Basilisk and Taraskon

Last week I found a real live Basilisk (on the internet).  I'm excited about this!  But I'm finding it difficult to say why I like it so much.  It seems so very ancient.  And I am really curious what people thought about deep in the past.

Link to see a real live Basilisk:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badalisc

Today, I found a real live Tarasque.  The Taraskon (alternate spelling) looks like a dragon in the picture.  There is text in Portuguese (or Spanish?) that describes a monster with a body like a turtle and a scorpion tail.  This monster was in a festival parade in the 1400's, possibly along with both Christian and Islamic festival displays.  According to the story, Saint Martha subdued the Taraskon, then the monster was killed.

I'm no expert on dragons but I think St. Martha had two dragons.  One was good, and one was bad.  It must be about foretelling the future - if you kill the bad dragon, then no harm (no crop failure, no diseases, etc.) will come in the new year.  Simple apotropaic magic for agriculture, very ancient in my opinion.

Link to see an actual Taraskon:
http://www.caminandogranada.com/feria-del-corpus-granada-2016/

And this Tarasque on Wikipedia, with links to other dragon & virgin stories:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarasque

I still can not guess why the dragon has her cloak in his mouth.  But I found several more medieval images of St. Margaret and the dragon.  In some pictures he bites her cloak, and in others she is emerging from the belly of the dragon...

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