the.com/cockatrice
a rooster-snake hybrid that kills with a glance, because medieval monsters didn't believe in subtlety.
means A legendary serpent or dragon-like creature, often depicted as a two-legged rooster with a snake's tail, said to kill with a single glance or its venomous breath.
from From Old French cocatris, which traces back through Latin to calcatrix, 'the tracker' or 'she who treads,' a word for the ichneumon — the mongoose-like beast famed for hunting crocodiles. Through centuries of translation and retelling, this name drifted away from the mongoose and onto a fearsome mythical monster, and English ears, hearing 'cock' in cocatris, naturally fused it with the rooster — which is how the creature acquired its barnyard head. It became entangled with the basilisk along the way, the two often treated as one and the same.
- birth recipe
- Rooster egg hatched by a toad or serpent.
- weasel weakness
- Killed by a weasel, somehow its mortal foe.
- crow defense
- A rooster's crow could drop one dead.
- basilisk cousin
- Often confused with the basilisk for centuries.
- royal use
- Adorned English heraldry as a fearsome badge.
cockatrice of warsaw — legendary creature in polish folklore, featured on warsaw's coat of arms and city seal since medieval times
cockatrice of northampton — heraldic beast in northampton, england, appearing on town symbols and historical documents from the 14th century