Swedish Cockatrice, and the basilisk as a Tri-Wizard task

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 79206

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "evangelina839"
<evangelina839 at y...> wrote:
> --- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, Fred Uloth <prof_uloth at h...>
wrote:
> > I found this interesting, so I actually looked up the words
> >
> > Cockatrice (Latin in origin): a legendary serpent that is hatched
> > by a reptile from a cock's egg and that has a deadly glance 
> > 
> > Basilisk (Greek in origin): a legendary reptile with fatal breath 
> > and glance 
> > I found ... them being the same thing. ... why DD wasn't aware 
> > that it was a basilisk running around Hogwarts.... I ... 
> > assumed that it was a very ancient animal that hadn't been seen 
> > for centuries. It also seems odd to me that a basilisk would have 
> > been  one of the tri-wizard tasks.

bboy_mn:
Well, it hadn't been seen for centuries. That Tri-Wiz Tournement took
place over 300 years ago. Although, 'Fantastic Beasts...' says a
Basilisk hasn't been sighted in 400 years.


> evangelina:
> 
> ... I was beginning to think there was a serious mistake made 
> in the translition here, especially since I too found it odd that
> they would put a basilisk as one of the tasks. ... How exactly would
> they organise such a tri-wiz task? 
>
> ...edited..
> 
> Also, was it common knowledge among all you English-speaking folk 
> that a cockatrice and a basilisk were the same animal? This is more 
> than a little bit confusing.
> 
> evangelina

bboy_mn:
I don't think either of these words were at all common knowledge to
anyone until JKR brought them up in her stories.

Basilisk and Cockatrice - The difference? That's easy. A Basilisk has
rooster like characteristics, and a Cockatrice has HEN like
characteristics. Short version- Basilisk-male, Cockatrice=female.

Interesting bit of info/trivia on Basilisks-
The Basilisk also if killed shed poison as blood. The effectiveness to
this was described in the following poem

("What though the Moor the basilisk hath slain, And pinned him
lifeless to the sandy plain, Up through the spear the subtle venom
flies, The hand imbibes it, and the victor dies.")

The only creature that normally felt this venomic pain was the weasel,
the one creature that would attack and kill these things only to in
turn die itself.

http://www.adumbral.com/occult/basilisk.html

hummm.....weasel you say? 


It is a bit odd they they would us such a beast as a tri-wizards task,
but it could be at that point in history they had much less regard for
human life; to some extent, life was cheap, think gladiators.

An additional point is that JKR's Basilisk is more snake like than the
 traditional Basilisk. See the link above for pictures of traditional
Basilisks.

There are some variations of the Basilisk where if IT looks at YOU
then you turn to stone; in other version, if YOU look at IT, then you
turn to stone.

So the whole 'death by a look' mechanism is not clearly defined and
JKR seems to have modified it slightly to suit her story. So the
question becomes, in JKR's universe, how does the 'a look can kill
you' thing work? 

In another post on why Myrtle's glasses didn't protect her, I
speculated on various mechanisms to explain how various people were
petrifies in CoS. It went something like this -

Exactly how does a Basilisk kill you with a look?

Do you have to look INTO it's eyes or do you merely have to see it's eyes?

For example, if you were standing off to the side hiding, and you
could see the Basilisk's head and therefore, it's eyes, would you die?

I don't think so. I think that is how Tom Riddle was able to look at
and command the Basilisk without being injured. It's not just seeing
the Basilisk's eyes; it has to be eye-to-eye contact.

So, let's refine it a bit further. If a basilisk looks into your eyes
but you don't look into it's, or if you look into a basilisk's eyes
but it doesn't look into yours would you be hurt or injure?

This is harder to resolve, and I will point out, it's also much harder
for this situation to occur. The best we can say is you would
definitely be injured, and probably dead; but just probably.

Of course, when you and the basilisk are looking directly into each
other's eyes, you are dead dead dead.

Although, Basilisk intent could also come into play. There could be a
difference between a Basilisk looking into your eye, and looking into
your eyes with deadly intent. I suspect this particular issue can
never be resolved by anything but a random guess.
- - - - - -

I'm guessing in JKR's world, it takes eye-to-eye contact. Based on
that, I wonder if you shielded your eyes somehow, think mirror/chrome
sunglasses, if you could give yourself an advantage that would allow
you to defeat the creature. If the student knew in advance and had
time to research, they may have been able to come up with a way to
give themselves a chance.

I also wonder how many Basilisks they had at the Tri-Wiz tournement?
Did they have 3 and each champion had to kill one, or did they just
have one, and each champion had to get passed it or make it do
something? Having 3 Basilisk seems even more unlikely than having one.

Certainly, I posed far more questions than I answer, but there you
have it.

Just a thought.

bboy_mn