The pamphlet that deals with the Henham winged serpent also relates the story of a basilisk dragon that held siege to Saffron Walden centuries before. It was described as:
…not about a foot in length, of colour between black and yellow, having very red eyes, a sharp head and a white spot hereon like a crown. It goeth not winding like other serpents but upright on its breast. If a man touch it though with a long pole it kills him: and if it sees a man far off it destroys him with its looks. Furthermore it breaketh stones, blasteth all plants with his breath, it burneth everything it goeth over; no herb can grow near the place of his abode.
The basilisk killed so many people that the town was becoming severely depopulated.
Finally a wandering knight delivered the townspeople by covering his armour in crystal glass. On seeing its own reflection, the monster died.
Loading map...
{"type":"TERRAIN","minzoom":7,"maxzoom":14,"types":["ROADMAP","SATELLITE","HYBRID","TERRAIN"],"mappingservice":"googlemaps3","width":"520px","height":"300px","centre":false,"title":"","label":"","icon":"","lines":[],"polygons":[],"circles":[],"rectangles":[],"copycoords":false,"static":false,"visitedicon":"","wmsoverlay":false,"zoom":12,"layers":[],"controls":["streetview"],"zoomstyle":"DEFAULT","typestyle":"DEFAULT","autoinfowindows":false,"resizable":false,"kmlrezoom":false,"poi":true,"cluster":true,"clustergridsize":60,"clustermaxzoom":20,"clusterzoomonclick":true,"clusteraveragecenter":true,"clusterminsize":2,"imageoverlays":[],"kml":[],"gkml":[],"searchmarkers":"","fullscreen":false,"scrollwheelzoom":false,"locations":[{"text":"\u003Cdiv class=\"mw-parser-output\"\u003E\u003Cp\u003E\u003Ca class=\"mw-selflink selflink\"\u003ESaffron Walden Basilisk\u003C/a\u003E\n\u003C/p\u003E\u003C/div\u003E","title":"Saffron Walden Basilisk\n","link":"","lat":52.022593,"lon":0.239215,"icon":"","inlineLabel":""}]}