#7 - Cocakatrice

The next creature in the series comes from the middle ages. The cockatrice first appears around the 12th century. Early accounts describe the creature as a winged dragon or serpent with the head and legs of a rooster. The beast was said to be created when a rooster egg was hatched by a toad or a snake. This mixture of male egg and reptile care imbued the cockatrice with a glare that could turn living creatures to stone and venomous breath. The only creatures known to be able to kill a cockatrice were weasels, who were somehow immune to the creature's death stare. Other means of dispatching a cockatrice were to force it to listen to a rooster crowing or to make it look into a mirror.
The cockatrice legend is fairly limited in distribution. By the Enlightenment, the legend seems to have all but died out. Interestingly, the legend partially lives on in the form of the basilisk. In many early texts - and even the King James Bible - cockatrice, basilisk, and viper were used interchangeably. It's not clear how a dragon-rooster hybrid and a viper were the same, but the term cockatrice seems to have been used for any dangerous slithery creature.

This is actually a basilisk.

The cockatrice left a limited legacy culturally. A handful of nobles used the creature in their heraldry, but it is relatively rare compared to other mythical beasts. Some of the only modern uses of the cockatrice are in Dungeons and Dragons and Magic the Gathering. The related basilisk has done slightly better, popping up in Harry Potter and other fantasy novels, but sill has a limited impact. Ultimately, the concept of a toad caring for a rooster egg was probably just too out there post-enlightenment to carry on and, without the strong historical basis of other legends, the beast was left at the wayside.

Next week: One eye, all the better to see you with.