Cockatrice
A cockatrice is a
Legend
Origins
The first English mention of the cockatrice was in the 14th century John Wycliffe translation of the Bible[10],the word was used for the translation of various Hebrew words for asp and adder in the Book of Isaiah11, 14 and 59.[11]
The
According to
It is thought that a
Abilities
The cockatrice has the reputed ability to kill people by either looking at them—"the death-darting eye of Cockatrice" [6][note 1]—touching them, or sometimes breathing on them.
It was repeated in the late-medieval
Cultural references
The first use of the word in English was in
In Shakespeare's play Richard III (c. 1593), the Duchess of York compares her son Richard to a cockatrice:
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.[13]
A cockatrice is also mentioned in Romeo and Juliet (1597), in Act 3, scene 2 line 47, by Juliet.
Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but 'Ay,'
And that bare vowel 'I' shall poison more
Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice.[6]
Nathan Field, in the first scene of his play The Honest Man's Fortune (1647), also uses the idea that a cockatrice could kill with its eyes:
... never threaten with your eyes, they are no cockatrice's...[14]
In Second Nephi 24:29, a Cockatrice is mentioned.
In E. R. Eddison's high fantasy novel The Worm Ouroboros (1922), Chapter 4 has King Gorice show a cockatrice to Gro:
"Behold and see, that which sprung from the egg of a cock, hatched by the deaf adder. The glance of its eye sufficeth to turn to stone any living thing that standeth before it. Were I but for one instant to loose my spells whereby I hold it in subjection, in that moment would end my life days and thine ..."
Therewith came forth that offspring of perdition from its hole, strutting erect on its two legs that were the legs of a cock; and a cock's head it had, with rosy comb and wattles, but the face of it like no fowl's face of middle-earth but rather a gorgon's out of Hell. Black shining feathers grew on its neck, but the body of it was the body of a dragon with scales that glittered in the rays of the candles, and a scaly crest stood on its back; and its wings were like bats' wings, and its tail the tail of an aspick with a sting in the end thereof, and from its beak its forked tongue flickered venomously. And the stature of the thing was a little above a cubit.[15]
The cockatrice has also been used as a staple enemy creature in fantasy RPGs such as
A cockatrice is mentioned in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000) by Hermione Granger in chapter fifteen. A cockatrice involved in one of the tasks of the 1792 Triwizard Tournament escaped and injured the headmasters of the three participating schools, an incident cited as the cause for the cancellation of Triwizard Tournaments until 1994. Some translations instead state the cockatrice to be a basilisk[note 2] or an "occamy",[note 3] an in-universe relative of the snallygaster.[16] Additionally, heraldry of a white cockatrice holding a broomstick on a blue and beige background is shown to be the emblem of the French National Quidditch team in the 2003 video game Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup.[17]
In the video game Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand (2003), cockatrices are among the enemies the player faces in Sol City.[18]
In the animated series
On the SCP Foundation collaborative writing project, cockatrices are shown in the story SCP-1013 - Cockatrice (2011). An SCP-1013 instead paralyzes its prey by staring at them, only turning their skin to stone upon biting them, after which it will peck through the calcified skin to eat their prey's fleshy innards. SCP-1013 reproduce from growths budding off of the tail of a well-fed adult.[20] The story SCP-1013 - Cockatrice won fourth place in the site's SCP-1000 Contest, a contest that prefaced the opening of the site's second series.[21]
A cockatrice is shown as the main antagonist in the first episode of Netflix's anime adaptation of Little Witch Academia (2017), "Starting Over".[22] The cockatrice is also a dungeon boss in the underground labyrinth gameplay section of Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time (2017), a video game for PC and PS4.[23]
In heraldry
In continental European heraldic systems, cockatrices may be simply referred to as dragons instead.[25]
The cockatrice was the heraldic beast of the Langleys of Agecroft Hall in Lancashire, England as far back as the 14th century.[26]
It is also the symbol of 3 (Fighter) Squadron, a fighter squadron of the Royal Air Force.
Notes
- ^ The idea of vision in an "eye-beam", a stream emanating from the eye was inherited by the Renaissance from Antiquity; it forms an elaborately-worked-out simile in John Donne's "The Exstacie": "Our eye-beames twisted and did thred/ Our eyes, upon one double string."
- ^ Spanish and Portuguese: basilisco, Russian: васили́ск, Greek: βασιλίσκος
- ^ Polish: "żmijoptak"
See also
- Abraxas
- Anzu (dinosaur)
- Basan
- Basilisco Chilote
- Basilisk
- Cockatrice (Dungeons & Dragons)
- Cockentrice a term often confused with cockatrice
- Colo Colo (mythology)
- Ichneumon (medieval zoology)
- Kye-ryong (Korean cockatrice)
- Snallygaster
- Wherwell
- Yi (dinosaur)
- The Book of the Dun Cow (novel)
References
- ^ Historia Naturalis viii.37.90.
- ^ Breiner 1979.
- ^ Pedro Tafur, Andanças e viajes.
- ^ Breiner 1979:35.
- ^ Browne, T. (1658). Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths. United Kingdom: E. Dod.
- ^ a b Shakespeare, William (24 June 2016). Romeo and Juliet. iii.ii.47.
- ISBN 978-0-7864-9505-4.
- ISBN 978-0-7102-0006-8. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ Knight, Charles (1854). The English cyclopaedia: a new dictionary of Universal Knowledge. Bradbury and Evans. p. 5152. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
- ^ "BibleGateway".
- ^ Hebrew word #8577 in Strong's Concordance; Hebrew word #6848 in Strong's Concordance; Hebrew word #660 in Strong's Concordance; Hebrew word #8314 in Strong's Concordance.
- ^ "BibleGateway".
- ^ "Richard III, Act IV, Scene 1 :-: Open Source Shakespeare".
- ISBN 9780719086113.
- ^ Eddison, Eric Rücker (1922). The Worm Ouroboros. Jonathan Cape.
- ISBN 0-7475-4624-X.
- ^ EA Bright Light (2003). Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup (Game Boy Advance, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 2, Xbox, GameCube). Electronic Arts.
- Konami Computer Entertainment Japan (2003). Boktai: The Sun Is in Your Hand (Game Boy Advance) (in Japanese and English). Konami.
- ^ Savino, Chris (February 25, 2011). "Stare Master". My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic. Season 1. Episode 17. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ Dr Gears (August 12, 2011). "SCP-1013 - Cockatrice". SCP Foundation. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ Cryer Walker (March 21, 2022). "SCP-1000 Contest Hub". SCP Foundation. Translated by hungryposssum. Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ Shimada, Michiru (January 9, 2017). "Starting Over". Little Witch Academia. Season 1. Episode 1 (in Japanese). Retrieved November 16, 2022.
- ^ A+ Games (2017). Little Witch Academia: Chamber of Time (PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows) (in Japanese and English). Bandai Namco Entertainment.
- Arthur Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry, T.C. and E.C. Jack, London, 1909, p 227, https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxduoft.
- Arthur Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry, T.C. and E.C. Jack, London, 1909, p 225, https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxduoft.
- ^ Jefferson Collins – "Secrets from the Curator's Closet" – Agecroft Hall Museum "Secrets from the Curator's Closet". Archived from the original on 2011-07-08. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
Further reading
- Laurence A. Breiner, "The Career of the Cockatrice", Isis 70:1 (March 1979), pp. 30–47
- P. Ansell Robin, "The Cockatrice and the 'New English Dictionary'", in Animal Lore in English Literature (London 1932).
- The Medieval Bestiary: "Basilisk" (includes Cockatrice)