THE BASILISK. 343 



considered identical, then mention of it occurs in the Bible. 

 Greek and Roman naturalists frequently mention the basi- 

 lisk ; indeed, the very name is Greek, and has reference to 

 something of a kingly nature. According to the Greek and 

 Eoman belief, the basilisk was a kingly serpent, chief among 

 other serpents; one at the sound of whose hiss all other 

 serpents crawled away. Well they might, were the kingly 

 serpent's chief attribute real. 



The fable passed current that no living thing save one, 

 the weasel, could gaze upon the basilisk's eye and live. Be- 

 sides this terrible faculty, it was believed that the basilisk 

 withered every living plant it might touch save one, the rue. 

 The creature's very breath was reputed poisonous, even from 

 afar off. I am not aware that any ancient writer described 

 the basilisk as winged, though in mediaeval times the mon- 

 ster gained that attribute occasionally. From the dawn of 

 Christianity onwards to a certain period, the cockatrice type 

 of presentment for the monster came to prevail; the crea- 

 ture being described, and in some cases depicted, as having 

 some resemblance to a cock. Invariably, however, the basi- 

 lisk, whether of serpent-like or cock- like type, was represented 

 pictorially as the wearer of a kingly crown, emblematic of his 

 regal attributes. Next came a farther mutation of popular 

 belief as regards this creature. No longer a serpent or a 

 twelve-legged cock, the basilisk came to be regarded as a sort 

 of eminently poisonous toad. The habitat of the monster, too, 

 had changed. Whereas in more ancient times the basilisk 

 had been wont to dwell in the full glare of an African sun, 

 basking upon desert sands that his fatal eye-glance had made 

 a solitude, the basilisk of latest times took up his abode in 

 wells and mines and tombs, striking down with fell eye- 

 glance people who might descend incautiously. 



Frequently, when reading mining experiences of the six- 

 teenth and seventeenth centuries, one will meet with circum- 

 stantial-accounts of individuals killed by looking upon the 



