Twice ToldJohann Gross on the cock burned on the Kohlenberg (Kurtze Bassler Chronick, Basel 1624, p. 120)
- Language
- German
- Reading
- transcribed from the page image
- Translation
- ours
- Retrieved
- 18 October 2026
The passage follows an entry on the cathedral canons’ new rule and the Burgundians’ siege of Kalenberg castle, and precedes the meat-tax entry that the margin dates 1475. The entry has no year of its own. The left margin of the passage reads “Hanen-ey verbrennt.” (“Cock’s egg burned.”). Printing in black letter; the long s is given as s, “ß” is kept, and the printer’s slash is kept as printed.
Auff Donnerstag vor Laurentii hat man auff dem Kolenberg einen Hanen verbrennt / sampt einem Ey / so er gelegt hatte. Dann man besorgte / es komme ein Wurm darauß. Der Hencker schnitt den Hanen auff / vnd fand noch drey Eyer in jhm. Dann / wie Vincentius schreibt im 16. Buch Speculi Naturalis, cap. 77. allezeit darfür gehalten worden / daß ein Han in seinem alter ein Ey lege / auß welchem ein Basilisk wachse: welches aber von einer Schlangen / Coluber genandt / außgebrütet werde im Mist. Dahero der Basilisk ein halber Han vnd halbe Schlang sey. Er sagt auch / es haben etliche bezeuget / daß sie Basilisken gesehen haben auß solchen Eyern außschliessen.
Translation
On the Thursday before St Lawrence’s day a cock was burned on the Kohlenberg, together with an egg it had laid, because people feared that a worm, in the old sense of a serpent or dragon, would come out of it. The executioner cut the cock open and found three more eggs in it. For, as Vincent writes in the 16th book of the Speculum Naturale, chapter 77, it has always been held that a cock in its old age lays an egg from which a basilisk grows, but which is hatched in dung by a serpent called Coluber. Hence the basilisk is said to be half cock and half serpent. He also says that some have testified that they saw basilisks hatch from such eggs.
Notes
The e-rara record gives the chronicle’s title as running from 1400 to 1624, so this entry was printed about 150 years after the event. Gross names no source for the burning itself. For the belief about the egg he names Vincent of Beauvais; “Speculi Naturalis” is the Speculum naturale, and “Coluber” is the Latin word for a snake. “Wurm” in this period can mean worm, snake or dragon; it is rendered “worm, in the old sense of a serpent or dragon”. Gross’s count of three further eggs differs from Knebel’s two (documents/knebel-1474-08-04.md). He gives no year in this passage; the reader gets 1474 from the margin years of the entries around it and from Knebel.