By Mythologysleuth (Cyclone62)
The Karfunkelstein, doesn't refer to the beast it's self, it refers to the ruby like stone growing out of the horse’s face, just below the horn or 'alicorn'. it is also referred to as the Ruby of the unicorn or the Carbuncle of the unicorn. It might also be a trait exclusive to male unicorns but that is unknown at this point as pretty much all European unicorns were male in the old stories. In these poems, the two poems that mention it:
I had from this rich queen
A beast of proud and noble mien
That bears in his brow the ruby-stone
And yields himself to maids alone.
But few such unicorns are found
On this or any other ground,
And only such are ever captured
As stainless virgins have enraptured.
No man of woman born
Endures the terror of his horn.
this creature is a reference from a gift from Queen Candace to Alexander. He assumes but however, it was a ancient form of someone shipping two real people together. Another poem which is in Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parfal mentions the carbuncle, or karfunkelstein. It is noted as a potent medicine. The poem tells how they healed the wound of Anfortas, King of the Grail:
We caught the beast called Unicorn
That knows and loves a maiden best
And falls asleep upon her breast;
We took from underneath his horn
The splendid male carbuncle-stone
Sparkling against the white skull-bone.