Among the many drinking fountains in Basel, Switzerland, around 30 are adorned by the statue of a basilisk, the heraldic beast of the city. Despite growing up in Basel and living here on and off for over 20 years, I had never seen all of them. So as a summer running project, I visited each, covering a total of 51 km in just under 6 hours spread over seven separate runs.
https://trails.tchncs.de/trail/view/@gleb/0f690tfqviysbfm
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The basilisk, a mythical creature part rooster, dragon, and snake, is all over Basel as part of statues, murals, fountains, in names of locations and businesses. According to legend, a basilisk lived in a cave in what is now the historic city center. The basilisk is considered more dangerous than a dragon since its glance kills immediately. Since it only has this power in sunlight, anyone who had a basilisk in their cellar had to keep it closed for a whole year to get rid of the beast.
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In the year 1474 a rooster was sentenced to death because it supposedly laid an egg. To the terror of the people, more eggs were found inside of the animal after the execution. To prevent any basilisks, which come from eggs laid by a rooster, from hatching, animal and eggs were burned on a pyre.
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The drinking fountains were designed in 1884 by Wilhelm Bubeck as part of a competition. The basilisk is made out of bronze while the rest of the fountain is cast iron. Apparently, around 50 fountains were made over the years. Today around 30 can be found on public ground around the city with a few more on private land. Some fountains were also presented as gifts to other cities and communes. For example, Zurich, Vienna (given as part of men's EURO in 2008), and Shanghai have one each.
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Locating all basilisk fountains was easier said than done. Initially I found a map of all fountains in Basel, compiled by the municipal water company. However, it had not been updated in a while. Next, I search OpenStreetMap and the Open Datasets of the City of Basel. Finally, I also found an (even more outdated) list on this wonderful website about fountains in Basel: https://www.brunnenfuehrer.ch/
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In the end I visited all 32 of the locations from all sources. I found 30 fountains, with two locations showing no sign at all and one more where the fountain had recently (and possibly temporarily) been removed due to road construction. I knew of one additional fountain that was not in any of the sources, bringing my total to 31. However, I would not be surprised if I've missed a few and those on private land are of course inaccessible.
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Gleb Ebert