CHAPTER VII.

THE BASILISK.

The Serpent's gem--The Basilisk's eye--Basiliscus mitratus--
House-snakes in Russia and Germany--King-snakes--Heraldic
dragon--Henry III.--Melusina--The Laidley Worm--Victorious
dragons--Pendragon--Merlin and Vortigern--Medicinal dragons.


A Dragoon once presented himself before Frederick the Great and offered
the king a small pebble, which, he said, had been cut from the head
of a king-snake, and would no doubt preserve the throne. Frederick
probably trusted more to dragoons than dragons, but he kept the little
curiosity, little knowing, perhaps, that it would be as prolific
of legends as the cock's egg, to which it is popularly traceable,
in cockatrices (whose name may have given rise to the cock-fables)
or basilisks. It has now taken its place in German folklore that
Frederick owed his greatness to a familiar kept near him in the form
of a basilisk. But there are few parts of the world where similar
legends might not spring up and coil round any famous reputation. An
Indian newspaper, the Lawrence Gazette, having mentioned that the
ex-king of Oudh is a collector of snakes, adds--'Perhaps he wishes to
become possessed of the precious jewel which some serpents are said
to contain, or of that species of snake by whose means, it is said,
a person can fly in the air.' Dr. Dennys, in whose work on Chinese
Folklore this is quoted, finds the same notion in China. In one
story a foreigner repeatedly tries to purchase a butcher's bench,
but the butcher refuses to sell it, suspecting there must be some
hidden value in the article; for this reason he puts the bench by,
and when the foreigner returns a year afterwards, learns from him
that lodged in the bench was a snake, kept alive by the blood soaking
through it, which held a precious gem in its mouth--quite worthless
after the snake was dead. Cursing his stupidity at having put the
bench out of use, the butcher cut it open and found the serpent dead,
holding in its mouth something like the eye of a dried fish.

Here we have two items which may only be accidental, and yet, on the
other hand, possibly possess significance. The superior knowledge
about the serpent attributed to a 'foreigner' may indicate that such
stories in China are traditionally alien, imported with the Buddhists;
and the comparison of the dead gem to an eye may add a little to
the probabilities that this magical jewel, whether in head of toad or
serpent, is the reptile's eye as seen by the glamour of human eyes. The
eye of the basilisk is at once its wealth-producing, its fascinating,
and its paralysing talisman, though all these beliefs have their
various sources and their several representations in mythology. That
it was seen as a gem was due, as I think, to the jewelled skin of most
serpents, which gradually made them symbols of riches; that it was
believed able to fascinate may be attributed to the general principles
of illusion already considered; but its paralysing power, its evil
eye, connects it with a notion, found alike in Egypt and India, that
the serpent kills with its eye. Among Sanskrit words for serpent are
'drig-visha' and 'drishti-visha'--literally 'having poison in the eye.'

While all serpents were lords and guardians of wealth, certain of
them were crested, or had small horns, which conveyed the idea of a
crowned and imperial snake, the basiliskos. Naturalists have recognised
this origin of the name by giving the same (Basiliscus mitratus)
to a genus of Iguanidæ, remarkable for a membranous crest not only
on the occiput but also along the back, which this lizard can raise
and depress at pleasure. But folklore, the science of the ignorant,
had established the same connection by alleging that the basilisk
is hatched from the egg of a black cock,--which was the peasant's
explanation of the word cockatrice. De Plancy traces one part of
the belief to a disease which causes the cock to produce a small
egg-like substance; but the resemblance between its comb and the
crests of serpent and frog [236] was the probable link between them;
while the ancient eminence of the cock as the bird of dawn relegated
the origin of the basilisk to a very exceptional member of the
family--a black cock in its seventh year. The useful fowl would seem,
however, to have suffered even so slightly mainly through a phonetic
misconception. The word 'cockatrice' is 'crocodile' transformed. We
have it in the Old French 'cocatrix,' which again is from the Spanish
'cocotriz,' meaning 'crocodile,'--krokodeilos; which Herodotus, by the
way, uses to denote a kind of lizard, and whose sanctity has extended
from the Nile to the Danube, where folklore declares that the skeleton
of the lizard presents an image of the passion of Christ, and it must
never be harmed. Thus 'cockatrice' has nothing to do with 'cock' or
'coq,' though possibly the coincidence of the sound has marred the
ancient fame of the 'Bird of Dawn.' Indeed black cocks have been so
generally slain on this account that they were for a long time rare,
and so the basilisks had a chance of becoming extinct. There were
fabulous creatures enough, however, to perpetuate the basilisk's
imaginary powers, some of which will be hereafter considered. We
may devote the remainder of this chapter to the consideration of a
variant of dragon-mythology, which must be cleared out of our way in
apprehending the Dragon. This is the agathodemonic or heraldic Dragon,
which has inherited the euphemistic characters of the treasure-guarding
and crowned serpent.

In Slavonic legend the king-serpent plays a large part, and innumerable
stories relate the glories of some peasant child that, managing to
secure a tiny gem from his crown, while the reptilian monarch was
bathing, found the jewel daily surrounded with new treasures. This is
the same serpent which, gathering up the myths of lightning and of
comets, flies through many German legends as the red Drake, Kolbuk,
Alp, or Alberflecke, dropping gold when it is red, corn if blue,
and yielding vast services and powers to those who can magically
master it. The harmless serpents of Germany were universally invested
with agathodemonic functions, though they still bear the name that
relates them to Ahi, viz., unken. Of these household-snakes Grimm
and Simrock give much information. It is said that in fields and
houses they approach solitary children and drink milk from the dish
with them. On their heads they wear golden crowns, which they lay
down before drinking, and sometimes forget when they retire. They
watch over children in the cradle, and point out to their favourites
where treasures are hidden. To kill them brings misfortune. If the
parents surprise the snake with the child and kill it, the child
wastes away. Once the snake crept into the mouth of a pregnant woman,
and when the child was born the snake was found closely coiled around
its neck, and could only be untwined by a milk-bath; but it never left
the child's side, ate and slept with it, and never did it harm. If
such serpents left a house or farm, prosperity went with them. In
some regions it is said a male and female snake appear whenever the
master or mistress of the house is about to die, and the legends of
the Unken sometimes relapse into the original fear out of which they
grew. Indeed, their vengeance is everywhere much dreaded, while their
gratitude, especially for milk, is as imperishable as might be expected
from their ancestor's quarrel with Indra about the stolen cows. In the
Gesta Romanorum it is related that a milkmaid was regularly approached
at milking-time by a large snake to which she gave milk. The maid
having left her place, her successor found on the milking-stool a
golden crown, on which was inscribed 'In Gratitude.' The crown was
sent to the milkmaid who had gone, but from that time the snake was
never seen again. [237]

In England serpents were mastered by the vows of a saintly
Christian. The Knight Bran in the Isle of Wight is said to have
picked up the cockatrice egg, to have been pursued by the serpents,
which he escaped by vowing to build St. Lawrence Church in that
island,--the egg having afterwards brought him endless wealth and
uniform success in combat. With the manifold fables concerning the
royal dragon would seem to blend traditions of the astrological,
celestial, and lightning serpents. But these would coincide with
a development arising from the terrestrial worms and their heroic
slayers. The demonic dragon with his terrible eye might discern
from afar the advent of his predestined destroyer. It might seek
to devour him in infancy. As the comet might be deemed a portent of
some powerful prince born on earth, so it might be a compliment to a
royal family, on the birth of a prince, to report that a dragon had
been seen. Nor would it be a long step from this office of the dragon
as the herald of greatness to placing that monster on banners. From
these banners would grow sagas of dragons encountered and slain. The
devices might thus multiply. Some process of this kind would account
for the entirely good reputation of the dragon in China and Japan,
where it is the emblem of all national grandeur. It would also appear
to underlie the proud titles of the Pythian Apollo and Bellerophon,
gained from the monsters they were said to have slain. The city of
Worms takes its name from the serpent instead of its slayer. [238]
Pendragon, in the past--and even our dragoon of the present--are
names in which the horrors of the monster become transformed in the
hero's fame. The dragon, says Mr. Hardwicke, was the standard of the
West Saxons, and of the English previous to the Norman Conquest. It
formed one of the supporters of the royal arms borne by all the
Tudor monarchs, with the exception of Queen Mary, who substituted the
eagle. Several of the Plantagenet kings and princes inscribed a figure
of the dragon on their banners and shields. Peter Langtoffe says,
at the battle of Lewis, fought in 1264, 'The king schewed forth his
schild, his dragon full austere.' Another authority says the said king
(Henry III.) ordered to be made 'a dragon in the manner of a banner,
of a certain red silk embroidered with gold; its tongue like a flaming
fire must always seem to be moving; its eyes must be made of sapphire,
or of some other stone suitable for that purpose.' [239]

It will thus be seen that an influence has been introduced into
dragon-lore which has no relation whatever to the demon itself. This
will explain those variants of the legend of Melusina--the famous
woman-serpent--which invest her with romance. Melusina, whose
indiscreet husband glanced at her in forbidden hours, when she was in
her serpent shape, was long the glory of the Chateau de Lusignan, where
her cries announced the approaching death of her descendants. There is
a peasant family still dwelling in Fontainebleau Forest who claim to
be descended from Melusina; and possibly some instance of this kind
may have dropped like a seed into the memory of the author of 'Elsie
Venner' to reappear in one of the finest novels of our generation. The
corresponding sentiment is found surrounding the dragon in the familiar
British legend of the Laidley [240] Worm. The king of Northumberland
brought home a new Queen, who was also a sorceress, and being envious
of the beauty of her step-daughter, changed that poor princess into
the worm which devastated all Spindleton Heugh. For seven miles every
green thing was blighted by its venom, and seven cows had to yield
their daily supplies of milk. Meanwhile the king and his son mourned
the disappearance of the princess. The young prince fitted out a ship
to go and slay the dragon. The wicked Queen tries unsuccessfully to
prevent the expedition. The prince leaps from his ship into the shallow
sea, and wades to the rock around which the worm lay coiled. But as
he drew near the monster said to him:


Oh, quit thy sword, and bend thy bow,
And give me kisses three;
If I'm not won ere the sun goes down,
Won I shall never be.

He quitted his sword and bent his bow,
He gave her kisses three;
She crept into a hole a worm,
But out stept a ladye.


In the end the prince managed to have the wicked Queen transformed
into a toad, which in memory thereof, as every Northumbrian boy knows,
spits fire to this day: but it is notable that the sorceress was not
transformed into a dragon, as the story would probably have run if the
dragon form had not already been detached from its original character,
and by many noble associations been rendered an honourable though
fearful shape for maidens like this princess and like Melusina.

In the same direction point the legends which show dragons as sometimes
victorious over their heroic assailants. Geoffrey of Monmouth so
relates of King Morvidus of Northumbria, who encountered a dragon
that came from the Irish Sea, and was last seen disappearing in
the monster's jaws 'like a small fish.' A more famous instance is
that of Beowulf, whose Anglo-Saxon saga is summed up by Professor
Morley as follows:--'Afterward the broad land came under the sway of
Beowulf. He held it well for fifty winters, until in the dark night
a dragon, which in a stone mound watched a hoard of gold and cups,
won mastery. It was a hoard heaped up in sin, its lords were long
since dead; the last earl before dying hid it in the earth-cave, and
for three hundred winters the great scather held the cave, until some
man, finding by chance a rich cup, took it to his lord. Then the den
was searched while the worm slept; again and again when the dragon
awoke there had been theft. He found not the man but wasted the whole
land with fire; nightly the fiendish air-flyer made fire grow hateful
to the sight of men. Then it was told to Beowulf.... He sought out
the dragon's den and fought with him in awful strife. One wound the
poison-worm struck in the flesh of Beowulf.' Whereof Beowulf died.

Equally significant is the legend that when King Arthur had embarked
at Southampton on his expedition against Rome, about midnight he
saw in a dream 'a bear flying in the air, at the noise of which all
the shores trembled; also a terrible dragon, flying from the west,
which enlightened the country with the brightness of its eyes. When
these two met they had a dreadful fight, but the dragon with its fiery
breath burned the bear which assaulted him, and threw him down scorched
to the earth.' This vision was taken to augur Arthur's victory. The
father of Arthur had already in a manner consecrated the symbol, being
named Uther Pendragon (dragon's head). On the death of his brother
Aurelius, it was told 'there appeared a star of wonderful magnitude
and brightness,' darting forth a ray, at the end of which was a globe
of fire, in form of a dragon, out of whose mouth issued two rays,
one of which seemed to stretch out itself towards the Irish Sea,
and ended in seven lesser rays.' Merlin interpreted this phenomenon
to mean that Uther would be made king and conquer various regions;
and after his first victory Uther had two golden dragons made, one
of which he presented to Winchester Cathedral, retaining the other
to attend him in his wars.

In the legend of Merlin and Vortigern we find the Dragon so completely
developed into a merely warrior-like symbol that its moral character
has to be determined by its colour. As in the two armies of serpents
seen by Zoroaster, in Persian legends, which fought in the air, the
victory of the white over the black foreshowing the triumph of Ormuzd
over Ahriman, the tyranny of Vortigern is represented by a red dragon,
while Aurelius and Uther are the two heads of a white dragon. Merlin,
about to be buried alive, in pursuance of the astrologer's declaration
to Vortigern that so only would his ever-falling wall stand firm,
had revealed that the recurring disaster was caused by the struggle
of these two dragons underground. When the monsters were unearthed
they fought terribly, until the white one


Hent the red with all his might,
And to the ground he him cast,
And, with the fire of his blast,
Altogether brent the red,
That never of him was founden shred;
But dust upon the ground he lay.


The white dragon vanished and was seen no more; but the tyrant
Vortigern fulfilled the fate of the red dragon, being burnt in his
castle near Salisbury. These two dragons met again, however, as red
and white roses.

Many developments corresponding to these might be cited. One indeed
bears a startling resemblance to our English legends. Of King Nuat
Meiamoun, whose conquest of Egypt is placed by G. Maspero about
B.C. 664-654, the Ethiopian 'Stele of the Dream' relates:--'His
Majesty beheld a dream in the night, two snakes, one to his right,
the other to his left, (and) when His Majesty awoke ... he said:
'Explain these things to me on the moment,' and lo! they explained
it to him, saying: 'Thou wilt have the Southern lands, and seize the
Northern, and the two crowns will be put on thy head, (for) there is
given unto thee the earth in all its width and its breadth.' These
two snakes were probably suggested by the uræi of the Egyptian diadem.

Beyond the glory reflected upon a monster from his conqueror,
there would be reason why the alchemist and the wizard should
encourage that aspect of the dragon. The more perilous that Gorgon
whose blood Esculapius used, the more costly such medicament; while,
that the remedy may be advantageous, the monster must not be wholly
destructive. This is so with the now destructive now preservative
forces of nature, and how they may blend in the theories, and subserve
the interests, of pretenders is well shown in a German work on Alchemy
(1625) quoted by Mr. Hardwicke. 'There is a dragon lives in the forest,
who has no want of poison; when he sees the sun or fire he spits venom,
which flies about fearfully. No living animal can be cured of it;
even the basilisk does not equal him. He who can properly kill this
serpent has overcome all his danger. His colours increase in death;
physic is produced from his poison, which he entirely consumes,
and eats his own venomous tail. This must be accomplished by him,
in order to produce the noblest balm. Such great virtue as we will
point out herein that all the learned shall rejoice.'

It will be readily understood that these traditions and fables would
combine to 'hedge about a king' by ascribing to him familiarity
with a monster so formidable to common people, and even investing
him with its attributes. The dragon's name, drakôn, derived from the
Sanskrit word for serpent (drig-visha), came to mean 'the thing that
sees.' While this gave rise to many legends of præternatural powers
of vision gained by tasting or bathing in a dragon's blood, as in
the poem of Siegfried; or from waters it guarded, as 'Eye Well,'
in which Guy's dragon dipped its tail to recover from wounds; the
Sanskrit sense of eye-poisoning was preserved in legends of occult
and dangerous powers possessed by kings,--one of the latest being the
potent evil eye popularly ascribed in Italy to the late Pius IX. But
these stories are endless; the legends adduced will show the sense
of all those which, if unexplained, might interfere with our clear
insight into the dragon itself, whose further analysis will prove it
to be wholly bad,--the concentrated terrors of nature.