Episode 100 - Murder Most Fowl

To celebrate 100 official episodes, we’ve got a story about Satan, Switzerland, and chicken genetics.

In 1474, the city of Basel put a rooster on trial for the crime of…laying an egg. Add in a cockatrice, Pliny the Elder, witchcraft, dubious morals and questionable priorities, some honey badgers, and the National Poultry Journal.

Look, it’s not my fault that nothing is new, and people are horrible.

Also, keep an eye out for our spinoff podcast coming soon, “Murder Most Ancient.” (More info to come!)

#Switzerland, #Basel, #witchcraft, #chickens,#poultry, #history, #comedy

Sources for today’s episode:

Walter, E.V. (1984). Nature on Trial: The Case of the Rooster that Laid an Egg. In: Cohen, R.S., Wartofsky, M.W. (eds) Methodology, Metaphysics and the History of Science. Boston Studies in the Philosophy of Science, vol 84. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6331-3_13

Hyde, Walter Woodburn. “The Prosecution and Punishment of Animals and Lifeless Things in the Middle Ages and Modern Times.” University of Pennsylvania Law Review and American Law Register, vol. 64, no. 7, 1916, pp. 696–730. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/3313677. Accessed 5 Dec. 2023.

Hyde, Walter Woodburn. “The Prosecution of Lifeless Things and Animals in Greek Law: Part I.” The American Journal of Philology, vol. 38, no. 2, 1917, pp. 152–75. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/289180. Accessed 5 Dec. 2023.

Breiner, Laurence A. “The Career of the Cockatrice.” Isis, vol. 70, no. 1, 1979, pp. 30–47. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/230876. Accessed 25 Apr. 2024.

E. P. Evans, The Criminal Prosecution and Capital Punishment of Animals (London, I906)

https://archive.org/details/criminalprosecut00evaniala/mode/2up

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ccr/vol10/iss10/7/

https://esoterx.com/2017/09/06/fowl-play-the-trial-of-a-sorcerous-swiss-rooster/

https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/view/bsb11097743?page=1

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_trial

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cockatrice

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichneumon_(medieval_zoology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1356_Basel_earthquake

https://blogs.loc.gov/law/2016/02/animals-on-trial/

https://www.basel.com/en/facts-figures/history

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/karl_marx_382655

http://www.seismo.ethz.ch/en/knowledge/earthquake-country-switzerland/historical-earthquakes/the-ten-strongest/