31 Days of Monsters 2014: Cockatrice

I must be in a fowl mood, because today I'm giving you the cockatrice. Often confused with the Basilisk — which I drew last year — the cockatrice is a much smaller two-legged dragon with the head of a rooster. Where the basilisk springs from a snake egg that has been hatched by a chicken, a cockatrice is formed when a chicken egg is incubated by a toad. The stare, touch and even the breath of a cockatrice are deadly. Grinding the eggshell of a hatched cockatrice into the food of an enemy induces madness and eventually death. The surest way of killing a cockatrice is to trick it into looking at itself in a mirror. Presented with its reflection it will tear itself apart in fear of its own horrific appearance. Silly bird.