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being

Basilisk

Beings · Myth & story

A king-serpent of later natural-history and lore whose glance or breath kills. Not the ordinary serpent node and not an English cockatrice.

  • Basilisk is used in Medicine.

    Pliny’s Natural History lists basilisk remains among animal remedies: ash used against other venoms. A Roman encyclopedic drug-use of the king-serpent, not a cult appears_in and not an English cockatrice.

    from Pliny the Elder · Natural History, c. 77 CE

    used in · sourced · documented

  • Basilisk is historically related to Psalm.

    In Twining’s Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediæval Christian Art, Christ trampling the asp and basilisk draws on Psalm xci’s wording of adder and basilisk — the basilisk is figured from that psalm.

    from Louisa Twining · Symbols and Emblems of Early and Mediaeval Christian Art, 1852 (new ed. 1885)

    historically related to · sourced · documented

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