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Cockatrice

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For other uses, see Cockatrice (disambiguation).
A cockatrice overdoor at Belvedere Castle (1869) in New York's Central Park

A cockatrice is a legendary creature, essentially a two-legged dragon with a rooster's head. "An ornament in the drama and poetry of the Elizabethans", Laurence Breiner described it. "The cockatrice, which no one ever saw, was born by accident at the end of the twelfth century and died in the middle of the seventeenth, a victim of the new science."[1]

Legend

Origins

The cockatrice was first described in its current form in the late twelfth 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[2] that the ichneumon lay in wait for the crocodile to open its jaws for the trochilus bird to enter and pick its teeth clean.[3] 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.[4]

According to Alexander Neckam's De naturis rerum (ca 1180), the cockatrice was supposed to be born from an egg laid by a cock 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 (ca 1260) was translated by John Trevisa as cockatrice (1397).[5] A basilisk, however, is usually depicted without wings.

Abilities

Its reputed magical abilities include turning people to stone or killing them by either looking at them—"the death-darting eye of Cockatrice"[6]—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,[7] and according to legend, having a cockatrice look itself in a mirror is one of the few sure-fire ways to kill it.[8] The cockatrice was also able to fly with the set of wings affixed to its back.[citation needed]

Like the head of Medusa, the cockatrice's powers of petrification were thought still active after death.

Cultural references

The cockatrice is mentioned in Brunetto Latini's Li livres dou tresor (ca 1260).

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.

— Isaiah 11

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.

— Isaiah 14

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.

— Isaiah 59

For, behold, I will send serpents, cockatrices, among you, which will not be charmed, and they shall bite you, saith the lord.

— Jeremiah 8

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 (Breiner 1979).

In heraldry

Arthur Fox-Davies describes the cockatrice as "comparatively rare" in heraldry.[9]

It was the heraldic beast of the Langleys of Agecroft Hall in Lancashire, England as far back as the 14th century.[10]

It is also the symbol of 3 (Fighter) Squadron, a fighter squadron of the Royal Air Force.

Modern culture

  • The Cockatrice is the villain of The Book of the Dun Cow, a novel by Walter Wangerin, Jr.
  • The Darkangel Trilogy features a guardian-creature named Elverlon, which is a cockatrice but lacks any legs. It is one of several artificial beings created by the character known as "the lady Ravenna" to protect the various regions of a terraformed moon.
  • In the book and TV animation of The Talking Parcel by Gerald Durrell, the heroes must stop an army of cockatrices from conquering the land of Mythologia. The wizard who founded Mythologia removed the cockatrices' ability to kill with a stare, but they can breathe fire. The weasels need to consume rue before they will be effective against the cockatrices.
  • In the field guide for The Spiderwick Chronicles, these creatures are mentioned.
  • The cockatrice is featured in Dungeons & Dragons role-playing games.
  • It has also been a recurring enemy in the Final Fantasy series.
  • The basilisk in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has some cockatrice-like qualities: the power to petrify or kill with its gaze; being born from a chicken egg incubated by a toad; and can be killed by the crowing of a rooster. Hermione Granger also mentions a separate cockatrice species in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when discussing the Triwizard Tournament.
  • On the TV series Merlin, a cockatrice is encountered in series 1, episode 4, "The Poisoned Chalice".
  • In the anime series "Digimon" appears a Cockatrice-like digimon called "Kockatorimon" which was able to turn their enemies into stone.
  • A cockatrice appears in the My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode "Stare Master".
  • In the 2007 video game The Witcher the player encounters a cockatrice on several occasions.
  • In the 2005 video game Megaman Zero 4 a boss based on the cockatrice called "Popla Cocapetri" is fought in the living city.
  • The Cockatrice is a "DDS" card in Castlevania : Circle of the moon.
  • In the 2003 video game Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow in the "Floating Garden" area. It fires a petrification beam from its eyes. It's "Bullet Soul" grants the player the same attack/ability when equipped.
  • In the 1999 video game Ogre Battle 64: Person of Lordly Caliber appears in areas of the game as part of enemy units and alone in a random encounters. One of those most powerful classes due to its petrification attack and is a recruitable class.
  • The Cockatrice can be recruited as a playable character in the video game "Disgaea 2"
  • The Cockatrice is an enemy in Boktai
  • The Cockatrice is an enemy in Nethack, whose body retains the ability to petrify even after being killed. Its use as a weapon is colloquially known as "wielding the rubber chicken".
  • The Cockatrice is both an enemy and a summoned familiar in RuneScape.
  • The Cockatrice is a boss monster with its offspring in Super Ghouls'n Ghosts
  • The Dora Cockatrice is a monster created by Puripurikan for Evil Witch Bandora in Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger.
  • A card named Cockatrice is found in the collectible card game "Magic: The Gathering". [11]
  • A cockatrice appears in the fantasy novel The Dragon and the Lotus as the cause of a mysterious illness that is slowly killing an Indian princess.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Laurence A. Breiner, "The Career of the Cockatrice", Isis 70.1 (March 1979: 30-47) p. 30.
  2. ^ Historia Naturalis viii.37.90.
  3. ^ Breiner 1979.
  4. ^ Pedro Tafur, Andanças e viajes.
  5. ^ Breiner 1979:35.
  6. ^ Romeo and Juliet, iii.ii.47. 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."
  7. ^ Heller, Louis G.; Humez, Alexander; Dror, Malcah (May 1984). The private lives of English words. Routledge & Kegan Paul. p. 49. ISBN 9780710200068. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  8. ^ Knight, Charles (1854). The English cyclopaedia: a new dictionary of Universal Knowledge. Bradbury and Evans. p. 5152. Retrieved 8 October 2010.
  9. ^ Arthur Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry, Bonanza Books, New York, 1978, p 227.
  10. ^ Jefferson Collins - "Secrets from the Curator's Closet" - Agecroft Hall Museum http://www.curatorscloset.blogspot.com/
  11. ^ "Gatherer". Wizards of the Coast. Retrieved April 07, 2012. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help), the official Magic card database.

References

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).
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