Looking to take the lead in a situation? Want to visualize a path forward in your life? Basilisk, as a Spirit, Totem, and Power Animal, can help! Basilisk helps you tap into your innate skills while showing you how to envision your dreams! Delve deeply into Basilisk symbolism and meaning to find out how this Animal Spirit Guide can embolden, strengthen, and empower you!

Basilisk & Cockatrice Symbolism & Meaning

Basilisk is a hybrid between a Rooster and a Snake in European mythology. Other titles for the creature include “Basiliscus,” “Sibilus,” “Basiliscu,” and “Baselicoc.” “Basilisk” in Latin is “Regulus,” meaning “Prince,” and comes from the Greek “Basiliskos,” meaning “Little King.” The mythic creature has the power to kill anything with a single look, and therefore, hosts similar features to the gorgon Medusa, who kills anyone unfortunate to look upon her face. One may wonder if the Basilisk is the root of the expression, “If looks could kill.” But what is certain is the creature serves a symbol for negative emotions and The Evil Eye.

There’re similarities between Basilisk and the Dragon’s fire-breathing abilities. Tales link Cockatrice to the Basilisk, but the Cockatrice comes from a Cockerel egg tended by a Toad or Serpent, which is the opposite of how the Basilisk emerges into the world. With real-world creatures, Basilisk shares attributes with Anaconda and the Titanoboa, primarily because of their frightening size.

Pliny the Elder wrote of the Basilisk in “Naturalis Historia” (Natural History), describing it as a small snake being about the length of twelve fingers and poisonous. Basilisk leaves a trail of its venom behind it as it moves; it has a diadem-shaped white spot on its head and lives in the ground. Its habitat is identifiable by the “scorched” grass, shrubs, and broken rocks surrounding it. The creature burns everything with its noxious breath as it creates its hideaway.

Weasel is the antidote to the Basilisk; when it enters the Basilisk’s hole, the serpent-like creature detects the Weasel’s odor. But, the Weasel dies after its encounter for reasons Pliny writes as the result of turning Nature on itself.

In the early 1200s, the English theologian, Alexander Neckam, wrote the Basilisk killed by corrupting the air and not through its evil glare. By the thirteenth century, the Basilisk had ties to Alchemy because of stories telling of its use to transform silver into gold attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, although spuriously. The tales of the continue Basilisk evolve, giving the creature more dangerous abilities. Some legends have it the creature, like the Dragon, can breathe fire, while others suggest it has the power to take the life of anyone with its voice; this links the Basilisk to the Fire and Air Elements.

Per the writings of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, a fifteenth-century magician, the Basilisk is always male because it is the “proper receptacle” for its destructive qualities and poisonous nature, and the creature’s blood links to the planetary influences of Saturn.

Basilisk & Cockatrice Spirit Animal

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