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Dave's Mythical Creatures and Places |
Cockatrice
| Description | A
dragon's form, but with a rooster's head. Sometimes described as having
red to black eyes.
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| Features | Said to be
from a rooster's egg, hatched by a serpent or a toad. Its look or breath is said to
be poison. Can be killed by a weasel or by the sound of a rooster
crowing.
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| Also Called | Basilisk-
frequently, these terms are used interchangeably.
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| Described By: | Unknown- "For
they say that when a Cocke groweth old, he layeth a certaine egge without
any shell, instead whereof it is covered with a very thicke skinne, which
is able to withstand the greatest force of an easie blow or fall. They
saye, moreover, that this egge is layd onely in the Summer time, about the
beginning of the Dogge-dayes (between
early July and early September), being
not so long as a Hens Egge, but round and orbiculer:...sometimes of a
yellowish muddy color... and afterward sat upon by a Snake or Toad,
bringeth forth the Cockatrice, being halfe a foot in length, the hinder
part like a snake, the former part like a Cocke, because of a treble comb
on his forehead."
Supposedly there was a cockatrice found in the vault of a chapel dedicated to Saint Lucea during the time of Pope Leo the Fourth (847 to 855.) The breath of this cockatrice fouled the air, and caused many deaths in Rome.
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