Basilisk.

The king of serpents (Greek, basileus, a king), supposed to have the power of “looking any one dead on whom it fixed its eyes.” Hence Dryden makes Clytus say to Alexander, “Nay, frown not so; you cannot look me dead.” This creature is called a king from having on its head a mitre-shaped crest. Also called a cockatrice, and fabulously alleged to be hatched by a serpent from a cock’s egg.

“Like a boar

Plunging his tusk in mastiff’s gore;

Or basilisk, when roused, whose breath,

Teeth, sting, and eyeballs all are death.”

King: Art of Love.

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

Basilisk.

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