Basilisk (2)

Basilisk in the superstition of the Middle Ages, was a fabulous animal which was to come from an egg laid by a thirty-year-old cock, and which a turtle was to hatch. It was to be frightfully large, with the body of a fowl, a brazen bill and brazen claws, also a long tail, formed like three snakes, and with three points. Such an animal was regarded as dangerous from its size, and deadly from its poison, and it was supposed that it killed even with its look, and is itself invulnerable, the only weapon available against it being a looking- glass, at the presentation of which it is frightened and bursts.

⇒See also the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia.