Cockatrice and Cassowary

A weekend dream featuring more animal visitors to the back garden, this time during the day. With threats emerging on campus in the form of ISIS arsonists, I was granted the day off and went home to the safety of Hao House. It was a blindingly hot summer's day, the sort that only ever really happens in dreams, and the garden was bathed in a fierce golden glow with a brilliant blue sky overhead. I stood in the kitchen looking out on the back lawn with Li when a loud cockerel crow broke the silence of the afternoon. A large creature with speckled brown feathered wings and a long reptilian tail flew in clumsy circles outside, crashing into the neighbours' trees and flapping around in the bushes like an oversized wood pigeon. I dismissed it as a "cockatrice, or basilisk" and focused my attention on an even larger creature right at the bottom of the garden, near the back fence.

It was a giant Southern, or double-wattled cassowary, a male, nearing the size of a Gastornis 'terror bird'. Its head and neck was a vivid toy box blue and its hair-like plumage a blueish black. The bird stalked out a small territory along the fence, as though patrolling an assigned area to protect. Knowing the highly aggressive nature of the Southern cassowary in Australia, I told Li that the mammoth bird must die, whereupon I began to arm myself with garden tools. As I gingerly approached the bird, anticipating a gruelling battle, I took note of the sickle-shaped helmet and javelin beak which could make short work of me, along with razor spurs on its legs which could eviscerate with a single kick. With my pitchfork at the ready, I got within striking distance and prepared to thrust.

Unexpectedly, the bird ignored my presence and seemed in no way alarmed or distressed. My resolve first began to falter, and then drop altogether when I realised the cassowary was harmless. Li came outside to join me and we inspected the surrounding area. Despite the great weight of the bird, the lawn was mostly untrampled and there was no damage to speak of. Some plastic portacabins which hadn't been there before had appeared, but other than that, we were content to leave things as they were. It was then that we discovered a nest hidden among the flowerbeds, with a solitary egg in its centre. As the cassowary became used to our presence, it allowed itself to be stroked, and eventually hugged. We decided to keep it on as a  pet to drive away unwanted intruders, yet it was also free to leave through the same way it had entered, through some broken slats in the fence to the meadows beyond.

The cockatrice, on the other hand, was not to be tolerated.