Falcoknights ride what appear to be winged unicorns, although the horn could conceivably be part of the pegasus' armor.
  • Although the horse itself is never actually seen, the first Baten Kaitos game has a Magnus card called Pegasus Horn.

Web Comics

Web Original

Western Animation

  1. keros (horn) + pteros (wing)
  2. pterippi is the general name for winged horses
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