Foisted by a narwhal

One of the rooms in the Cloisters museum had large tapestries relating the story of a mythological unicorn hunting trip. In a glass case in the corner of the room, stood an unmistakably tall tusk, a single, long, straight tusk, exactly as depicted on unicorns.


Narwhal tusk, it said below the case.


What's that, we wondered, all of us peering at the tusk in curiosity. We knew unicorns were mythological creatures, so this certainly couldn't be a anything to do with unicorns. But what in the world was a narwhal?


"A narwhal is a unicorn without wings," I told them. "It really existed." It started off, as many downfalls do, with an amusing little lie.
"What do you mean it really existed!" Delta scoffed disbelievingly. "You're telling us that there was actually a creature like the unicorn, which used to exist?!"
"Sure," I said, convincingly. "I mean, other animals like rhinos have tusks, so why do you find it so unbelievable that there used to be an animal called a narwhal, which was basically like a horse with a tusk? Or like a unicorn without wings," I added to drive the point home.
"Really?" said Jeet, not quite believing it either, but wanting to.


In fact, I was so persuasive in my argument, that somewhere half way through that discussion of reality and myth, I convinced myself that an animal called the narwhal (unicorn without wings) used to actually exist, and that it was driven to extinction by the hunting. I mean, didn't the medieval tapestried depicted it exactly?


And then I came home and googled the narwhal. Not that I doubted I was right, mostly just to prove to everyone else that I was right.


And, OMG OMG OMG, a narwhal is a type of whale.


David Attenborough would have killed me for this. And rightfully so.