Cockatrice
Cockatrice and basilisk in Edward Topsell’s account
A deadly serpent described through competing authorities: Topsell debates its birth, declines to give it wings, and doubts the story of its fatal reflection.
Quick answer
In Edward Topsell’s “Of the Cockatrice,” the cockatrice is a poisonous serpent also called a basilisk. The chapter reports a cock’s-egg origin but does not accept it as the origin of every creature discussed. Topsell attributes lethal effects to sight, breath, and contact, while explicitly withholding wings and rejecting a popular English reflection story.[1]
Quick facts
| Record type | Early modern natural history: reported serpent |
|---|---|
| Source marker | “Of the Cockatrice,” pp. 677–681 (1658) |
| Names in this witness | Cockatrice; basilisk; Greek name rendered Basiliscos, Latin Regulus (p. 677) |
| Source realm | Africa and separate European reports in Topsell’s compilation |
| Birth | Disputed; cock’s-egg accounts distinguished from ordinary serpent generation (pp. 677–678) |
| Wings | Explicitly excluded for lack of sufficient authority (p. 679) |
| Reported adversaries | Weasel and cock (p. 679) |
| Deadly effects | Poisoned air, sight, and contact; no petrification described in these passages (pp. 680–681) |
These are claims and distinctions within the historical text, not a biological classification.[1]
What Topsell’s account says
The chapter opens by explaining the creature’s royal names through its bearing and power over other serpents, rather than great size. It moves partly upright and has a comb or coronet on its head (p. 677). Topsell uses cockatrice and basilisk within the same discussion; this witness does not establish a universal division between two species.[1]
Some writers, he reports, say an old cock lays an unusual egg that a snake or toad incubates. That account produces a half-foot creature with a snake-like rear and cock-like front, explained by a triple comb. Topsell also reports the European preference for a toad as incubator and introduces a discussion attributed to Lemnius in which the cock itself sits on the egg. The passage continuing onto p. 678 allows an egg-born venomous worm to count as one kind, while distinguishing the African cockatrice under discussion as generated like other serpents. The competing explanations must remain separate (pp. 677–678).[1]
The weasel is said to pursue and kill the cockatrice after eating rue as protection; the cock’s appearance and crowing also terrify it. Topsell says travellers through African deserts carry cocks for protection (p. 679). These are reported counteragents within his account, not practical remedies or observations confirmed by this archive.[1]
His discussion of poison includes a received story of a horseman and horse killed through a contaminated spear. Yet he declines to endorse death by self-reflection. He mocks an English story about a man travelling encased in glass to destroy cockatrices, arguing that the poisoned air would have killed the man first unless it could be kept out (pp. 680–681).[1]
Description, abilities, and translation choices
The half-foot length and cock-like front belong to the reported egg-born form on p. 677. A separate account attributed to Cardan concerns a creature found in a ruined house in Milan: it has two short legs, clawed feet, a head protuberance, and neither feathers nor wings. Topsell tentatively assigns it to the cockatrice kind (p. 680). These descriptions cannot be combined into a single standard anatomy.[1]
Topsell’s refusal to supply wings follows an argument about translations of Isaiah: he favours readings naming other serpents over a Latin rendering involving the cockatrice (pp. 678–679). This is his interpretation of competing translations, not an independent identification of the Hebrew creatures. The present profile uses his English chapter and does not transfer his list of foreign names into claims about separate cultural traditions.[1]
On pp. 680–681, sight and touch kill through the chapter’s conception of poison; nearby air becomes destructive to animals and plants. Death by looking is not described as turning a victim to stone. Hollar’s winged basilisk is retained as separately labelled artwork and supplies no additional powers or body parts to this account.[1][2]
Source realm: Topsell’s reported geography
The chapter names African locations including Nubia and Cyrene (p. 678), then discusses separate European reports. Its Saxon woodland serpents are argued to have weaker poison because of the colder country; the Milan creature comes from a decayed house (p. 680). These are distinct reports and the compiler’s explanations, not evidence for a continuous habitat range.[1]
The archive places this record in Folklore places, which includes historical creature reports tied to named geography. Its textual provenance remains an English natural-history compilation. It is not classified here as a dragon, a heraldic charge, or an independently documented African oral tradition.
Authority and natural counterweights
Topsell’s chapter displays selective belief: he defends the creature’s existence through scriptural and learned authority (p. 678), but disputes particular claims about wings and reflection. He also presents the weasel and cock as enemies provided within nature for a dangerous serpent (p. 679). These are arguments made by this author, rather than timeless symbolic meanings of the cockatrice.[1]
Books and references
- 1Edward Topsell, The History of Four-footed Beasts and Serpents
London: printed by E. Cotes for G. Sawbridge and others, 1658. Combined edition, with Thomas Muffet’s The Theater of Insects; the present record uses only the serpents section, “Of the Cockatrice,” pp. 677–681. English public-domain text in the University of Michigan’s Early English Books Online / Text Creation Partnership transcription, identifier A42668.0001.001. Markers: p. 677 (names and egg reports); p. 678 (generation, geography, authority); pp. 678–679 (translation dispute); p. 679 (wings and adversaries); p. 680 (European reports and poison); pp. 680–681 (reflection); p. 681 (deadly effects). Paraphrases retain the text’s disagreements and do not modernize its natural philosophy into zoological fact.
Read “Of the Cockatrice” ↗ · 1658 edition record and digitized volume ↗ - 2Wenceslaus Hollar, The basilisk and the weasel, plate P427
Undated print by Hollar (1607–1677), Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto. University scan reproduced on Wikimedia Commons, which identifies the artwork and faithful reproduction as public domain. Reused from the archive’s existing basilisk illustration. The print is an independent artistic witness, not evidence for Topsell’s anatomy.
Image provenance and public-domain declaration ↗
