Last Update: 29 July 2003
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Basilisk
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Characteristics:
  • Travellers would carry roosters for protection
  • Ashes scattered in temples to prevent snakes
  • Appeared on the headdress of the Pharoah as the "royal Basilisk"
  • Born from the blood of the Gorgan's eyes
  • May not have hatched from eggs but rather from toad dung in a leathery pouch laid by a rooster.
  • Able to run on water
  • Connected to the Gnostic Abraxas
  • Names means "Regulus" or "Prince" in Greek / Latin
  • Likes to live in desert areas and will trick humans into staying away
  • Venomous, and can kill at a glance by turning the object of its stare into stone. Or with its smell.
  • The Greek word of king "basileus" is the basis for its name
  • Poisons the land it travels on, including streams, lakes, and soil.
  • 3 things are immune: weasel, cockerel, and rue (a plant). The weasel would use the rue to heal itself after battling with the Basilisk, and the cockerel crowing would drive it away. Mirrors and the sight of itself have often been mentioned. Also scared of the mongoose, ichneumon and enhydris.
  • Thought to be in northern Africa and western Europe,including the Swiss Alps and African deserts
Description:
  • Possibly an Egyptian spitting lizard?
  • Most often represented as a reptile or lizards with a narrow head and spray of hair, and thick legs. Although some sources say its very white or has no legs at all and red. Others say it is striped lengthwise with white marks about six inches in size. Some say has a crown-like mark on its head and very small - less than a foot long.
  • Body is 1-3 feet, but rarely longer/larger
Associations / Symbolism:
Origins and Historocity:
  • Wycliff's 1382 Bible translated Basilisk into Cockatrice
  • More confusion added with the world "basili-coc" being both the King Cobra and the King Cock, the Cocodrillus (crocodile) and Trachilus (bird that picked crocodilian teeth clean).
Related Tales / Literature:
  • "the poison in a Basilisk that was wounded by a knight traveled up the horseman's spear, killing both the rider and the horse" (Source: Book of Dragons and Other Mythical Beasts)
  • Alexander, while beseiging a city, found that his men were dying from a Basilisk and he set up a mirror to reflect the deadly stare. St. George once did the same with his shield. (Source: Book of Dragons and Other Mythical Beasts).
  • Has been featured in the Harry Potter Series
  • Some say its the precursor to the Cockatrice
Sources:

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