Basilitrice: Difference between revisions
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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.
Meanwhile, the cockatrice first appears in its 'modern' form as early as the twelfth century, depicted as two-legged and [[Our Dragons Are Different|draconian or serpentine]], with the head of a rooster. The name itself first appeared in the later fourteenth century
Related to both is the [[wikipedia:Ichneumon (medieval zoology)|''ichneumon'', or "weasel"]], a creature said to target the basilisk and cockatrice alike - it was not only immune to both their gazes, but a reputed reliable killer of both creatures, able to [[Taking You With Me|bring down the vicious monster before succumbing to its poisons]] at minimum. Similarly, the ''ichneumon'' was said to target and kill crocodiles as well, waiting for the reptile to bask in the sun with its mouth open - after which it would enter and eat its way through its insides.
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, i.e. a cockatrice. Said eggs may also have been preyed on by the aforementioned "weasel" - likely a type of egg-eating mongoose, perhaps specifically the [[wikipedia:Egyptian mongoose|Egyptian mongoose]]. Mongooses are known to tangle with venomous snakes, including cobras believed to be the basilisk's inspiration (e.g., the spitting cobra and king cobra), and have an immunity to snake venom.
The following traits are generally associated with these creatures:
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* [[Mix-and-Match Critters]]: Naturally a subtrope of this, as they are usually a mix of a serpent and a chicken as detailed above; though this is slightly more associated with the cockatrice nowadays, the basilisk still retains its origin of "snake hatched by a chicken".
* [[Reptiles Are Abhorrent]]: Both have serpentine features, frequently hide themselves away and are generally considered foul and nasty.
* [[Poisonous Person]]: The basilisk and cockatrice have incredibly potent poisons that make any kind of contact with it fatal, often instantaneously so - even [[Brown Note|eye contact]], [[Breath Weapon|contact with its breath]], handling its corpse, or (as per Lucan above) ''running the rotten thing through'' is enough
* [[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, representing an inherently poisonous or downright evil nature.
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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.
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}}
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* The ''[[Rental Magica]]'' episode "Red-Headed Girl" (episode 7 in broadcast order, episode 11 in chronological order) has a basilisk as its initial threat. A Biblical description of the monster is mentioned, and the basilisk in the show has the ability to kill a person simply by meeting their gaze.
* The first episode of ''[[Little Witch Academia]]'' has a cockatrice as the main antagonist.
* ''[[Basilisk: The Kouga Ninja Scrolls]]'' is an [[Meaningful Name|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]]==
* In [[DC Comics]], Basilisk is a terrorist group encountered by the [[Suicide Squad]].
* In [[Marvel Comics]], Basilisk is the moniker of four different characters:
** [[Steven Ulysses Pervillain|Basil Elks]], a petty thief who broke into a museum to steal what he believed an ordinary emerald. However, it is actually alien Kree artifact called the Alpha Stone; when Elks is caught and fired upon by a security guard, the bullet accidentally hits and shatters the gem, causing an explosion that transforms Elks 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 Mole Man, and the Punisher.
** The second Basilisk is Wayne Gifford, who created the alternate persona through demon worship. Also a humanoid reptilian, Gifford posseses a paralyzing stare and is an enemy of the [[Anti-Hero]]ic [[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 - he had [[Cyclopean Creature|a single eye with a camera-like device in the socket]] that allows him to control his mutant ability, a pulse of high-frequency strobe light emitted from his brain that paralyzes sentient viewers. 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.
** A fourth Basilisk appeared in the ''[[Age of X]]'' crossover, a [[The Atoner|former executioner from Arcade's prison]] who killed him and defected to [[La Resistance|Magneto's resistance]]. {{spoiler|He is revealed to be the [[Alternate Reality|Age of X's]] Cyclops, who [[Eye Scream|had his eyelids removed]] and must use a special mask to control his powers}}.
== [[Literature]] ==
* In the ''[[Harry Potter]]'' franchise, basilisks are far larger and longer-lived, with lengths upwards of fifty feet and a lifespan of several centuries, and draw from folkloric depictions in several aspects
** Cockatrices are mentioned briefly in ''[[Harry Potter/Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire|Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire]]'', where Hermione explains that the Triwizard Tournament had not been held in centuries: the last one had been called off due to a cockatrice that participants were tasked with capturing got loose, and the heads of the competing schools were injured in the aftermath.
** 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.
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* In ''[[Dracula (novel)|Dracula]]'', Jonathan Harker likens the titular vampire's gaze to a basilisk's as he attempts to destroy the sleeping Count, only for his 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]] ([[Meaningful Name|who is aptly named Wyrm]]). With the help of a sycophantic toad, he creates an army of wicked basilisks.
* As indicated by the description above, the basilisk lends its name to
** Langford's later sequel
** The works of [[Ken MacLeod]] and [[Greg Egan]] specifically refer to the idea as "the Langford hack" (''[[The Cassini Division]]'') and "the Langford Mind-Erasing Fractal Basilisk" (''[[Permutation City]]''). [[Charles Stross]]'s works also refer to a "Langford Death Parrot" (''[[The Fuller Memorandum]]'') and "Basilisk attacks" with "Langford fractals" (''[[Accelerando]]''). More modern works influenced by the concept include ''[[Eclipse Phase]]'' (the viral "Basilisk hacks") and ''[[SCP Foundation]]'' (cognitohazards, sometimes called "memetic kill agents").
* [[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:
{{quote|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:"
{{quote|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.}}
== [[Oral Tradition]], [[Folklore]], Myths and Legends ==
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{{quote|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 [[Our Dragons Are Different|a fiery flying serpent]].}}
:* In the Latin Vulgate and Septuagint translations of [[Book of Psalms]], [[The Bible/Source/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 ''[[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 its 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" (i.e., 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 formerly believed potent enough that if a man on horseback killed one with a spear, the poison would run up the weapon and kill ''both''.
** 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. 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 [[Squick|feed on the residents'
* On that note, it was not uncommon to hear tales of "basilisk hunts" - among the most famous of them is [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/on-the-trail-of-the-warsaw-basilisk-5691840/ 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 - 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.
* 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.
== [[Theatre]] ==
* In [[Shakespeare]]'s play ''[[Richard III]]'', the Duchess of York likens her son Richard to
{{quote|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:
{{quote|Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'Ay,'
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** After the bite attack, the cockatrice will attempt a touch attack; if it lands, there is then a 1 in 3 chance that the cockatrice will hiss at you. 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. {{spoiler|(On a new moon, this becomes 100% unless you are carrying a lizard corpse.)}} This is a 'delayed instadeath' that can be cured through a few means, so hopefully you have at least ''one'' of them available.
** Even its corpse has this property - [[Schmuck Bait|touch a corpse without gloves or try to eat one, and unless you're stony or acidic it's game over]]. On top of that, its corpse is also poisonous to eat, and being hit with or eating an egg will similarly induce a slow stoning. {{spoiler|[[Easter Egg|If you're in a form that's immune to stoning ''and'' poison, however, then footrice corpses taste just like chicken!]]}} Grab a corpse ''with'' gloves, however, and you have an [[Improvised Weapon]] that turns non-immune monsters to stone, [[Weaksauce Weakness|even including many later bosses!]] Players tend to call these [[Fan Nickname|"rubber chickens"]], and this can also be done using the eggs as projectiles.
*** ...but intelligent enemies that can wear gloves ''will'' do the same to you, if they find a rubber chicken or some footrice eggs. (Thankfully, this is non-instantaneous as above.) There's also the still-present danger of touching the corpse in other ways - better not fumble or fall onto it!
** Of note is that [[golem]]s and [[Dem Bones|skeletons]] are also immune, partly due to being non-living. Golems have their body turned to stone but remain mobile otherwise, while skeletons are completely unaffected - likely as a result of not being 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 to both in the asphynx - they can petrify the player in a manner similar to cockatrices, and are different classes of monster from them, making "solving" the stoning problem via [[Kill'Em All|scrolls of genocide]] much more difficult.
** ''[[SpliceHack]]'' has ''[[Our Werebeasts Are Different|werecockatrices]]''.
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* 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 (mentioned in Anime & Manga above) as a dungeon boss in the underground labyrinth.
* ''[[Mother 3]]'' has the [https://wikibound.info/wiki/Slitherhen Slitherhen] - a [[Mix-and-Match Critters|Chimera with a snake's body and a chicken's head]]. Though it visually resembles a cockatrice, it thankfully isn't very poisonous.
==[[Web Original]]==
* ''[[Super Mario Bros. Z]]'' features a minor antagonist named Captain Basilisx, a tough Koopatrol with [[Wolverine Claws]] and a [[Taken for Granite|stone-inducing stare]].
== [[Western Animation]] ==
* In one episode of ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]'', a cockatrice turned 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]]''
== [[Real Life]] ==
* Averted with real-life [[wikipedia:Basiliscus (lizard)|basilisks]], a genus of large iguanian lizard that only shares its 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 this case it was given its name due to its size and highly potent venom.
{{reflist}}
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