The peryton is a

mythological hybrid Hybrid beasts are creatures composed of parts from different animals, including humans, appearing in the folklore of a variety of cultures as legendary creatures. In burial sites Remains similar to those of mythological hybrids have been found ...

animal combining the physical features of a

stag Deer or true deer are hoofed ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae. The two main groups of deer are the Cervinae, including the muntjac, the elk (wapiti), the red deer, and the fallow deer; and the Capreolinae, including the reindeer ...

and a

bird Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweigh ...

. The peryton was first named by

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known bo ...

in his 1957 ''

Book of Imaginary Beings The ''Book of Imaginary Beings'' was written by Jorge Luis Borges with Margarita Guerrero and published in 1957 under the original Spanish title ''Manual de zoología fantástica''. The subsequent English version contains descriptions of 120 myt ...

,'' using a supposedly long-lost

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

manuscript as a source.

Mythology

The peryton is said to have the head, neck, forelegs and antlers of a

, combined with the plumage, wings and hindquarters of a large

, although some interpretations portray the peryton as a deer in all but coloration and bird's wings. According to Borges, perytons lived in

Atlantis Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...

until an earthquake destroyed the civilization and the creatures escaped by flight. A peryton casts the shadow of a man until it kills one during its lifetime, at which time it starts to cast its own shadow. A

sibyl The sibyls (, singular ) were prophetesses or oracles in Ancient Greece. The sibyls prophesied at holy sites. A sibyl at Delphi has been dated to as early as the eleventh century BC by PausaniasPausanias 10.12.1 when he described local traditi ...

once prophesied that the perytons would lead to the downfall of Rome. In Borges' original Spanish edition, the word is given as ''peritio'' so the presumptive Latin original would be ''peritius,'' which happens to be the Latin form of the Greek name of the fourth month on the

ancient Macedonian calendar The Ancient Macedonian calendar is a lunisolar calendar that was in use in ancient Macedon in the It consisted of 12 synodic lunar months (i.e. 354 days per year), which needed intercalary months to stay in step with the seasons. By th ...

(''Peritios'', moon of January). The connection of this, if any, to the peryton is unclear. As at least one depiction of the Peryton - namely on the

late medieval The Late Middle Ages or Late Medieval Period was the period of European history lasting from AD 1300 to 1500. The Late Middle Ages followed the High Middle Ages and preceded the onset of the early modern period (and in much of Europe, the Renai ...

battle standard A war flag, also known as a military flag, battle flag, or standard, is a variant of a national flag for use by a country's military forces when on land. The nautical equivalent is a naval ensign. Under the strictest sense of the term, few countr ...

of the

Dukes of Bourbon Duke of Bourbon (french: Duc de Bourbon) is a title in the peerage of France. It was created in the first half of the 14th century for the eldest son of Robert of France, Count of Clermont and Beatrice of Burgundy, heiress of the lordship of B ...

- pre-dates Borges' description, he clearly was not its inventor, though the creature's exact origins remain unclear.

In popular culture

Perytons are found or used in modern literature and games.

Books and manga

* The creatures appear in ''Darkwell'', a book in '' The Moonshae Trilogy'', where a flock of perytons are among an army of evil monsters summoned by the book's main

antagonist An antagonist is a character in a story who is presented as the chief foe of the protagonist. Etymology The English word antagonist comes from the Greek ἀνταγωνιστής – ''antagonistēs'', "opponent, competitor, villain, enemy, riv ...

. * The peryton features in

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

and

Carole Barrowman Carole Emily Barrowman (born 20 April 1959) is a Scottish-American Professor of English and Director of Creative Studies in Writing at Alverno College, Milwaukee, and a reviewer and crime fiction columnist for the ''Milwaukee Sentinel'', also ...

's novel ''

Hollow Earth The Hollow Earth is a concept proposing that the planet Earth is entirely hollow or contains a substantial interior space. Notably suggested by Edmond Halley in the late 17th century, the notion was disproven, first tentatively by Pierre Bougue ...

''.

Games

*Perytons have been adapted into ''

Dungeons & Dragons ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (commonly abbreviated as ''D&D'' or ''DnD'') is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game (RPG) originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. The game was first published in 1974 by TSR (company)#Tactical Studies Rules ...

'', with it initially appearing in the 1st edition ''

Monster Manual The ''Monster Manual'' (''MM'' is the primary bestiary sourcebook for Monsters in Dungeons & Dragons, monsters in the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' (''D&D'' fantasy role-playing game, first published in 1977 by TSR (company), TSR. The ''Monster Manual' ...

''.

Science

* The term peryton is also used for radio signals of terrestrial origin that mimic

fast radio burst In radio astronomy, a fast radio burst (FRB) is a transient radio pulse of length ranging from a fraction of a millisecond to 3 seconds, caused by some high-energy astrophysical process not yet understood. Astronomers estimate the average FRB rel ...

s, pulses that appear to be coming from outside of our galaxy. These perytons were found to be the result of premature opening of a

microwave oven A microwave oven (commonly referred to as a microwave) is an electric oven that heats and cooks food by exposing it to electromagnetic radiation in the microwave frequency range. This induces polar molecules in the food to rotate and produce t ...

door, which releases a frequency-swept radio pulse, which mimics a fast radio burst, as the

magnetron The cavity magnetron is a high-power vacuum tube used in early radar systems and currently in microwave ovens and linear particle accelerators. It generates microwaves using the interaction of a stream of electrons with a magnetic field while ...

turns off.

References