What herb offered protection from a basilisk?
By Chelsie Vandaveer
July 11, 2003
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The ancient Greeks reviled basil (Ocimum basilicum Linnaeus), a plant they called okimon; it represented hatred, misfortune, and poverty. By the final years of the Roman civilization, the plant was called basilicum or regula and associated with kings or royalty. During the Middle Ages, basil was associated with a fantastical creature of Greek legend--the basilisk. (Century Unabridged Dictionary, 1889)
Pliny the Elder described the basilisk in the eighth volume of his Natural History. "The basilisk is found in Cyrenaica and is not more than a foot in length; it is adorned with a bright white spot on its head like a diadem. It puts all snakes to flight by its hissing and does not move forward with many winding coils, like other snakes, but travels along with its middle sticking up. It destroys bushes not only by its touch but also by its breath, and it burns grass and splits rocks. Its power makes it a threat to other creatures." (Natural History-a selection, translated John Healy, 1991, Penguin Classics)
It appears that Pliny was describing an exaggerated tale of a cobra. The name basilisk came from the Latin, basiliscus or "little king" and referred to the snake.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity threw out the pantheons of Greek and Roman gods. Oddly, it did not toss out associated fantastic creatures--unicorns, mermaids, basilisks, and the like. The animals were incorporated into bestiaries (books of real or imagined animals with allegorical or moral implications) and medieval art--tapestries and carvings. (Medieval Folklore- A Guide to Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs, C. Lindahl, J. McNamara, and J. Lindow, 2002, Oxford University Press)
The unicorn represented strength and purity, the mermaid as the thief of souls, and the basilisk as the ultimate evil, a huge "king of snakes". But medieval legends almost invariably offered a way out of evil by use of amulets, carried charms that protected, healed, or brought luck.
Basil was long believed to cure stings and venomous bites. And confusion between basiliscus and basilicum probably aided the belief. Basil became the recommended cure for the bite of the basilisk. Possibly first given to a lady's champion as a token of protection, sprigs of basil evolved into tokens of love. If a young man accepted basil from a young woman, he was sure to love her forever.
Encyclopedia Mythica has a brief article on the basilisk. To learn more about the legendary king of snakes, click on the link:
http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/basilisk.html
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