Basilisk

Name origin: Greek βασιλίσκος basilískos, "little king"
Found in: Libyan desert, parts of Europe and the Mediterranean

One of the earliest mentions is in Pliny the Elder's Natural History, written around 79 AD:

"...the basilisk... is produced in the province of Cyrene, being not more than twelve fingers in length. It has a white spot on the head, strongly resembling a sort of a diadem. When it hisses, all the other serpents fly from it: and it does not advance its body, like the others, by a succession of folds, but moves along upright and erect upon the middle. It destroys all shrubs, not only by its contact, but those even that it has breathed upon; it burns up all the grass, too, and breaks the stones, so tremendous is its noxious influence. It was formerly a general belief that if a man on horseback killed one of these animals with a spear, the poison would run up the weapon and kill, not only the rider, but the horse, as well. To this dreadful monster the effluvium of the weasel is fatal, a thing that has been tried with success, for kings have often desired to see its body when killed; so true is it that it has pleased Nature that there should be nothing without its antidote. The animal is thrown into the hole of the basilisk, which is easily known from the soil around it being infected. The weasel destroys the basilisk by its odour, but dies itself in this struggle of nature against its own self."

It has been speculated that the description of the basilisk came about by mixing descriptions of king cobras - which have a crown-like symbol on their scales and are known to eat other snakes - and spitting cobras, which are able to 'spit' venom, often into the eyes of prey or would-be predators. Cobras in general are able to maintain an upright posture when threatened, and are often killed by mongooses.

In the ninth book of Pharsalia(as translated by Robert Graves), it is said that all the serpents of Libya - the Asp(which is believed to be referring to the Egyptian Cobra), the Amphisbaena, the Ammodytes(possibly Vipera ammodytes, or Nose-Horned Viper, though those are native to Europe), and the Basilisk - were born from the blood dripping from the gorgon Medusa's head as Perseus traveled. Another belief was that the snakes on the gorgon's heads were basilisks, and their ability to kill with a glance were derived from the gorgons in that way.

The Gorgon's Head - the face of a woman surrounded by serpentine hair - was a symbol of female wisdom, or "wise blood", guarding the taboo mysteries of women's menstrual cycle from which men were forbidden. Because of this, it was also believed that a hair taken from a menstruating woman and buried would also become a snake, or even a basilisk(Rawson, A.T., 165-66).

Sources: Wikipedia, The Book of Imaginary Beings (Jorge Luis Borges), and The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets (Barbara G. Walker)

See also: Cockatrice

Last updated 3/23/2020