Basilitrice

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What though the Moor the Basilisk hath slain, and pinned him lifeless to the sandy plain, up through the spear the subtle venom flies; the hand imbibes it, and the victor dies.

—The Roman poet Lucan as quoted by Thomas Bulfinch, The Age of Fable

The basilisk and the cockatrice are two relatively small creatures that have appeared in folklore, with roots dating back as far as Pliny the Elder (making them far Older Than Feudalism). The creatures have shared very similar descriptions since those early times, especially in heraldic depictions - indeed, they are often still conflated in the modern day, and many languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Russian, and Greek still translate the term "cockatrice" as "basilisk" in some form. Basilitrice is a portmanteau of their names that alludes to these common traits.

The basilisk is first explicitly described in Pliny's Natural History. The word originates from the Greek form basilískos (Greek: βασιλίσκος; Latin: basiliscus), meaning "little king"; the serpent was reputed to have a mitre or crown-shaped crest adorning its head, leading some scholars to believe the description was based off that of various cobras. The basilisk remained an object of terror long after the collapse of the Roman empire, and was popular in bestiaries circulated within medieval-era Europe - they began attributing chicken-like traits to the beast, with the most prominent originating in the late 12th century: the basilisk was supposedly created by a cockerel hatching the egg of a serpent or toad.

Meanwhile, the cockatrice first appears in its 'modern' form around the same time that the basilisk was being associated with chickens: in the twelfth century, it was depicted as two-legged and draconian or serpentine, with the head of a rooster. The name "cockatrice" itself first appeared in the later fourteenth century and came from the Old French cocatris, which in turn was derived from medieval Latin calcatrix; calcatrix was a translation of the Greek ichneumon. The cockatrice's birth was the reverse of the basilisk - a cockatrice would spawn from a chicken egg incubated by a serpent or toad - and it became synonymous with the basilisk when the "basiliscus" in Bartholomeus Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum (circa 1260) was translated by John Trevisa as "cockatrice".

Parts of this collective folklore are likely derived from early descriptions of the Nile crocodile, as well as a possible root in Egyptian folk tales; ibis eggs were regularly destroyed for fear that their diet of venomous snakes would create a snake-bird mix, and said eggs were also preyed on by a type of egg-eating mongoose, perhaps specifically the Egyptian mongoose. This mongoose is likely the basis for the ichneumon, or "weasel", that was said to target the basilisk and cockatrice alike: a reputed reliable killer of both creatures, it was immune to both their gazes and resistant enough that it could at least bring down these creatures before succumbing to their poisons. Mongooses are known to tangle with venomous snakes, including the spitting cobra and king cobra (both believed to be the basilisk's inspiration), and have an immunity to snake venom that gives it an edge in surviving the fight. The ichneumon was also said to target and kill crocodiles by waiting for the reptile to bask in the sun with its mouth open, then running in and eating its way through the crocodile's insides.

Modern incarnations of the basilisk and cockatrice, such as those seen in Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter and various other fantasy media, portray them as distinct creatures: The basilisk is usually a vicious low-slung reptile that is either lizard-like or serpentine, and the cockatrice is usually a bird-like reptilian monster with a snake's tail, if not an outright snake-bird hybrid. These and the other following traits are generally associated with this pair of creatures:

  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Most examples of basilisks and cockatrices will be a case of this, as they are usually a mix of a serpent and a chicken as detailed above; though more commonly associated with cockatrices, the basilisk still retains its origin of "snake hatched by a chicken".
  • Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Both have serpentine features and prefer hidden dwellings, and are generally considered foul and nasty in nature.
  • Poisonous Person: The basilisk and cockatrice have incredibly potent poisons that make any kind of contact with it fatal, often instantaneously so - depending on the telling, eye contact, contact with its breath, handling its corpse, or even killing it from close range is enough for the venom to infect, spread and kill in seconds.
  • Enemy to All Living Things: Both the basilisk and cockatrice actively seek out victims to kill with their venom, often because they were...
  • Made of Evil: The pair are often invoked as symbols or literal incarnations of wrath and malice,.
  • Walking Wasteland: Some accounts assert that if unable to find a "live" victim, they would turn their powers upon the surrounding plant life instead.
  • Taken for Granite: The instant fatality associated with them sometimes manifests as a form of petrification, possibly based off the fact that venom from cobras and other snakes can immobilize victims. Dungeons & Dragons in particular popularized this aspect of the cockatrice.
  • Weaksauce Weakness: In addition to its enmity with the ichneumon, some legends say the crowing of a rooster will cause the beasts to drop dead. At least one story also says that it is vulnerable to its own gaze, and can be slain if it sees its reflection.
  • Mister Seahorse: Some versions of the story say that the beast hatched from an egg laid by a rooster (a male chicken), often as the result of a Bad Moon Rising. Often this version claimed a snake or toad would find and hatch it.

For the manga named after the former creature, see Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls. For "basilisk images" and other similar hazardous media, see Brown Note, which The Basilisk redirects to. For other uses of the name, see Basilisk.

Examples of Basilitrice include:

Anime and Manga

  • The Rental Magica episode "Red-Headed Girl" (episode 7 in broadcast order, episode 11 in chronological order) has a basilisk as its initial threat, with a Biblical description of the monster mentioned. The basilisk has the ability to kill a person simply by meeting their gaze.
  • The first episode of the 2017 Little Witch Academia has a cockatrice as the main Antagonist.
  • Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls is an aptly-named manga that employs the basilisk motif: eye contact is the most powerful asset that the main characters have. Gennosuke can reverse the murderous intent of any who meet his eye, thus forcing them to kill themselves, and Oboro can neutralize the ninja arts of any who meet her gaze.

Comic Books

  • DC Comics:
    • The 29th issue of Golden Age comic series Blackhawk, a wartime creation of Quality Comics prior to its purchase by DC, features a villain named The Basilisk as the leader of a terrorist group called the B-Men.
    • Another character named Basilisk appears as part of a superhero team parodying the X-Men in Showcase #65 - he is a clear pastiche of Cyclops (Scott Summers), with a gaze that turns victims to stone and requires the use of dark sunglasses to hide his eyes. If that wasn't clear enough, his real name is "Irish Autumns".
    • In the Prime Earth continuity, Basilisk is a terrorist group first encountered by Black Canary and the Suicide Squad. Much of Basilisk's membership is composed of a cult dedicated to a powerful mythic snake that they believe to be the source of various metahuman-like powers.
  • In Marvel Comics, Basilisk is the moniker of four different characters, each with varying motifs derived from the namesake creature:
    • The first is Basil Elks, a petty thief who broke into a museum to steal what he believed an ordinary emerald - the gem was actually an alien Kree artifact called the Alpha Stone, and when a security guard catches Elks and shoots at him, the bullet shatters the gem and causes an explosion. Elks is transformed into a green, red-eyed humanoid reptilian with eye beams and the ability to flash-freeze victims, which he then turns upon the unfortunate guard. The newly-christened Basilisk has since faced off against Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Captain Marvel, the Punisher, and Mole Man (a recurring villain originating from the Fantastic Four).
    • The second is Wayne Gifford, who created the alternate persona through demon worship. Also a humanoid reptilian, Gifford possess a paralyzing stare and is an enemy of the Anti-Heroic Morbius the Living Vampire.
    • The third was a mutant student at the Xavier Institute, who was persecuted in his youth due to his large form and bald head - his mutant ability was a pulse of high-frequency strobe light emitted from his brain that paralyzed sentient viewers, and he had a single eye with a camera-like device in the socket that allowed him to control it. He was characterized as somewhat dim and extremely aggressive, and would eventually join the Brotherhood of Mutants shortly before they took over New York City; Magneto accidentally kills him after he makes an insensitive joke about the "bad smell" of the marched human prisoners (which is generally unwise when your leader is a Holocaust survivor).
    • A fourth Basilisk appeared in the Age of X crossover as a former executioner from Arcade's prison who killed Arcade and defected to Magneto's resistance. He is revealed to be the Age of X's Cyclops, who had his eyelids removed and must use a special mask to control his powers.
  • Basilisk is the name of a supernatural horror comic series by Boom! Studios, written by Cullen Bunn with art by Jonas Scharf. The premise of the comic centers around five individuals with horrifying sense-based supernatural powers that wreaked havoc and death upon small towns - Regan, the one who possesses sight-based powers, has since escaped and gone into hiding, and the comic begins with a victim from her past tracking her down.

Literature

  • Harry Potter:
    • In Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, basilisks are very large and long-lived serpents with lengths upwards of fifty feet and a lifespan of several centuries, and draw from their folkloric depictions in several aspects - its enmity towards spiders is courtesy of Bulfinch, and the crow of a rooster and the musk of a weasel are both said to kill it. A massive female basilisk is revealed to be the fabled beast within the Chamber that had attacked several students and even killed one fifty years ago; it is set free again in the present day, with all the school's roosters conveniently killed as well. Most of the basilisk's victims saw it indirectly (i.e., through a reflection or a lens) and were thankfully cured with phoenix tears - the only two directly meet its gaze were the already-dead Nearly-Headless Nick and Moaning Myrtle, and Myrtle had been the sole fatality of the first attacks. Harry discovers that Tom Riddle was responsible for the first opening of the Chamber, and his spirit possessed Ginny Weasley through his old diary to re-open the Chamber and remove any obstacles (such as the roosters). Riddle's spirit sets the basilisk upon him, but with the aid of Dumbledore's pet phoenix Fawkes and the sword of Gryffindor, Harry is able to kill the basilisk and use its fang to destroy the diary and Riddle, freeing Ginny.
    • Cockatrices are mentioned briefly in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Hermione explains that the Triwizard Tournament had not been held in centuries, with the last one called off when a cockatrice that participants were tasked with capturing got loose.
    • In Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, the first basilisk is reported to have been birthed by Herpo the Foul, a Greek Dark wizard and Parselmouth (able to communicate with snakes) who hatched a chicken egg under a toad. Basilisks are said to be uncontrollable except by Parselmouths, and are the mortal enemy of spiders (who flee from their presence). Their venom and stare are differentiated, but no less deadly than the original folklore, and the male basilisk's head has a distinct scarlet plume.
    • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the diary was revealed to be one of Voldemort's Horcruxes - Harry and Dumbledore eventually found another in the ring of Marvolo Gaunt. The basilisk's venom absorbed by the sword of Gryffndor allowed them to destroy the ring, and it was sought out in The Deathly Hallows in order to eliminate most of the remaining Horcruxes.
  • In Chapter 4 of The Worm Ouroboros, King Gorice shows Gro a live cockatrice.
  • In Dracula, Jonathan Harker likens the titular vampire's gaze to a basilisk's as he attempts to destroy the sleeping Count, only for said gaze to turn upon Jonathan mid-swing and throw off his aim.
  • Walter Wangerin Jr. novel The Book of the Dun Cow features a cockatrice as the main villain, born of a rooster's Deal with the Devil (who is aptly named Wyrm). With the help of a sycophantic toad, he creates an army of wicked basilisks.
  • As indicated by the article description, the basilisk lends its name to a specific type of Brown Note, codified by science fiction author David Langford in the short story BLIT. The title itself ("Berryman Logical Image Technique") also refers to the concept - a form of image with patterns designed to lethally exploit flaws in the structure and cognition of the human mind. The motif recurs in other works by Langford, including "What Happened at Cambridge IV" and the Hugo-winning "Different Kinds of Darkness".
  • Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1820 poem "Ode to Naples" uses an allusion to the basilisk, and is quoted as follows within The Age of Fable mentioned below:

What though Cimmerian anarchs dare blaspheme
Freedom and thee? a new Actaeon's error
Shall theirs have been,--devoured by their own hounds!
Be thou like the imperial basilisk,
Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!
Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk,
Aghast she pass from the earth's disk.
Fear not, but gaze,--for freemen mightier grow,
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe.

  • Shelley also refers to the basilisk in part VIII of his poem "Queen Mab:"

Those deserts of immeasurable sand,
Whose age-collected fervors scarce allowed
Where the shrill chirp of the green lizard's love
Broke on the sultry silentness alone,
Now teem with countless rills and shady woods,
Cornfields and pastures and white cottages;
And where the startled wilderness beheld
A savage conqueror stained in kindred blood,
A tigress sating with the flesh of lambs
The unnatural famine of her toothless cubs,
Whilst shouts and howlings through the desert rang, –
Sloping and smooth the daisy-spangled lawn,
Offering sweet incense to the sunrise, smiles
To see a babe before his mother's door,
Sharing his morning's meal
with the green and golden basilisk
That comes to lick his feet.

Music

Owen, Owen, protect me
From a life everlasting

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • The Bible:
    • The English Revised Version of the Book of Isaiah has chapter 14:29, the prophet's exhortation to the Philistines after the fall of Israel. The text claims that a "basilisk" shall arise from its remains, and the King James translation uses "cockatrice"; in either case, said beast represents the nation's resurgence, and would itself beget a "dragon" to threaten Philistia.

Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of thee, because the rod that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a basilisk, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.

  • In the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint translations of Book of Psalms, Psalm 91:13 is translated as "You will tread on the lion and the dragon,/the asp and the basilisk you will trample under foot".
  • Pliny the Elder's description of the basilisk in Natural History arguably provides the Trope Codifier, if not the Ur Example. Described after the catoblepas (a bovine-like monster with a similarly deadly gaze), Pliny attributes the basilisk's habitat to the province of Cyrene, i.e. the eastern half of modern-day Libya. Pliny's basilisk is "not more than twelve fingers in length" (or ten and a half inches), with a white crown-like spot on its head, and is described as moving upright compared to "typical" low-slithering snakes. It actively uses its venom to kill plant life and can even shatter stone with it; in addition, Pliny asserts that it was believed potent enough such that, if a man on horseback killed one with a spear, the poison would run up the weapon and kill both of them.
    • Some Romans were said to believe that a basilisk infestation resulted in the creation of the Sahara Desert.
  • Similar creatures with varying amounts of resemblance to the basilisk and/or cockatrice crop up in folklore around the globe, such as the half-reptile half-bird snallygaster of eastern American folklore that originated from the tales of 18th-century German immigrants; Whittaker Chambers famously likened U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy to the monster during the Red Scare era. Others include the Chilota basilisco chilote and the Mapuche Colo Colo, both originating in South America.
    • The basilisco chilote is described as a rooster-crested serpent, while the Colo Colo is unusual in that is much more ratlike than other similar creatures - both are still hatched from an egg laid by a snake and incubated by a rooster. They like to hide in inhabited houses and feed on the residents' saliva and phlegm, and already-hatched ones are usually impossible to get rid of (short of burning down the entire house).
  • On that note, it was not uncommon to hear tales of "basilisk hunts" - among the most famous of them is the "Warsaw basilisk" of 1587, which is sometimes cited as the last of the great basilisk hunts.
  • The collected first two volumes of Thomas Bulfinch's The Age of Fable has "The Cockatrice, or Basilisk" as one of the monster descriptions in chapter sixteen. In addition to establishing many now-current characteristics of the "king of serpents" and providing the page quote, the book asserts that there were many species of basilisk. It also mentions that the corpse (or perhaps a likeness thereof) was used in the temple of Apollo and private houses to ward off spiders; similarly, another was used within the temple of Diana, said to scare off swallows.
  • Pierre de Beauvais's Bestiarie contains one of the earlier examples of the "snake-rooster" hybrid form of basilisk. According to the work, a small "abnormal" egg lain in a dunghill by an old rooster and hatched by a toad would birth a basilisk, which Bestiarie described as "a misshapen creature, with the upper body of a rooster, bat-like wings, and the tail of a snake". Once hatched, it lies in a cellar or deep well and waits for victims to pass by before striking.
  • In Korean folklore, there is a creature known as a gye-lyong (Korean: 계룡; Hanja: 鷄龍, lit. "chicken-dragon"); while not as common as "actual" dragons, they are sometimes seen as chariot-pullers for important legendary figures or their parents. The princess of the Kingdom of Silla was said to have been born from a cockatrice egg.

Tabletop Games

  • Yu-Gi-Oh! has several monsters based on one of the two creatures:
  • Dungeons & Dragons has both cockatrices and basilisks.
    • Cockatrices are bipedal and chicken-like hybrid creatures the size of a large turkey or goose with a yellow beak and feet and golden-brown feathers, as well as bat wings and a reptilian tail. They occur in almost any region and typically inhabit temperate or tropical regions, nesting either underground or in plains areas above-ground; scattered numbers could also be found in the Elemental Plane of Earth. Cockatrices attacked any creature they perceived as a threat, and flocks of them would attempt to overwhelm or confuse opponents, often flying at their faces - cockatrice bites were minorly-damaging, but could permanently turn any creature to stone, and in pre-Time of Troubles eras (analogous to earlier editions) their petrifying aura could extend into the Astral and Ethereal planes. They are immune to their own bites and those of other cockatrices, but can be petrified through other means; the petrifying venom is harvested by some creatures as a commodity.
    • Basilisks are cold-blooded reptiles that resemble fat twelve-foot-long alligators with six or eight legs and glowing green eyes; their bodies have a single row of bony spines that line their backs, and a few have a curved horn atop their noses. Unlike the active and malicious cockatrices, basilisks are more lethargic with a slower metabolism that makes hard pursuit difficult - they were still capable of cunning, and would often await prey in hiding to surprise and petrify them with their gaze. The basilisk eats their petrified prey using strong jaws and a gullet that un-petrifies food, and only requires one large and roughly humanoid-sized meal a month at most. Like cockatrice venom, basilisks and their eyes, eggs and parts are also highly-sought commodities.
      • Basilisks possess both darkvision and the ability to view either the astral or the ethereal plane with concentration - by doing this, they can kill astral creatures and turn creatures on the ethereal plane into an "ethereal" stone (an ability cockatrices shared pre-Time of Troubles). The range of the gaze can "extend" depending on how keen the victim's eyesight is, and allows it to (at least reportedly) petrify anyone viewing it remotely, such as via arcane eye spells and crystal balls - creatures with gaseous forms were immune. Unlike cockatrice gazes, basilisks are not immune to the gazes of other 'lisks (a complication accounted for when mating), and victims are chemically converted to a more porous type of stone that leaves them alive, but in a form of suspended animation; this petrification can at least be reversed, though the statue is also breakable. Items carried or worn by a victim are not turned to stone, and any worn protective magic items still affect the victim's statue.
    • The pyrolisk is a far more dangerous and aggressive variant of the cockatrice that could cause a victim to literally burst into flames with its gaze - unfortunately, the only way to tell a pyrolisk from an ordinary cockatrice was a single red feather in its tail, and pyrolisks often occupied similar tropical climates to cockatrices. The phoenix was its mortal enemy.
  • In the Champions adventure The Great Supervillain Contest, one contestant was Brother Basilisk, who had the power to (temporarily) turn creatures to stone.
  • In Magic: The Gathering, basilisks are a type of creature that typically have "deathtouch" - any amount of damage it inflicts to a creature destroys it outright. Examples include Daggerback Basilisk, Underdark Basilisk and Greater Basilisk; those that lack deathtouch,such as Serpentine Basilisk and Lowland Basilisk (whose Flavor Text states that it turns victims into "flowstone", a form of 'liquid stone') are given very similar effects.

Theatre

O ill-dispersing wind of misery!
O my accursed womb, the bed of death!
A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world,
Whose unavoided eye is murderous.

  • When the title character compliments the eyes of Lady Anne, she spits back: "Would they were basilisk's, to strike thee dead!"
  • In Romeo and Juliet, Juliet laments apparent news of Romeo's suicide as follows:

Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'Ay,'
And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.

... never threaten with your eyes they are no cockatrice's...

Video Games

  • In NetHack, the cockatrice is a class of creatures represented by the c glyph that consists of its namesake, their younger form the chickatrice, and a similar monster called the pyrolisk with a fiery gaze (though thankfully no poison). Their encyclopedia entry is a quoted excerpt that touches on their the relationship to the basilisk. Cockatrices are always hostile, with an ability to turn the player to stone that is an infamous source of several of the game's worse One-Hit Kills: bare-handed contact with its body will immediately turn the victim into a statue, unless they're incorporeal, already made of stone or are acidic in nature. Its corpse and eggs are unsafe to eat for the same reason, and the former requires gloves in order to handle safely. There's also the still-present danger of fumbling and tripping onto one or else falling onto it if there's a pit or hole around.
    • Even a well-armored player character can be turned to stone if bitten: After landing a bite attack, the cockatrice will attempt a touch attack, and if it hits there is a 1 in 3 chance that the cockatrice will hiss; following this, there is a 10% chance that you will begin slowing down and turning to stone, losing any intrinsic speed you have in the process. (On a new moon, this becomes 100% unless you are carrying a lizard corpse.) Unlike most other instances, this is a "delayed instadeath" that can be cured through a few means like the aforementioned lizard corpse, so hopefully you have at least one of them available.
    • The corpse and eggs of a cockatrice or its young are just as dangerous to monsters as they are to you - wield a corpse with gloves and you have an Improvised Weapon that can take out most non-acidic monsters in one hit, up to and including many later bosses! Players tend to call the corpses "rubber chickens", and also use the eggs as "stoning grenades" (though it's easier to hit by wielding one and breaking it on your target). This being NetHack, intelligent enemies that can wear gloves will do the same to you if they find a corpse, and will also throw footrice eggs at you if they come across any - thankfully, this is non-instantaneous as with the cockatrice's attack above.
    • Of note is that golems and skeletons are also immune, partly due to being non-living: golems not made of stone will turn into stone golems without petrifying, while skeletons are likely not too bothered by instant fossilization.
  • NetHack variants often add an additional spin on the cockatrice and its kin, and some even introduce its close cousin in the basilisk; NetHack itself has the fiery-gazing pyrolisk.
    • SLASH'EM adds both the basilisk and another close relative in the asphynx - both can petrify the player in a manner similar to cockatrices, and both are different classes of monster, making "solving" the stoning problem via scrolls of genocide much more difficult.
    • SpliceHack has werecockatrices - werebeasts capable of wielding their instadeath power and capable of summoning even more of their brethren.
    • EvilHack improves enemy monster AI to the point that glove-wearing monsters 'lucky' enough to get a wish might well choose a footrice corpse to smack you with!
  • In Boktai: The Sun Is In Your Hand, cockatrices appear as enemies in Sol City.
  • Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time features the cockatrice from the first episode of the anime (as mentioned in Anime & Manga above) as a dungeon boss in the underground labyrinth.
  • Mother 3 has the Slitherhen, a Chimera with a snake's body and a chicken's head. Though it visually resembles a cockatrice, it thankfully isn't very poisonous.
  • The Final Fantasy series has both basilisks and cockatrices as recurring enemies, starting with the very first game.
    • Basilisks frequently appear as giant lizards with bulging eyes - depending on the game, they are chameleon-like with horns, or else more serpentine in appearance; in Final Fantasy XV, they are a variant of cockatrice. They commonly have the ability to Petrify characters using their stare: this is usually a gradual process a la the Doom spell, but is instantaneous in some games. In some other cases, petrification is actually their biggest weakness.
    • Cockatrices are typically recurring avian enemies, though the Final Fantasy III Cockatrice is a Basilisk recolor, and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles gives them reptilian scales. Cockatrices also possess the ability to petrify the party, and are sometimes attuned to the Lightning element.
    • In Final Fantasy X, Basilisk Steel (or Break Blade) is one of Tidus's weapons, and can occasionally petrify enemies.
  • The various tie-in video games for the Harry Potter franchise involve basilisks in similar capacities to the books, with the cockatrice featured occasionally.
  • The first and third games in The Witcher franchise feature both cockatrices and basilisks, where they appear as a sort of pterosaur-like reptile. Both have bestiary entries that allude to their real-world folkloric traits, including their petrifying glare and hatred of living things.
  • The Cockatrice card in Circle of the Moon can add a petrification effect to your weapons or abilities.
  • World of Warcraft:
    • In the the Deepholm area, there is a group of basilisks that petrify their enemies. Their work is scattered around them. It's worth noting that their targets were already made of stone, but now they're made of stone and can't move.
  • In Legend of Mana, one of the questlines has this happen to Casanova Wannabe Gilbert, who got "hard" for a half-basilisk woman. When he pushed her too far, well... he got hard, indeed.
  • Total Annihilation Kingdoms features the basilisk, who can turn targets to stone.
  • In Baldur's Gate, basilisks pop up in several areas, including one set controlled by an insane gnome. One of your dialogue choices when talking to him is funny - but when you think about it later, it's truly callous: "Okay, Mr. psycho gnome, I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but we're really not interested in your rock garden". Those are real, very unfortunate (or stupid) people, not just statues!

Web Comics

  • During the The Order of the Stick, part of O-Chul's torture regimen as Xykon's captive involved a "basilisk staring contest". Jirix notes that O-Chul technically won, due to being petrified and unable to blink.
  • One Johnny Wander short story features a small blind girl named Delilah and a basilisk, which she treats as her Cool Pet. This basilisk is Ugly Cute and somewhat resembles an especially scaly Chocobo, though it's no less deadly - and Death isn't entirely thrilled about trying to figure out what to do with its victims.
  • In the Sluggy Freelance parody of Harry Potter "Torg Potter and the Chamberpot of Secretions", characters start turning mysteriously into chocolate. It's suspected to be the work of a creature similar to this (specifically a "chokolisk"), but it turns out they're instead victims of a Jerkass Genie who just 'randomly' happened to interpret everyone's wishes as "Turn me into chocolate". This parodies the way that the basilisk in The Chamber of Secrets never actually killed anyone with a direct look (minus Moaning Myrtle and Nearly Headless Nick, who were already ghosts).

Web Original

  • Super Mario Bros. Z features minor antagonist Captain Basilisx, a tough Koopatrol with Wolverine Claws (and very similar moves to Wolverine himself) alongside a stone-inducing stare.
  • In Arcana Magi Zero, everyone and every object, including the museum walls, are turned to stone by a shadow-shaped basilisk. Alysia Perez experiences the pain first hand.
  • The SCP Foundation has SCP-1013 - a nearly six-foot (181cm) reptilian creature with a frilled neck and an unfeathered head resembling that of a male chicken, which is essentially this trope in all but name. The beak of SCP-1013 is serrated and full of needle-like teeth, and its neck frill is adapted to produce a loud snapping sound; its body has a very flexible tail that makes up two-thirds of its length, and is used to trip and distract large prey. Discovered near a facility in Egypt, SCP-1013 is very aggressive and will attempt to draw the attention of intruders by snapping its neck frill, then fully paralyze them for a few seconds by making eye contact; it will "attack" multiple targets in rapid succession this way, and other instances are immune to the gaze. Its bite causes outer skin tissues to rapidly and irreversibly calcify, taking 15 minutes for a human victim and expanding outward from the wound - this leaves most internal tissues untouched and the victim still alive. SCP-1013 feeds by pecking through a calcified victim's flesh and eating them alive from the inside; it can compress itself to fit through small openings such as the eyes, which it often favors targeting first. SCP-1013 instances are known to hunt for sport and food storage and can reproduce asexually, with juveniles nearing adulthood seeking out cool, dark places such as ventilation shafts, plumbing, or discarded clothing/shoes in which to molt and grow. A lock-down event was caused when one thousand such instances were reported within a facility, resulting in multiple staff deaths.

Western Animation

  • In one episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, a cockatrice turns Twilight Sparkle and a chicken to stone, and was in the process of turning Fluttershy to stone when she stares the monster down while sternly lecturing it on its rude behavior.
  • In Amphibia, the Chicka-lisk is a chicken-like demon that can turn people to stone with a stare and eats gold.
  • In an episode of Little Devil, Chrissy rides a cockatrice (given to her by her father, The Devil) that looks like a dragon with a rooster's head and legs, covered with black feathers, a long, barbed tail, and breathes fire. It seems a little offended when Chrissy calls it a "dragon".
  • In The Owl House, a basilisk is a shapeshifting Beast-type demon whose true form resembles a snake with arms and human-like features. Basilisks are not necessarily evil, as Vee (revealed to be one) is friendly towards Luz and company and gladly assists them. The greater basilisk can consume magic drained from spells and magical beings - one is suspected to have been a henchman of the Emperor's Coven, and unlike Vee they are Obviously Evil.

Real Life

  • Real-life "basilisks" are a genus of large iguanian lizard that only share a name and reptilian nature with the mythical beasts. Native to rainforests in the Americas, readers may know them better as the "Jesus Christ lizards" that can run across water for short periods.
  • Crotalus basiliscus (commonly known as the Mexican green rattler) also derives its species name from the basilisk - though in their case, their size and highly potent venom makes the name more apropos.
  1. ↑ As indicated by its file name, the artist refers to it as a basilisk.
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