Basilisk Statue

...there upreared
His regal head, and frighted from his track
With sibilant terror all the subject swam,
Baneful ere darts his poison, Basilisk
In sands deserted king.
-Lucan, Pharsalia, First Century AD

A legendary beast - Basilisk, the King of Serpents, whose murderous breath scorches and kills all that it touches, whose eyes kill with a single glance, whose venom is so strong that it can run up a spear thrust down to kill it.

Its origin is perhaps best found in the King Cobra, who matches with the traditional description of the Basilisk - a serpent who holds its body upright, with white markings upon its head like a diadem and possessed of a virulent poison, with its only known enemy being the weasel (the mongoose in the case of the cobra). The Basilisk made its way through medieval bestiaries, twisting and turning through heraldry in the form of the Cockatrice, and securing a reputable place in alchemy, especially when reduced to ash:

“And though the cockatrice be venomous without remedy, while he is alive, yet he loseth all the malice when he is burnt to ashes. His ashes be accounted good and profitable in working of Alchemy, and namely in turning and changing of metals.”
-Bartholomaeus Anglicus, 1240).

This statue is based off of the image found in Ulisse Aldrovandi’s 1640 text ‘Serpentum, et draconum’, and contains an interior charge partially inspired by instructions in a old text on the creation of Basilisks from cock eggs for the purpose of using their ashes in alchemy.

This Basilisk’s body contains an interior charge packed inside a blown-out egg, containing:

Animal:
Snakeskin
Snakeskin shed
Dried snake flesh and blood
Snake rib
Snake vertebra
Oil of the Dove of Anabibazon
Three feathers from the head of a rooster
Unborn snake egg
Snake egg shell
Red coral
...and Flesh from the rump of a toad

Herb:
Adder’s Mouth
Basil
Mandrake
Cypress oil
Brugmansia
Rosemary
Euhporbia
Eyebright
Asafoetida
...and Atropa belladonna

Earth, Stone and Resin:
Silver
Gold
Mirror
Mastic
...and Dirt from a church while there was no pope

(entire list of ingredients not disclosed)

In addition to this, the Basilisk’s eyes were hardened in a boiling mixture of aconite, belladonna, datura, yew, bloodroot, euphorbia, eyebright and basil to seal a poisonous nature into its gaze.

Its base was scorched and burned to parallel the dry desolation that follows in the wake of the basilisk’s steps.

Good as a protective piece, or to poison a place.