Clearly Canadian
Welcome to the first Clearly Canadian auction series, featuring the 7 Deadly Sins!
Up for auction today we have a narwhale who's so jealous it's literally green with envy.
Envy
What it is: Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Why you do it: Because other people are so much luckier, smarter, more attractive, and better than you.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be put in freezing water.
Associated symbols & suchlike: Envy is linked with the dog and the color green.
Ruled By: Greed is ruled by the sign of the Moon.
(courtesy of deadlysins.com)
So how do narwhales relate to envy? Well, according to Nigel Suckling on his book The Book of the Unicorn,
"One interesting thing about unicorns is that people carried on believing in them long after they realised that dragons, gryphons and a host of other fabulous creaures only existed in their dreams. They believed in unicorns well into the 18th century and proved it by paying large sums to their local apothecaries for what they believed was genuine powdered unicorn horn, prescribed for a host of ailments including epilepsy. Meanwhile, for the sceptics many cathedrals across Europe had whole 'true' unicorn horns on public display. Water in which it had been dipped was given away as free medicine to the poor, because of the unicorn horn's fabled talent for dispelling poison. Such complete horns could fetch fabulous prices and in England one belonging to Elizabeth I, the Horn of Windsor, was valued at ?10,000, several hundred million by today's values, and the overall value of a complete town at that time.
These horns were actually narwhal tusks and for centuries the kings of Denmark grew rich by guarding the secret of their true origins in the seas off Greenland and controlling the trade. Almost as a tease, they had made for themselves a throne of unicorn horn and gold that can be seen today at Castle Rosenborg, Copenhagen, and it made them the envy of all the other rulers in Europe."
Those tricky Danish kings!
