How do you obtain unicorn horns and tail hair?

Question

In Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone, Firenze and Harry have a conversation whilst he brings him back to Hagrid after saving him. Firenze says that slaying a unicorn is a monstrous thing and that only one who has nothing to lose, and everything to gain, would commit such a crime.

If it is such a crime and a monstrous thing, how do witches and wizards collect horns and tail hair? Do they not care if they have slain a unicorn, or can you collect the items without killing it?

Unicorns renew their horns time to time. All you need is pick the old horn from ground before it vanishes. As for tail hair, you don't need to kill them for that. — user931, Jan 02 '15 at 04:49
If you want to get ivory legally these days, you get it not from the tusk of elephants, but from that of mammoths conserved under ice in Siberia. Mammoths have been extinct for so long that nobody can accuse you of poaching if you do this. Perhaps there are similar extinct varieties of unicorns in the magical world. — b_jonas, Jan 02 '15 at 12:52
@b_jonas No way. Mammoths are a way more expensive than elephants. Archeologists would kill you for that. — user931, Jan 03 '15 at 21:06

score 25 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 02 '15 at 06:23

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Regarding the tail hairs:

From Goblet of Fire, during the weighing of the wands Mr. Ollivander said the following of Cedric's wand:

"... nearly gored me with his horn after I plucked his tail." (E-Book page 224)

From Half Blood Prince, after Aragog's funeral, Slughorn sees the unicorn hair in Hagrid's hut. Hagrid says:

"Gets pulled out of their tails, they catch it on branches an' stuff in the forest, yeh know ..." (E-Book page 341)

I recall no canon info regarding how they got the horns.

answered Jan 02 '15 at 06:23

Ka0s

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It's not canonical, in any sense, but there is a theory that the idea of unicorns was sparked by the discovery of narwhal tusks washed up on beach. Maybe unicorn horns are deciduous, they are periodically shed, and you can just pick the discarded horns off the ground. – Michael Lorton Jan 02 '15 at 23:18

DVK-on-Ahch-To · Answer 2 · 2015-01-02T12:31:46.307

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Tail hair: Likely, the same way you obtain tail hair of a horse. You yank the hair out (See KaOs' excellent answer).

Please note that they let humans (especially witches) near them as we see during lessons with Professor Grubbly-Plank, so the issue of "unicorns are too fast to catch" isn't necessarily important.

Horn: Unknown in canon. No word on that in either the main books, or Beasts, or Pottermore, or interviews.

One can speculate (given the fact that plenty are available - e.g. Harry sees them sold at Apothecary for fairly small amount of money - 20-odd Galleons; and we know they are also being sold to Muggles sometimes), that the horns are likely to be obtainable without killing the animal. But that's a mere speculation.

While Hagrid asked the man behind the counter for a supply of some basic potion ingredients for Harry, Harry himself examined silver unicorn horns at twenty-one Galleons each and minuscule, glittery black beetle eyes (five Knuts a scoop).

edited Jan 02 '15 at 12:31

answered Jan 02 '15 at 04:57

DVK-on-Ahch-To

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Or just hacked off one that died of natural causes. – Valorum Jan 02 '15 at 11:24
@Richard - I don't recall any mentions of natural cause death from canon – DVK-on-Ahch-To Jan 02 '15 at 12:31
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@DVK does that mean Harry et al don't poop either? – Moo Jan 02 '15 at 12:34
@DVK - Everything dies, eventually. – Valorum Jan 02 '15 at 12:35
@Richard: except phoenixes, and indeed the seem to be explicitly the only counterexample. – leftaroundabout Jan 02 '15 at 13:07
@Moo - there are bathroom stalls in canon. IIRC, Ginny tried to drown the diary in one. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Jan 02 '15 at 15:59
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@DVK There were also dead unicorns in canon - we don't see one die, just as we don't see anyone use the bathroom stalls for their purpose as God intended ;) – Moo Jan 02 '15 at 16:34
@leftaroundabout Phoenixes are not immortal, they merely live an extremely long life. – CandiedMango Dec 13 '15 at 22:47
@CandiedMango: is that so? Well, if you have a citation for that, why not post it in the question I linked to! – leftaroundabout Dec 13 '15 at 23:11
@leftaroundabout If you read all of the answers you'd already see a citation of the quote I'm referring to. – CandiedMango Dec 13 '15 at 23:13
@CandiedMango: if you read the comments on that answer you'd already see that this citation doesn't really tell whether Phoenixes are mortal. – leftaroundabout Dec 13 '15 at 23:15
@leftaroundabout One bit of canon knowledge about their age, 'immense age' to me is not immortal. Everything else is merely what people think based on the few instances of Fawkes we have witnessed. – CandiedMango Dec 13 '15 at 23:29

score 2 · Answer 3 · edited Dec 14 '15 at 00:35

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If Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone GBA game is considered canon (it does follow the book rather closely, but still has to be taken with a grain of salt) unicorns shed their horns, but do this very rarely.

edited Dec 14 '15 at 00:35

DVK-on-Ahch-To

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answered Dec 13 '15 at 19:28

Linda

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Games are generally lower canon than books, but I would say they are still somewhat canon. +1, great find! – DVK-on-Ahch-To Dec 14 '15 at 00:10

score -4 · Answer 4 · answered Jan 02 '15 at 11:57

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Unicorns might shed their horn like deer shed their antlers once a year.

answered Jan 02 '15 at 11:57

stefan

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They might do, but do you have any particular reason to suspect that this is the case? – Valorum Jan 02 '15 at 11:59
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Marmol Caravaial (Marmolius, late 1500s) claimed to have seen unicorns in the region of the Mountains of the moon in Ethiopia. He describes one as as large as a two-year-old colt, and the same shape as a horse. It was ashen coloured and had a beard like a goat. It had a smooth white ivory horn, with grooves running from base to point. According to him, the unicorn sheds its horn like a stag. http://www.angelfire.com/bc/Strawberry/legends/unicorn.html – Len_D Jan 03 '15 at 02:23

How do you obtain unicorn horns and tail hair?

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