A cockatrice is a mythical beast, essentially a two-legged dragon with a rooster's head.
Described by Laurence Breiner as "an ornament in the drama and poetry of the Elizabethans",
it featured prominently in English thought and myth for centuries.
Legend Origins
The cockatrice was first described in its current form in the late fourteenth century.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives a derivation from Old French cocatris, from medieval Latin
calcatrix, a translation of the Greek ichneumon, meaning tracker. The twelfth century legend
was based on a reference in Pliny's Natural History that the ichneumon lay in wait for
the crocodile to open its jaws for the trochilus bird to enter and pick its teeth clean. An
extended description of the cockatriz by the 15th-century Spanish traveler in Egypt, Pedro
Tafur, makes it clear that the Nile crocodile is intended.
According to Alexander Neckam's De naturis rerum, the cockatrice was supposed to be born
from an egg laid by a chicken and incubated by a toad; a snake might be substituted in
re-tellings. Cockatrice became seen as synonymous with basilisk when the basiliscus in Bartholomeus
Anglicus' De proprietatibus rerum was translated by John Trevisa as cockatrice. A basilisk,
however, is usually depicted without wings. It is thought that a cock egg would birth
a cockatrice, and could be prevented by tossing the yolkless egg over the family house, landing
on the other side of the house, without allowing the egg to hit the house.
Abilities It has the reputed ability of killing people
by either looking at them—"the death-darting eye of Cockatrice"—touching them, or sometimes
breathing on them. It was repeated in the late-medieval bestiaries
that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. It was
also thought that a cockatrice would die instantly upon hearing a rooster crow, and according
to legend, having a cockatrice look itself in a mirror is one of the few sure-fire ways
to kill it. The cockatrice was also said to fly using
the set of wings affixed to its back. Cultural references
The cockatrice is mentioned in Brunetto Latini's Li livres dou tresor.
The first use of the word in English was in John Wyclif's 1382 translation of the Bible.
This usage was followed by the King James Version, the word being used several times,
to translate Hebrew tziph'oni:
And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put
his hand on the cockatrice' den.
Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken:
for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery
flying serpent.
They hatch cockatrice' eggs, and weave the spider's web: he that eateth of their eggs
dieth, and that which is crushed breaketh out into a viper.
For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and
they shall bite you, saith the lord.
In all these instances, the Revised Version—following the tradition established by Jerome's Vulgate
basiliscus—renders the word "basilisk", and the New International Version translates
it as "viper". In Proverbs 23:32 the similar Hebrew tzeph'a is rendered "adder", both in
the Authorized Version and the Revised Version. In England the town most associated with the
cockatrice is the village of Wherwell, near Andover in Hampshire. The story is that the
cockatrice terrorised the village until it was imprisoned in the dungeons below Wherwell
Priory. A prize of land was offered to anyone who could kill the creature. None was successful,
until a man named Green lowered a mirror into the dungeon. The cockatrice battled against
its own reflection until exhausted, at which point Green was able to kill it. Today there
is an area of land near Wherwell called Green's Acres. For many years a weather vane in the
shape of a cockatrice adorned the church of St. Peter and Holy Cross in Wherwell until
it was removed to Andover Museum. Laurence Breiner also identified the uses
of the cockatrice in alchemy. In heraldry
Arthur Fox-Davies describes the cockatrice as "comparatively rare" in heraldry.
It was the heraldic beast of the Langleys of Agecroft Hall in Lancashire, England as
far back as the 14th century. It is also the symbol of 3 Squadron, a fighter
squadron of the Royal Air Force. See also
Basilisco Chilote Basilisk
Colo Colo Ichneumon
Notes
References ChristianAnswers.com: "Cockatrice"
The Medieval Bestiary: "Basilisk" Further reading
Laurence A. Breiner, "The Career of the Cockatrice", Isis 70:1, pp. 30–47
P. Ansell Robin, "The Cockatrice and the 'New English Dictionary'", in Animal Lore in English
Literature. External links
Dave's Mythical Creatures and Places: Cockatrice