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A cockatrice is a mythical beast, essentially a two-legged dragon, wyvern, or snake-like creature with a rooster's head. Described by Laurence Breiner as "an ornament in the drama and poetry of the ", it was featured prominently in English thought and myth for centuries. They are created by a chicken egg hatched by a toad or snake.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives a derivation from Old French cocatris, from medieval Latin calcatrix, a translation of the Greek ichneumon, meaning tracker. The twelfth-century legend was based on a reference in Pliny's Natural History Historia Naturalis viii.37.90. that the ichneumon lay in wait for the crocodile to open its jaws for the trochilus bird to enter and pick its teeth clean.Breiner 1979. An extended description of the cocatriz by the 15th-century Spanish traveller in Egypt, Pedro Tafur, makes it clear that this refers to the Nile crocodile.Pedro Tafur, Andanças e viajes.
According to Alexander Neckam's De naturis rerum (ca 1180), the basilisk (basiliscus) was the product of an egg laid by a rooster and incubated by a toad; a snake might be substituted in re-tellings. Cockatrice became seen as synonymous with basilisk when the basiliscus in Bartholomeus Anglicus's De proprietatibus rerum (ca 1260) was translated by John Trevisa as cockatrice (1397).Breiner 1979:35. This legend has a possible folk root; the eggs of the ibis were regularly destroyed for fear that the venom of the snakes they consumed would cause a hybrid snake-bird to hatch.Browne, T. (1658). Pseudodoxia Epidemica: Or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths. United Kingdom: E. Dod.
It is thought that a cock egg would hatch a cockatrice, and this could be prevented by tossing the egg over the family house, landing on the other side of the house, without allowing the egg to hit the house.
It was repeated in the late-medieval Bestiary that the weasel is the only animal that is immune to the glance of a cockatrice. It was also thought that a cockatrice would die instantly upon hearing a rooster crow, and according to legend, having a cockatrice look at itself in a mirror is one of the few sure-fire ways to kill it.
In Shakespeare's play Richard III (c. 1593), the Duchess of York compares her son Richard to a cockatrice:
A cockatrice is also mentioned in Romeo and Juliet (1597), in Act 3, scene 2 line 47, by Juliet.
Nathan Field, in the first scene of his play The Honest Man's Fortune (1647), also uses the idea that a cockatrice could kill with its eyes:
... never threaten with your eyes, they are no cockatrice's ...(2025). 9780719086113, The Malone Society. ISBN 9780719086113
In Second Nephi 24:29, a Cockatrice is mentioned.
In E. R. Eddison's high fantasy novel The Worm Ouroboros (1922), Chapter 4 has King Gorice show a cockatrice to Gro:
The cockatrice has also been used as a staple enemy creature in arcade combat games like Golden Axe, in fantasy RPGs such as Fighting Fantasy and Dungeons and Dragons or computer RPGs like Dragon's Dogma (2012).
A cockatrice is mentioned in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2000) by Hermione Granger in chapter fifteen. A cockatrice involved in one of the tasks of the 1792 Triwizard Tournament escaped and injured the headmasters of the three participating schools, an incident cited as the cause for the cancellation of Triwizard Tournaments until 1994. Some translations instead state the cockatrice to be a basilisk or an "occamy", an in-universe relative of the snallygaster.J. K. Rowling (2025). 074754624X, Bloomsbury Publishing. 074754624X Additionally, heraldry of a white cockatrice holding a broomstick on a blue and beige background is shown to be the emblem of the French National Quidditch team in the 2003 video game .
In the video game (2003), cockatrices are among the enemies the player faces in Sol City.
In the animated series (2010-2019), a cockatrice is stated to live in the Everfree Forest. In the 2011 episode "Stare Master", the cockatrice turns Twilight Sparkle and one of Fluttershy's chickens, Elizabeak, to stone using its gaze, but reverts them back after being intimidated by Fluttershy's own stare.
On the SCP Foundation collaborative writing project, cockatrices are shown in the story SCP-1013 - Cockatrice (2011). An SCP-1013 instead paralyzes its prey by staring at them, only turning their skin to stone upon biting them, after which it will peck through the calcified skin to eat their prey's fleshy innards. SCP-1013 reproduce from growths budding off of the tail of a well-fed adult. The story SCP-1013 - Cockatrice won fourth place in the site's SCP-1000 Contest, a contest that prefaced the opening of the site's second series.
A cockatrice is shown as the main antagonist in the first episode of Netflix's anime adaptation of Little Witch Academia (2017), "Starting Over". The cockatrice is also a dungeon boss in the underground labyrinth gameplay section of (2017), a video game for PC and PS4.
The Swedish Black Metal band Funeral Mist has a song named Cockatrice, in their 2018 album Hekatomb.
The third chapter of the Japanese manga series Delicious in Dungeon (2014) and the second episode of the anime adaptation (2024) feature the party killing and cooking a baslisk.The baslisk is depicted as large rooster with a snake for a tail. The baslisk cannot kill with a stare, but instead has a powerful venom, wich can be cured with an antidote. In chapter 34 of the manga a cockatrice appears, it is depicted as a larger cousin to the baslisk using a different species of component bird and snake, and has petrifying venom which curses victims, temporarily turning them to stone.
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In continental European heraldic systems, cockatrices may be simply referred to as dragons instead.Arthur Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry
The cockatrice was the heraldic beast of the Langleys of Agecroft Hall in Lancashire, England, as far back as the 14th century.Jefferson Collins – "Secrets from the Curator's Closet" – Agecroft Hall Museum
It is also the symbol of 3 (Fighter) Squadron, a fighter squadron of the Royal Air Force.
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